APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 329 



character, including llie sea-leopard, so named from his spots; the ele- 

 phant seal, from his tusks and proboscis; the sea-lion, with teeth, mane, 

 and a think cylindrical body. These are of little value, although their 

 skins are occasionally employed. The skin of the elephant seal is 

 strong, so as to justify its use in the harness of horses. There is also 

 the sea-bear, or ursine seal, very numerous in these waters, whose 

 skin, especially if young, is prized for clothing. Steller speaks with 

 grateful remembrance of a garment which he made from one while 

 on the desert island after the shipwreck of Behring. 



Associated with the seal, and belonging to the same family, is the 

 walnis, called by the British the sea-horse, the morse, or the sea-cow, 

 and by the French hete a Ja grancle dent. His two tusks, rather than his 

 skin, are the prize of the hunter. Unlike the rest of the seal family, he 

 is monogamous and not polygamous. Cook vividly describes an immense 

 herd asleep on the ice, with one of their number on guard, and when 

 aroused roaring and baying aloud, while they huddled and tumbled 

 together like swine. At times their multitude is so great that before 

 being aroused several hundreds are slaughtered, as game in a park. 

 Their hide is excellent for carriage braces, and is useful about ship. 

 But it is exclusively for their ivory that these hecatombs are sacrificed. 

 A single tooth weighs sometimes several pounds. Twenty thousand 

 teeth rejiorted as an annual harvest of thellussian Com])any must cost 

 the lives of 10,000 M'alruses. The ivory compares with that of the ele- 

 phant, and is for some purjioses snperior. Long ago, in the days of 

 Saxon history, a Norwegian at the Court of Alfred exhibited to the 

 King "teeth of price and excellency" from what he called a horse whale. 

 Unquestionably these were teeth of walrus. 



I mention the sea-otter last; but in beauty and value it is the first. 

 In these respects it ftir sur])asses the river or land otter, which, though 

 beautiful and valuable, must yield the palm. It has also more the man- 

 ners of the seal, with its fondness for sea washed rocks, and with a 

 maternal affection almost human. The sea-otter seems to belong exclu- 

 sively to the North Pacific. Its haunts once extended as far as the Bay 

 of San Francisco; but long ago it ceased to appear in that southern 

 region. Cook saw it at Nootka Sound. Vancouver reports it at Chat- 

 ham Strait "in immense numbers, so that it was easily in the power of 

 the natives to procure as many as they choose to be at the trouble of 

 taking." But these navigators, could they revisit this coast, would not 

 find it in these places now. Its present zone is between the parallels 

 of 00° and 65° north latitude on the American and Asiatic coasts, so 

 that its range is very limited. Evidently it was Cook who first revealed 

 the sea-otter to Englishmen. In the Table of Contents of his third voy- 

 age are the words, "Description of the Sea-Otter;" and in the pages 

 that follow there is a minute account of this animal, and especially of 

 its incomparable fur, w^hich is pronounced "certainly softer and finer 

 than that of any other we know of." Not content with description, the 

 famous navigator adds in remarkable words, "therefore, the discovery 

 of this part of North Ameiica, where so valuable an article of com- 

 merce may be met with, cannot be a matter of indifference." These 

 words stimulated the commercial enterprise of that day. Other wit- 

 nesses followed. Meares, describing his voyage to this coast, placed 

 this fur high above all other furs : " the finest in the world, and of exceed- 

 ing beauty;" and La Perouse made it known in France as "peltry the 

 most precious and common in those seas." Shortly afterwards all exist- 

 ing information with regard to it was elaborately set forth in the "His- 

 torical Introduction to the Voyages of Marchand," i)ublished at Paris 

 under the auspices of the Institute. 



