SEA OTTER AND LAND OTTER 113 



the world's yearly catch in Otter ; and with prices off owing to the 

 close of the Russian buying market, prices are not likely to go higher, 

 which is a good thing for one of the rarest and most beautiful of 

 the Canadian and Russian furs. It seems almost a pity that some 

 government fur farm for Land Otter cannot be set up now, when 

 breeding stock is plentiful enough to begin well, either in Alaska, 

 or Labrador, or British Columbia, to do for the Land Otter what 

 the U. S. Government has done for the Alaska seal, or the Canadian 

 Government for the buffalo, or the Prince Edward Island ranchers 

 for the silver fox. Nothing can ever take the place of Land Otter 

 as a fur. It could be multiplied now into a great staple of the rare 

 furs in the same class as Persian lamb and Alaska seal ; and now 

 is the time to do it and not when it reaches the status of the Sea 

 Otter. 



For trade purposes, Land Otter is classified in several varieties, 

 chiefly as to habitat. Darkest fur is from the region of East Main 

 in Western Labrador ; largest pelts from British Columbia ; thickest 

 fur from Alaska, etc. Ten such land specimens are so classified. 

 Then come classification as to quality and three sortings as to size. 



When you come to Sea Otter, you are dealing with one of the 

 tragedies of the fur world — a fur rare and beautiful as the finest 

 jewel, durable as shoe leather, and plentiful almost as the sands of 

 the sea, reduced so close to extermination that what sold in the 

 hundreds of thousands a century ago, 2369 in 1891, yielded all told 

 in 191 2 only 202 pelts, in 1920, only 7 pelts for sale in St. Louis and 

 3 in New York and 15 in London. Prices for Sea Otter used to 

 run from $500 to #1000. Prices this year, when the pelts were not 

 of first grade, two or three having been taken from bodies found 

 dead off the islands of Alaska, ran from $1700 in St. Louis to #2000 

 a pelt in London. 



To-day a white man may not kill a Sea Otter under penalty of 

 #500. Native Aleuts only are permitted to hunt them ; but the 

 danger is that remedies have come too late as in the case of the ex- 

 termination of the beautiful wood pigeon. Fur farming except 



