DRIVES ON BERING ISLAND. 99 



been urged on by being poked and beaten with the sticks, ouly then it was killed and skinned. But 

 not even then in all cases, for if it was a small and therefore particularly tender animal, it was grabbed 

 by the hind logs and dragged along [pi. 62(i] until some steep declivity was reached, down which it 

 was then flung. Yet a good m^ny had to be killed along the road. Little girls and still smaller boys 

 arrived now with big skin bags on tlieir backs [pi. 626] to carry home the skins and choice parts of the 

 meat. The last division, as well as about one handred seals from Palata Rookery, reached the level 

 ground behind Glinka village at 10 a. m. and wore given a rest there. 



At 11 o'clock the final drive in four divisions was begun toward the killing ground near the beach 

 (not 300 yards) west of the village [])1. 78]. Down the steep embankment (fully 60 feet high) the 

 numerous drives have worn a deep channel-like rut in the slippery clay, and down this chute the 

 animals came rushing as if it were a toboggan slide [pi. 636]. They slid down in bunches together, 

 and became piled up at the bottom in big heaps. As they were now driven over the sand of the beach, 

 a few undersized seals and a solitary matka or two were sorted out and allowed to escape into the 

 water, but the final culling was done on the killing ground. Altogether 47 undersized animals were 

 thus driven over the mountains and finally permitted to go back into the sea. 



These young animals let loose on the sandy beach afforded great sport for the younger generation 

 of future seal killers, if seals there be left when they grow up. Four little tots, five to six years old, 

 with sticks in their hands, tried to drive into the water two young seals too tired to advance farther 

 and asking nothing but to be allowed to lie down and rest. The seals resented the attack, and the 

 four little fellows hit them over the head and the snouts with their sticks, as they had seen their 

 parents do with the big ones, and finally succeeded in driving them into the .sea.' 



The above descriptions give a fair idea of drives on Copper Island as they were 

 and as they are. They demonstrate the tremendous difficulties and the hardships on 

 the seals. A glance at the maps of the Copper Island rookeries and a study of the 

 descriptions I have given of them in another chapter must convince anybody that 

 there is nothing even approaching them on the Pribilofs. 



Not so on Bering Island. There the drives are short and easy on the seals. The 

 killing ground is located scarcely more than 500 yards from the main rookery, and 

 right in front of the summer village where the men live during the sealing season. The 

 longest drive ever taken is only IJ miles long; the road is over level ground, mostly 

 covered with grass, and the ascent up the coast escarpment is easy and only 30 feet 

 high. 



A grave feature of the Bering Island drives, however, consists in the mixing in of 

 females and pups with the bachelors throughout the season. I have elsewhere in this 

 report treated of this side in detail, but it may not be superfluous to give an account 

 of one of the largest drives last summer on Forth Eeef rookery, Bering Island, which 

 took place August 22. 



It being necessary to wait for low water, we did not start until 7 o'clock a. m. The 

 morning was raw (about + 50° F.) and dark, a drizzling fog enveloping the scene and 

 making successful snap-shot photography an impossibility. We proceeded, Indian 

 file, to the rookery and in short order drove off nearly all the grown seals located on 

 the reef itself, over 4,000 animals all told. Most of these were females (about 3,000) 

 and bachelors (about 1,000). As it was late in the season only 8 bulls were caught. 

 As many pups as possible were allowed to escape into the sea, and they availed 

 themselves of the opportunity offered to go off in large flocks. Nevertheless, about 



1 1 am sorry to say that a good deal of unnecessary suffering was caused the animals simply for 

 the fun of it. The people can hardly be blamed. They are certainly not particularly cruel by nature, 

 but on the other hand they evidently have no idea of such a thing as cruelty to animals. They have 

 grown up from babyhood among these scenes, and their feelings are naturally blunted. It must not 

 be forgotten, however, that in the midst of our own civilization more cruelty to animals is practiced 

 in a single day than in a whole season on the seal islands. 



