ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 2 83 



This is the most compact of tlie three species, as well as the smallest. I find 

 in comparinnf large series of C. Scammoui, that a considerable variation in form 

 obtains so far as rosrards comparative length and breadth, even in adnlb speci- 

 mens, and tliesf dilll'rences are greater than those observed, in the same charac- 

 ters, between the sexes. 



Notes on Pre-Historie Remains in the Aleutian Islands. 



BY W. II. DAI.I., U. S. COAST SURVEY. 



Cnptain's Baij. UnalasJika. — There are several village sites on this bay which 

 inhabited during the period subsequent to the Russian occupation of the terri- 

 tory, are novr, and long have been deserted. The principal are the PestriakofF, or 

 p]idcr village, near Cape Cheerful ; one on the south part of Aniaknak Island' 

 just south of Expedition Island, on lliuliuk Harbor, and one in Nateekin Bay ; 

 beside the Kaiekhta Bay village, more recently evacuated by its inhabitants. 

 The only localities now inhabited are the village of Imagnoe on Summer Bay, 

 the village of lliuliuk, and another of two or three houses, on CJknadok or Hog 

 Island. 



In excavating for the erection of a signal, at the northern end of Ulakhta 

 Spit, Amaknak Island, the nature of the materials brought out showed that the 

 locality had once been inhabited. Subsequent inquiries elicited the fact that 

 the oldest inhabitants of lliuliuk had never heard of any village being situated 

 here, although villages which were deserted in the last century are well known 

 by tradition to the Aleuts of the present day. Hence, it is a reasonable sup- 

 position that the village under consideration must at least have ante-dated the 

 Russian invasion of 1760, and may have l^een older. Hence, the implements, 

 etc., found in this deposit, are in all probability the same as those originally in 

 use among the natives of this region before the introduction of manufactured 

 articles of trade by civilized nations. On this account they are of singular 

 interest. A careful examination of the locality afforded the following observa- 

 tions : 



The Ulakhta Spit projects from Amaknak Island, trending nearly in a north 

 and south direction. It is very narrow, being in some places only seven meters 

 wide, and is composed entirely of shingle overlaid by a stratum of vegetable 

 mould, which supports a luxuriant growth of the native grasses. Near the 

 junction of the spit with the main island, it rises, and is continued in a series 

 of low mounds for a quarter of a mile. Between the.se mounds and the moun- 

 tainous portion of Amaknak Island, called Ulakhta Head, is a low and narrow 

 strip of ground containing a small pond of brackish water. The highest of 

 these mounds is quite near the north head of the spit, and it was here that my 

 signal was located. 



Upon this mound, about twenty feet above high water-mark, by careful scru- 

 tiny, I was able to detect at least three depressions of considerable size, which I 

 judged to be the sites of houses of the ancient Aleutian fashion, that is to say, 

 half underground, of sutScient size to accommodate a number of families, each 



