THE SEA-OTTER 689 



cated at the end; while the disparity in the size of the fore and hind-feet is quite 

 unknown in any of the Carnivores hitherto described. The skin is remarkably large 

 and loose for the size of the animal, so that when removed from the body it can 

 readily be stretched to a third more than its normal length. The pelage consists 

 mainly of a fine soft woolly under-fur, among which are a small proportion of long, 

 stiff hairs. The general color is dark, liver brown, silvered over with the grayish 

 tips of the long hairs. 



Remarkable as are the external characteristics of the sea-otter, it is not, how- 

 ever, solely, or even chiefly on them, that the zoologist relies in referring the ani- 

 mal to a genus apart from that containing the true otters. Equally noteworthy pe- 

 culiarities occur in the number and structure of the teeth. In the first place, there 

 are but two pairs of incisor teeth in the lower jaw, a feature in which this species 

 differs not only from other otters but likewise from every other true Carnivore. The 

 total number of teeth is, therefore, thirty -two, as against thirty-six in the common 

 otter; there being, as in the Indian clawless otter, but three pairs of premolar teeth 

 in both the upper and the lower jaws. The cheek-teeth, although of the same gen- 

 eral plan of structure as in the true otters, differ by their extremely blunted and 

 rounded cusps. " If , " remarks Dr. Coues, ' ' the teeth of ordinary carnivorous 

 quadrupeds be likened to fresh -chipped, sharp, and angular bits of rock, those of the 

 sea-otter are comparable to water- worn pebbles ' ' ; and we know of no simile which 

 can better express the difference between the cheek-teeth of the common and the 

 sea-otter. 



The sea-otter in an inhabitant of both coasts of the North Pacific; 

 its chief haunts on the American side being Alaska, the Aleutian is- 

 lands, the neighborhood of Sitka island on the west coast of Canada, and Vancouver 

 island; its southern limits being the shores of Oregon. On the Asiatic side it occurs 

 in Kamchatka, but apparently more rarely than on the eastern shores of the Pacific. 



It is stated by Mr. H. W. Elliot that when the Russian traders first opened up 

 the Aleutian islands, they found the natives commonly wearing cloaks made of the 

 fur of the sea-otter, which they were at first willing to sell for a mere trifle, esteem- 

 ing these skins much less than they did those of the fur-seals. Again, when the 

 Pribilof islands, situated in Behring Sea to the eastward of the Aleutians, were 

 first discovered, upward of five thousand skins of this species were taken in the first 

 season, while in six years these animals had completely disappeared from the islands. 

 Nearly the same story is told in all the haunts of the sea-otter, which has now be- 

 come a very rare animal indeed, and stands in sore need of protection if it is to 

 escape total extermination. Mr. Elliot states that " over two-thirds of all the sea- 

 otters taken in Alaska are secured in two small areas of water, little rocky islets and 

 reefs around the islands of Sanak and Chernobours, which proves that these ani- 

 mals, in spite of the incessant hunting all the year round on this ground, seem to 

 have some particular preference for it to the practical exclusion of nearly all the rest 

 of the territory. This may be due to its better adaptation as a breeding ground." 

 A similar preference for a small area in the neighborhood of Gray's harbor over the 

 whole of the remainder of the coast of Washington and Oregon is also exhibited by 

 these animals. 

 44 



