186 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OP ALASKA. 



beach " drop" of Big Polavina rookery, and tbe drivers, in getting the 

 young males, swept fonr cows into the drove, and their little black pui)s 

 were left behind them on the sand, bruised and marked by the stam- 

 peding flippers of the herd. To get the holluschickie, they are obliged 

 to drive in this violent manner. 



Another squad of, say, 1,000, mostly young or " short" 2-3^ear-olds and 

 yearlings, was swept up on the parade lilateau, and another squad was 

 driven from Little Polavina parade, the first drive that has been made 

 from there thus far this season. Ko se.als in this division but small 

 ones. I have charted these areas of hauling. 



Along the entire spread of Lukannon, Polavina, and Northeast Point 

 sand beach, 8 miles nearly, / did not see a single young seal — not one 

 hauled out; only a dozen or two old worthless bulls scattered here and 

 there over this extent at wide intervals. At this time in lt<72 such a 

 loalk as mine this morning would hare brought me in contact with and 

 insight of from 50,000 to 100,000 hoUuschicMe ! The weather, too, is 

 simply superb sealing weather — all day yesterday, last uight, and this 

 morning. 



About 300 yards north of that basaltic shoulder which terminates the 

 sand beach above Little Polavina rookery, and fully a mile from it, I 

 saw on the sand Deach this morning, a single cow guarded by two old 

 bulls. This is the first example of solitary hauling of a female (it was 

 an old cow) that I have ever witnessed. It is a straw, however, show- 

 ing the way the wind is blowing up here this season — points to the 

 demoralization which the present order of affairs is working, and which 

 has been pretty steadily at work ever since 1882. 



Found Fowler busy on rhe killing grounds just across the lake from 

 Webster's house, where I arrived at 7,30 a. ra. Mr. Gofi' joined me 

 soon after, and we at once take up the rookery survey. 



Fowler tliis morning had over 5,000 seals in his drive, but took onl^^ 

 473 of them. In the afternoon, the rain coming u^), he made a rapid 

 drive of those holluschickie which he had been saving for to-morrow, 

 fearing that the rain would send them to the sea, and thereby secured 

 168 more, making a total of 041, being the highest limit reached in any 

 one day's killing up here this year. On this day last year, Webster 

 killed 1,883 and the next day 1,156 j but, Fowler will have no hollus- 

 chickie to kill to-morrow. 



The driving up here has radically changed since 1872. Then Web- 

 ster got all the killable seals he wanted from that sand beach on the 

 neck between the foot of Cross Hill on the north shore and the Big 

 Lake sand dunes. He never went out along the outskirts of the rook- 

 ery; it was not even thought of. 



The hauling now at Novastoshnah takes place at seven intervals or 

 breaks in the breeding belt, and right in the rear and fairly among the 

 scattered harems in many instances. We saw the scraping tracks of 

 the drive which had been made in the early hours of this morning. We 

 found 15 or 20 pups which had been swept away by the drive, out into 

 the rear, killed or dying by the stami>ede incident to such driving, 

 just as I witnessed it at Polavina this morning, on my way up. 



The parade fields of this once magnificent breeding gTOund are posi- 

 tively vacant to-day; grass and white close-bunched flowers are grow- 

 ing and springing up everywhere all over them, while large areas of 

 the well-polished ground of 1872-1874 are sodded over. The hollus- 

 chickie as they hauled to-day did not occupy a space of ground 500 by 

 50 feet in depth over the entire extent of this immense habitat of theirs: 

 and the drive of 5,000, which we saw on the killing grounds, had been 



