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ARRIVAL OF THE FUR SEALS. 51 
begin to arrive as a class. About the middle of July the 2-year-old seals begin to 
come in numbers, followed very soon by the yearlings, which swarm in large numbers 
on the hauling grounds during the latter part of July. As the breeding season 
advances the young half-bulls, which throng the earlier drives, withdraw from the 
hauling grounds to the water front of the rookeries or take up places in their rear. 
The arrival of the younger males in the latter part of July makes it advisable that 
the driving for the quota should be completed as early in this month as possible. In 
the early days of American control, when the seals were numerous, the quota was, as 
a rule, filled before the 20th of July. 
THE ARRIVAL OF THE COWS. 
It is about the 10th of June that the adult cows begin to arrive.* Their appear- 
ance, like that of the adult bulls, is very gradual. In 1897 a cow appeared on East 
rookery on June 3; a second cow joined her on the 7th; no others had arrived on 
the 10th. On St. Paul, the first cow arrived on the 10th; a second appeared on the 
12th, and after this date a few could be found at almost every point where harems 
were located the previous season. So quietly did the cows come in and take their 
places that, though the rookeries of St. Paul were kept under the closest scrutiny, and 
many new cows were found at each inspection, it was more than a week before the 
landing of a single cow could be noted. 
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THEIR INCOMING GRADUAL. 
This quiet and gradual incoming of the cows can best be illustrated by the record 
of the daily count on Lukanin rookery: 
Lukanin rookery, 1897. 
Date. Cows 
Thus, though cows began to arrive on this rookery on the 12th of June, by the 
27th of June there was on the half mile of its shore front no more than 257 cows. At 
this date few, if any, had begun to go to sea. When we contrast this number with 
the total of about 3,000 cows which visited the rookery during the season, we get some 
idea of the gradual arrivai of the breeding females. These figures must also correct 
the long current notion that they come in a body or in a succession of great waves. 
* For details of the landing of the cows here described, reference should be made to the Daily 
Journal in Pt. II, under date of June 12, 1897, and following. 
