SEA COWS, PAST AND PRESENT 



317 



vessels was none too easy a matter and 

 salt beef was especially difficult to pro- 

 cure; so when tlie rytina was found and 

 proved to be most excellent beef, the fur 

 traders stopped at Bering Island on their 

 way to our Northwest Coast to lay 

 in a store of salt rytina. Unhappily 

 the supply of rytinas was limited, owing 

 to the limited mnnber of proper feeding 

 grounds, and so before many years 

 the animal was eaten out of existence. 

 Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, who passed 

 two years on Bering Island, during 

 which time he gathered many valuable 



tom of the old cartographers, decorated 

 his chart of Kamtchatka with figures 

 of the sea lion, fur seal, and rytina. But 

 for this we should be in doubt as to the 

 tail fin of the animal, since Steller's 

 description is far from clear; also we 

 might wonder if Steller was correct in 

 saying that there were no finger bones 

 in the paddle, since other members of 

 the family have them. 



Scientifically, the sea cows are inter- 

 esting because they afford one of the 

 instance-; where a theoretical ancestor 

 has duly materialized. All aquatic mam- 



The great Arclio sea cow or rytina (see right of picture) discovered by Bering in 1741, was the largest member oC 

 the sea cow family, and once abundant about Bering and Copper islands off the coast of Kamtchatka. It is now 

 extinct, having been hunted for its flesh which resembled beef. Our only figures of the animal are these on the chart 

 of Kamtchatka made by Lieutenant Waxell of Bering's party. The creature is said to have been so helpless that 

 it was rolled about by the surf and banged against the shore, and its hide — no doubt for protection — resembled 

 bark and was so thick that it was hewn off with axes 



sea cow skeletons, estimates that at 

 best there could not have been more 

 than two thousand individuals. 



For our knowledge of the rytina and 

 its habits, we are indebted to Steller, 

 the surgeon of Bering's party, an en- 

 thusiastic naturalist, who in the midst 

 of starvation, disease, and death, care- 

 fully studied and recorded the habits 

 of the animaLs of Bering Island. Our 

 only figures of this extinct animal are 

 those made by Lieutenant Wa.xell, of 

 Bering's party, who, following the cus- 



mals, seals, sea cows, and whales, are 

 believed to be descended from four- 

 footed, land-dwelling forms, whose re- 

 mains are imbedded somewhere in the 

 rocks. So far none of these hypotheti- 

 cal beasts has come to light and the 

 palreontologist is compelled to fall back 

 on the "imperfection of the palseonto- 

 logic record." The fact is we really 

 know little of what lies buried in the 

 rocky tombs of the past, and not only 

 have we no continuous record of the 

 life of other days, but also only rarely 



