184 THE ASIATIC FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 



due to starvation?" The only explanation I can see is that, inasmuch as such a 

 proportion was found that year on St. Paul Island between the pups dying shortly after 

 birth and those starved to death later, it must also of necessity hold for Bering Island 

 North Eookery. If so, his conclusion is based on singularly unfortunate premises, as 

 the great number of early dead pups on the Pribilofs is supposed to be due partly to 

 the presence of an excessive number of fighting bulls and partly to a dangerous 

 intestinal worm, numerous on the sandy beaches. On Bering Island, quite on the 

 contrary, both Barrett-Hamilton and myself have found the bulls to be comparatively 

 scarce, at least to the extent that no fighting was going on that could cause an 

 excessive mortality, while the nature of the beaches is such that there is not much 

 chance for extensive ravages by the worm. But my own experience on North Eookery, 

 in 1895, as printed in my report, furnishes a much better clue to the proportion on 

 that rookery between the natural mortality befalling the newborn pups and the later 

 mortality due to starvation. It will be noticed that (in 1895, the year before the 

 discovery on "the Pribilofs of the two classes of dead pups) I carefully distinguished 

 between two distinct classes of carcasses, the old decayed ones and the comparatively 

 fresh ones, and that I counted about 150 of the former to 200 of the latter. It matters 

 not that at that time I did not clearly understand the causes of this difference; the 

 important fact remains that I noted it. But the proportion between these two figures 

 does not express the proportion between the number of pups that actually died during 

 the two periods of mortality. During the first period, shortly after the pups are born, 

 the foxes are not only less numerous, but the seals do not suffer them to enter the 

 denser portion of the rookery at that early date, and consequently the carcasses of 

 tUis class are left on the beaches to a much greater extent. In August the young foxes 

 have grown sufliciently to go on the rookery, and the starving pups straying away 

 from the breeding females become an easy prey to the marauders. It is no use 

 guessing at figures, bub it is safe to say that the number of starved pups on Bering 

 Island in 1895 was several times larger than that of the newborn dead pups. 



But Barrett- Hamilton, not satisfied with having in his opinion thus reduced the 

 starved pups recorded by me in 1895 to an insignificant figure, which he thinks is 

 probably " normal," next undertakes to show by my own book that '' the ' abnormal' 

 mortality of pups which he (Stejneger) reports from the North Eookery of Bering 

 Island for 1895 was due entirely to the fact that two schooners between them made a 

 catch of 245 skins, of which it must be remembered that 36, having been caught only 

 fifteen days before Dr. Stejneger's visit to the rookery, must probably be subtracted." 

 * * * Yes, if these were the facts, or if I had stated such to be the facts, I would 

 certainly have been reduced ad dbsurdum ! Of course I never made such statements, 

 and Barrett-Hamilton would not have made it appear so had he been careful in 

 reading and quoting me. "Here is what he says (p. 41) : " With regard to the pelagic 

 catch in the neighborhood of the islands in 1895, the total number of skins taken by 

 both the Canadian and the American fleet is given by Dr. Stejneger as 7,684, and, as 

 far as I can make out, he can} only state of that number 245 were killed on the 

 feeding grounds of the North Eookery (pp. 128 and 129), being the catches of the 

 schooners Jane Grey and Etta. * * * in the logs of the other schooners as given by 

 Br. Stejneger '^ I can see no entry that any seals had been caught north of the islands." 

 To properly appreciate this astonishing misinformation, let it be remembered that the 



^ Italicized by me. L. S, 



