THE SEA LION. 137 
ing sam-o-var. At length, the whole troop of animals being assembled, a flash 
of umbrellas here and there, with the call of the herdsmen, brings all into moving 
phalanx. But the time for driving must be either at night, after the dew is fallen, 
or upon a dark, misty, or rainy day ; as the thick mat of grass that covers the 
land must be wet, in order that the animals may easily slip along in their vaulting 
gait over the green road to their place of execution. Under the most favorable 
circumstances, the march does not exceed six miles in twenty -four hours; and it 
being a distance of four leagues or more to the village, three days and nights, or 
more, are spent before they arrive at the slaughtering place. There they are allowed 
to remain quiet for a day, to cool their blood, which becomes much heated by 
the tedious journey ; after which, they are killed by shooting. The dead animals 
are then skinned, and their hides packed in tiers until fermented sufficiently to 
start the hair, when they are stretched on frames to dry, and eventually become 
the covering or planking for the Aleutian baidarkas and baidarras. The fat is taken 
off and used for fuel, or the oil is rendered to burn in their lamps. The flesh is 
cut in thin pieces from the carcass, laid in the open air to dry, and becomes a 
choice article of food. The sinews are extracted, and afterward twisted into thread. 
The lining of the animal's throat is put through a course of tanning, and then made 
into boots, the soles of which are the under covering of the Sea Lion's fin- like 
feet. The intestines are carefully taken out, cleaned, blown up, stretched to dry, 
then tanned, and worked into water -proof clothing. The stomach is emptied of its 
contents, turned inside out, then inflated and dried for oil -bottles, or it is used as 
a receptacle for the preserved meat ; and what remains of the once formidable and 
curious animal is only a mutilated skeleton. 
Crossing Behring and the Okhotsk seas, to the coasts of Siberia, including the 
peninsula of Kamschatka and the island of Saghalien, the mode of capture by the 
natives changes from that of the eastern continental shores. The inlets and rivers 
of these Asiatic regions swarm with salmon from June to September, and at this 
season the seals follow, and prey upon them as they ascend the streams. The 
natives then select such places as will be left nearly bare at low tide, and there 
set their nets — which are made of seal -thongs — to strong stakes, so placed as to 
form a curve open to the confluence of the stream. These nets are similar to gill- 
nets, the meshes being of a size to admit the seal's head — which gives free passage 
to the shoals of fish — and the pursuing animal, as soon as entangled in the net, 
struggles forward in its efforts to escape, but is held firmly in the meshes, where 
it remains till low water, when the natives, in their flat -bottomed skin -boats, 
approach and dispatch the victim with their rude bone implements. As the season 
Marine Mammals. — is. 
