112 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the animals are in the habit of spending- several months of the year, almost without interruption* and without 

 eating any food, on certain long, rocky spits running out into the sea from those islands. They congregate here in 

 hundreds of thousands, in closely packed flocks on the beach. On those places it is strictly prohibited to hunt the 

 animal or to disturb it during its rest, without special permission from the village foreman, who is selected by the 

 Aleuts living in the place. When a number of sea-bears are to be killed, a flock is surrounded by a sufficient number 

 of hunters and are driven with sticks up on the grass a short distance from the beach. Then females and young- 

 ones, and those males whose fur-coat is not desirable, are driven away. The remaining ones are stunned first with 

 a blow on the nose, and then stabbed with a knife. 



Inspection of a rookery. — Accompanied by the village foreman, a black-haired stuttering Aleut, and the 

 "Cossac", a young, neat, and polite man, who on special occasions carries a saber of nearly his own length, but 

 who otherwise not in the least answered to the Cossac type accepted by writers of novels and dramas, a few of us 

 visited a spit sticking out in the sea from the north side of the island, which is a favorite resting-place for sea-bears. 

 Just at that time there were, in accordance with surely overestimated statements which we received, 200,000 animals 

 congregated at the spit and neighboring beaches. Accompanied by our guides we received permission to crawl 

 close on to a flock lying a little separate. The older animals were a little uneasy at first, when they noticed that wo 

 crawled near them, but they very soon settled down again, and we now had the pleasure of a peculiar spectacle. 

 We were the only spectators. The scene consisted of a stone-covered beach wreathed with foaming breakers, the 

 background of the unmeasurable sea, and the actors thousands of curiously- formed animals. 



A number of old males were lying still and immovable, unconcerned about what went on around them. Others 

 crawled on their short, small legs clumsily among the rocks on the beach, or swam with incredible suppleness among 

 the breakers, playing, cooing with each other, and quarreling. In one place two older animals fought with a 

 peculiar wheezing noise, in a manner as if the fighting had taken place with studied positions for attack and 

 defense. In another, a sham fight between an old animal and a pup. It appeared as if that one was receiving 

 lessons in the art of fencing. Everywhere the little black pups were crawling friskily to and fro "between the 

 others, now and then bleating like lambs calling their mothers. Often the pups are crushed by the old, when 

 scared by some untoward circumstance they rush out in the sea. Hundreds of dead pups are found after such an 

 alarm on the beach. 



"Only" 13,000 animals had been killed this year. Their skinned carcasses were lying heaped in the grass on 

 the beach, spreading a disagreeable smell far and wide, which after all did not scare the comrades lying on 

 neighboring points, because among them a similar smell prevailed on account of the many dead animals remaining 

 on the beach, either crushed or dead from natural causes. Among this large herd of sea-bears a single sea-lion 

 was enthroned on top of a high rock, the only one of those animals which we had seen during our travel. 



Against payment of 10 rubles I prevailed on the village chief to prepare for me four skeletons of those half 

 rotten carcasses lying in the grass, and after-ward I received, through the kindness of the Russian authorities and 

 without any compensation, for stuffing, six animals, among them two live pups. Even those we had to kill, after 

 in vain having tried to make them take food. One of them will be brought home, in alcohol, for anatomical 

 investigation. 



Character op Bering island. — That part of Bering island which we saw is composed of a plateau resting 

 on volcanic mountains,! which in many places is broken by deep caiions. In their bottoms are usually found lakes, 

 which through smaller or larger streams connect with the sea. 



The bolder of the lakes and the mountain slopes are covered with a rich vegetation of long grass and beautiful 

 flowers, among which a sword lily, that is cultivated in our gardens, the useful dark-red browm Savannah lily, 

 several orchids, two kinds of rhododendrons, large flowers, umbellifers the height of a man, sunflowers like 

 synanthaus, etc. 



An entirely different kind of flora prevailed on the islet which lies outside the harbor. 



Toporkoff islet consists of an eruptive rock, which everywhere toward the shores, a few score yards from high- 

 water mark, rises up in the form of abrupt, low, cracked walls from 5 to 10 meters in height, differing in different 

 places. Above those abrupt mountain walls the surface of the island is formed of an even plane ; what lies below, 

 forms a gradually sloping beach. 



The gradually sloping beach consists of two well-defined belts, an outer one without any vegetation, an inner 

 one overgrown with Ammadenia peploides, Ehjmus mollis, and two kinds of umbellates, Heracleum sibiricum and 

 Angelica archangelica, of which the two last named form an almost impenetrable brush, about 50 meters wide, 

 man high, along the shelf. 



The abrupt mountain walls are in some places yellow-colored from the Caloplacmm murorum and G. cremulata, 

 in other places quite closely clothed with Oochlearia fenestrate/,. 



'■During a loug continued heavy rain many of (he animals are said to seek shelter in the sea, but return as soon as the rain ceases. 



t According to Mr. Greboriteky, tertiary petrifactions and seams of coal are found on Bering, the former north of the colony in the 

 interior of the island, the latter at the water's edge south of Bering's grave. Also, near the colony, the uuderlayer below trachyte beds is 

 composed of immense sand layers. 



