XV.] ACCOUNTS OF THE SEA-COW. 605 



" They (a Russian himting vessel under Studenzov in 1758) 

 landed on Behring Island to kill sea-cows, as all vessels are 

 accustomed to do " (ibid. p. 45), 



"After Korovin in 1762 (on Beliring Island) had provided 

 himself with a sufficient stock of the flesh and hides of the sea- 

 cow for his boats .... he sailed on" (ibid. p. 82). 



In 1772 Dmitri Bragin wintered on Behring Island during 

 a hunting voyage. In a journal kept at the request of Pallas,i'the 

 large marine animals occurring on the island are enumerated, but 

 not a word is said about the sea-cow (Pallas, JS^cite 7iordische 

 Beytrdgc, ii. p. 310), 



ScHELECHOV passed the winter 1783-84 on Behring Island, 

 but during the whole time he only succeeded in killing some 

 white foxes, and in the narrative of the voyage there is not a 

 word about the sea-cow (Grigori Schelechov russischeii 

 Kaiifmanns erste und zweite Beise, &c., St, Petersburg, 1793). 



Some further accounts of the sea-cow have been obtained 

 through the mining engineer Pet. Jakovlev, who visited 

 Commander's Islands in 1755 in order to investis^ate the 

 occurrence of copper on Copper Island, In the account of this 

 voyage which he gave to Pallas there is not indeed one word 

 about the sea-cow, but in 1867 Pekarski published in the 

 Memoirs of the Petersburg Academy some extracts from 

 Jakovlev's journal, from which it appears that the sea-cow 

 already in his time was driven away from Copper Island, 

 Jakovlev on this account on the 27th November, 1755, laid a 

 petition before the authorities on Kamchatka, for having the 

 hunting of the sea-cow placed under restraint of law and the 

 extermination of the animal thus prevented, a thoughtful act 

 honourable to its author, Avhich certainly ought to serve as a 

 pattern in our times (J, Fr. Brandt, Symhola', Sirenologicce, Ilem. 

 de I'Acad. de St. Petersbourg, t, xii. No, 1, 1861-68, p. 295), 



In his account of Behring's voyage (1785-94) published in 

 1802, Saner says, p. 181 : " Sea-cows were very common on 

 Kamchatka and the Aleutian Islands,' when they were first 



^ The sea-cow does not appear to have ever occurred on the Aleutian 

 Islands ; on the other hand, according to Steller, dead sea-cows have 

 sometimes been cast ashore on Kamchatka, where they even obtained from 

 the Russians a peculiar name kapustnik, derived from the large quantit}' 

 of sea-weed found in their stomach. It appears to me that this name, 

 specially distinctive of a graminivorous animal, appears to indicate that on 

 the first arrival of the Russians at Kamchatka the sea-cow actually visited 

 occasionally the coasts of that peninsula. It is probable that in former 

 times the sea-cow was to be met with as far south as the north part of 

 Japan, Some scientific men have even conjectured that the animal may 

 have occurred north of Behring's Straits, This however is improbable. 

 Among the mass of subfossil bones of marine animals which we examined 

 at Pitlekaj the bones of the sea-cow did not appear to be present. 



