DEATHS FROM TRAMPLING. 85 



The danger of taking anything for granted is well shown by the fact that when 

 the commission first visited Northeast Point in July the bodies of 10 seal pups and 

 25 sea-lion pups were found washed up on the beach to the south of Sea Lion ifeck. 

 As it had blown a gale from the northeast ten days before, and the surf had beaten 

 directly on this part of the island, death from drowning seemed so obvious, that no 

 autopsies were made, although it was casually noted that tlie sea-lion pups were lean. 



In the light of subsequent observations it is plain that Mr. Kedpath was correct 

 in stating that these animals were dead long before they washed off the " Neck." 

 With this unfortunate exception, in no instance was it taken for granted that a pup 

 was drowned simply because such appeared to be the case. 



While the number of dead pups which remains after eliminating those dc^ad from 

 Uncinaria, the starved and the drowned is comparatively small, yet, in the aggregate, 

 it must amount to sonfe hundreds, and helps to swell the long list of those which die 

 before they are C months old. Various accidents and diseases contribute to the death 

 roll, and there must be many causes of death besides those noted. 



While the trampling of the young seals by the old does not play the important 

 role ascribed to it in 1896, it nevertheless enters into the causes of death, and probably 

 did so more extensively in former days when seals were much more numerous and 

 the rookeries much more crowded. Judging by the number of very young pups with 

 part of the umbilical cord still attached which die within the harem limits before the 

 middle of July, there is a considerable percentage of newly or recently born pups 

 which meet their death by being stepped on. These could scarcely have met their 

 death from Uncinaria, since the time that they have been nursing seems hardly suffi- 

 cient for them to have become infected so badly as to cause death. 



That there is a certain amount of loss owing to the pups being trampled under 

 foot or struck b;^ some bull rushing about the rookeries is undeniable. Six pups were 

 found in 1896 whose death could be ascribed to no other cause, while as many more 

 were badly bruised, and in 1897, when a larger number of pups were examined, 10 

 deaths were due to blows and several more were obviously injured. 



It is also possible for a pup to receive fatal injuries without any trace of them 

 appearing on the body. On August 8, 1896, while counting the dead on the reef, two 

 pups were seen to be knocked over by a bull and left gasping on the ground. One, a 

 robust individual, so far recovered from his injuries that he was allowed to take his 

 chance of total recovery; the end of the other, a small animal, paralyzed and dying, 

 was hastened by a scalpel thrust in the medulla, but a careful examination made of 

 the body failed to reveal any visible signs of the deadly blow that had been received. 



The loiig, rubbery flipper of the fur seal is, in fact, an improvement on the sand 

 bag of the footpad, and while the edge of the flipper is capable of delivering as hard 

 a blow as a cudgel, the flat part may stretch a pup lifeless on the sand, and leave no 

 trace behind. So small, indeed, may be the external evidence of a heavy blow that 

 one pup from Gorbatch, which bore so slight a contusion on the neck that the cause 

 of death was questionable, was found to have the base of the skull fractured. Had 

 the skull not been saved and cleaned, this individual would have passed into the list 

 of cause of death not obvious, for the fracture was invisible until the muscles were 

 removed and the skull completely cleaned by the industrious amphipods. 



The possibilities of a blow from the flipper of a bull, were well shown in one instance 

 where the stroke had been so tremendous, and dealt so squarely on the top of the 



