184 ALASKA WDUSTRIES. 



opposite the colony, although bones are plenty on the neighboring 

 beach on the main island. This is the meager information I could 

 gather from the natives and other people residing here about the 

 animal. But I was very fortunate in being able to collect a very large 

 and beautiful assortment of skeleton parts. 



NORDENSKIOLD'S SUCCESS IN GETTING ITS BONES.— When I first 



made the acquaintance of the Europeans living on the island I was 

 told that there was a very poor show for making any large collections. 

 The company had in vain offered 150 rubles for a skeleton. But atter 

 I had been ashore a few hours I already found out that larger and 

 smaller collections of bones were to be found here and there m the 

 huts of the natives. Those I bought, paying purposely for them m 

 such a way that the seller was more than satisfied and his neighbor a 

 little envious. A large portion of the male population now com- 

 menced very zealously to hunt for bones, and in this manner I got 

 too-ether twenty-one casks, large boxes, and barrels full of Wnjtina 

 bones among them many very extensive bone collections from the 

 same animal, two whole, very pretty, and several more or less dam- 

 aged skulls, etc. T-,7 J- 1, 



Bones op the extinct sea cow op Steller.— i?7^?/^^?7« bones are 

 not lying near the water edge, but on a beach shelf, 6 to 10 feet high, 

 thickly covered with grass. They are usually covered with a layer ot 

 earth debris of 1 to H feet thickness, and in order to find them we 

 had to explore the ground with a bayonet or a sharp iron, as it would 

 have been too laborious to dig up the whole grass layer. A person 

 very soon gets accustomed to distinguish, by the sound or the feeling 

 of the bayonet, whether he has struck against a stone, a piece o± wood, 

 or a piece of bone. ^. . ^, r^, ,. , 



In consequence of their hard, ivory-like condition, the Bhyhna bones 

 are used by the natives for sleigh runners and for carvings. Ihey 

 are therefore, already to a great extent used up and rarer than other 

 bones The bones from the finger seem in most cases to be entirely 

 destroyed, and the same is the case with the extreme tail parts. 



Fur seals on Bering Island.— The only large animal which still 

 exists on the island in, perhaps, as large numbers as at the time ot 

 Steller is the sea bear, Otaria ursina. Even that liad decreased so 

 that the yearly catch was a very inconsiderable one when the Alaska 

 Companv obtained the exclusive privilege for hunting by a payment 

 to the Russian Government of, if I remember right, 2 rubles for each 

 animal killed. The hunting was then organized on a more advanta- 

 o-eous basis. At certain periods of the year the animals are now alto- 

 gether unmolested. Tlie number of animals to be killed is settled 

 beforehand, just the same as the farmer in the fall of the year 

 (slaughtering time, Swedish custom) is in the habit of doing with his 

 cattle After that is done the animals condemned to death are 

 selected, as well as can be done, in a hurry, but animals with poor 

 skins old females and pups, are liberated. Those numerous flocks ot 

 sea bears which are found on the shores of Bering and Copper islands 

 are consequently, handled nearly the same as a herd of tame animals. 

 This can only be done in that manner, because the animals are m tfie 

 habit of spending several months of the year, almost without inter- 

 ruption ^ and without eating any foo d, on certain long, rocky spi ts 



' Durino- a long-continued heavy rain many of the animals are said to seek 

 shelter in the sea, but return as soon as the rain ceases. 



