462 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



June 24^ 1890. — That peculiar podding of tlie cows, which I noted on 

 the 22d, still continues. The cows still cluster in groups at the water's 

 edge, with no attempt yet made to haul up in long "wave-like streaks" 

 to the high ground in the rear. 



Strange, in this connection, is the hauling of these somnolent scant 

 bulls. Why, several of them — yes, a dozen — are now up 600 feet back 

 from these cows at the surf margin on the sand, and vacancies of hun- 

 dreds of feet between them. Not a fight in progress, and not a single 

 young hull in sight at the landing of the coics. 



June 27, 1890. — I observed on Tolstoi the arrival of a few more cows, 

 the first I have yet seen that wore the fresh attractive toilet of these 

 creatures. They are still crowding in on the sand in that strange 

 manner above alluded to, and still but a very faint advance made in 

 any single spot toward tilling up the ground, back from the surf margin. 

 The bulls are still hauled in that wild manner which I have so frequently 

 noted, and are sleeping stui)idly everywhere, with the cows landing 

 just around and below them. 



June 30, 1890. — A survey of Tolstoi this morning shows the most 

 striking want of alert bulls ; that there are pods or harems of 60 females 

 with only one bull; that the sand beach end is the chosen resort of the 

 solid hauling of cows, while the rocks up in their rear are positively 

 deserted. I do not see that the cows are arriving so as to make any 

 considerable number of them show white and silvery. But the few 

 that are here, are under full swing. The strange, wild hauling of old 

 bulls, and the remarkable absence of the "polseecatchie" is still promi- 

 nent. I see two half bulls at the lower end of the rookery ground, 

 right under Fox Castle. These are the only examples of their kind on 

 the field. I have been constantly saying to myself, "Now I can easily 

 count every bull on this rookery that is here to-day." They certainly 

 do look lost among the rocks in the rear and in the large pods of cows 

 at the water's edge. 



The cows are pupping; are caring for themselves precisely as I have 

 hitherto recorded the act, in 1872, at this time. 



July 1, 1890. — A survey of Tolstoi this afternoon shows little change 

 during the last three days ; if any, it has been an increased solidity to 

 the belt of the females on the sand. I think their hauling here as they 

 do, one of the anomalies of this all around extraordinary state of 

 afiairs. 



As I again look at these old bulls hauled out here above those cows, 

 500 and 600 feet away from them, and not a half dozen bulls between 

 them, I begin to think that perhaps they do so because a few years ago 

 when they were here, cows then hauled out to them in solid masses from 

 the water. They did so in 1872, 1 find by my maps. And so, perhaps, 

 that is the season why they, the bulls, are out here again without any 

 visible reason for their so being. It is the same way on the Keef and 

 Garbotch, at Lukannon, and especially so at Zapadnie, 



I took notice of a large proportion of small or 2-year-old females, and 

 the usual slowness of hauling, compared with 1872, which was not at 

 its greatest activity up to July 7. 



The usual parade ot foxes in and out among the breeding seals now 

 presents itself I saw one to-day running off with a fresh j)lacenta, or 

 "afterbirth," in its mouth. There is a marked diminution of the num- 

 ber of foxes, as contrasted with my notes of 1872. They have been 

 mercilessly hunted during the last ten years: last winter Mr. Goff 

 ordered a "zapooska" for their benefit and preservation. This season 

 is one of unalloyed physical and mental comfort for Reynard. He has 

 all the fresh meat, waterfowl, eggs, and beetles that he can eat, and the 



