92 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PBIBILOF ISLANDS. 



skeleton. Owing to the long time that had elapsed since death it was not possible to 

 make as critical an examination as might bo desired. 



Losses from such causes as the above must naturally be few and form but a 

 trifling factor in the total death rate, still it is interesting to find such cases among 

 wild animals. 



Killed by a fish bone sounds like the heading of a newspaper item, and yet one cow 

 seal was found dead from an accident, not in swallowing, but in uuswallowing the 

 remains of a pollock. As noted in the chapter on food bones or other hard substances 

 swallowed by seals, they are sooner or later regurgitated, bones of good-sized pollock 

 being thus disposed of, usually with success. In the present instance the bone had 

 lodged crosswise in the larynx, perforating both the right and left sides, though finally 

 working through the left side for more than half its length, making so bad a cut 

 that death may be said to have resulted from the combined effects of strangulation 

 and loss of blood. The cow was found washed up on the beach, and an autopsy 

 revealed no injury save a slight congestion of the lungs and the presence of an 

 unaccountable quantity of clotted blood in the stomach. While skinning the animal 

 the bone was found fixed in 'the muscles of the neclc and subsequent examination 

 revealed the extent of the damage which had been done. 



I^ot only were few dead adult seals found, but very few that were seriously injured, 

 this for the reason that in the majority of cases serious injury promptly leads to death 

 where the struggle for existence is so severe as among the fur seals. A crippled 

 bachelor shot on Zoltoi was probably the victim of an encounter with a killer, the 

 location and extent of his injuries being just such as would have resulted from the 

 bite of a jjursuer, the right hind flipper being bitten, both sides of the pelvis crushed, 

 two ribs and the processes of several vertebrae broken. (See PI. XX.) As a direct 

 result of these injuries, which involved the spinal cord, this young bull was paralyzed 

 in his hind quarters, dragging them laboriously along the ground, aiud another large 

 bachelor, seen on Kitovi, but unfortunately not secured, was very probably hurt in a 

 similar manner. On October 10 the natives brought.in the remains of a pup said to 

 have been destroyed by a killer, and on October 13 a female was found whose death 

 was also ascribed to the same cause, while two pups were seen each minus a flipper. 

 A cow on Zapadni had lost a hind flipper, possibly from the bite of a killer, and an 

 old bull was observed on Zapadni for several consecutive years minus the greater 

 part of the fore flipper, and yet thus handicapped able to maintain his place on the 

 rookery. A cow with a broken or dislocated right fore leg was noticed on the North 

 rookery of St. George, and a young male similarly crippled was seen on Zoltoi sands. 



As to the number of seals, young or old, which perish when absent from the 

 islands and the causes of their deaths we know absolutely nothing, but wind and sea, 

 or anything which leads to interference with the food supply, are probably the fur 

 seal's worst natural enemies, while ice lingering about the islands in spring would be 

 very deadly to the females seeking the shore to bring forth their young. Once, indeed, 

 the Pribilof herd seems to have been reduced to its lowest ebb from this very cause, ' 

 the scarcity of seals during and for some time after 1836 having been brought about 

 by the persistence of ice floes about the islands long into June, caufjing bulls and 

 cows alike to perish by thousands. 



The only two species of sharks which could possibly eat seals are fortunately 

 rare, even in southern waters, and deaths from this source are probably not worth 



