74 SIRERIA. 



firiniially for tlio piiifioso 200 vossols, Urnlcr scunowliat (linoroiit conflitions is Bohring Sea, 

 since the surremlcr to the United States of the Russian possessions in America, enjoyed in com- 

 mon hy the States and Rnssia, It is boimded on the south, that is on the side of the Pacific 

 by Ihe r'uliir of thi' Aleutian islands, and on the north rommiinicates with the Frozen Ocean 

 hy means of Bcliriiif,' Straits. Situated in more northern hititndes, between 52" and 04" N. 

 lat., and separated from tlie Pacific Ocean only hy a ridge of islands interrupted hy sea 

 channels, Behriiig Sfa is a type not of a close meiliteiranean sea liki; that of Okhotsk, but 

 of an ocean sea open at both emls, whose climate is still more marine at all seasons of the 

 year than that of the Sea of Okhotsk. It is enough to state that in the southern part of the 

 sea with a moan annual temperature of 3", the average temperature of the coldest month is 

 a little below zero, and that of the hottest 7°, to understand why all the islands of Behring 

 Sea are devoid of trees. Xo agriculture is possible upon them, and both these islands and the 

 shores of Behring Sea are incapable of settled colonization, and arc for ever doomed to be 

 rostrictod to the working of their marine resources. The water flora of Behring Sea is poorer 

 than that of Okhotsk, but it cannot be called alsolutely poor, and it is at any rate incom- 

 parably richer than the flora of the Siberian coast of the Arctic Ocean. 



Thanks to this circumstance and to the abundance of mollusks, crustaceans and fish, 

 this sea like that of Okhotsk has always been a splendid feeding gi-ound for marine animals, 

 which once used to visit these shores in countless numbers, in particular the islands of Behring Sea. 

 The most interesting of these visitors was, till the commencement of this century, the huge ani- 

 mal. 35 feet in length and weighing 50,000 pounds, known by tlic name of the seacow (rytina 

 Stelleri), first described by the highly talented follow traveller of Behring, the Russian natur- 

 alist Steller; this enormous beast has now entirely vanished from the face of the earth, like 

 tlie mammoth of the prehistoric age and the gi-eat birds dodo and moa in more recent times. 

 The last seacows were killed on Behring island, one of the most remarkable islands in the 

 world, alike from a geographical and from a natural history point of view, in 1780. According 

 however to information gathered by Nordenskjold the half-castes of Behring island saw sea- 

 cows last as late as 1855. Another visitor of the islands of Behring Sea, the so-called sea 

 lion or «sivuch» (eumetopias Stelleri Less.) has now become so rare that it is only seen 

 in individual specimens. On the other hand Behring Sea and especially Behring islands are 

 still rich in seals (otaria ursina), of which annually from 10,000 to 50,0<X) are taken. One other 

 very valuable visitor of the Behring islands is the so-called Kamchatka or sea beaver (enhydris 

 lutris L.), which in zoological respects has nothing in common with the genus beaver (biber) or 

 otter (Ultra), but belongs to a genus of animals analogous to the morse (trichecus rosmarus). 

 Of the remaining marine mammals the same occur in Behring Sea as in that of Okhotsk, 

 namely species of seals, dolphins and whales. Behring Sea is also extraordinarily abundant in 

 fish. Some kinds of fish as for example herrings, cod and gwyniad, appear periodically off the 

 islands and shores of Behring Sea from April to July in countless numbers. Finally, upon the 

 shores and islands of this sea breed several kinds of land fur animals, as for example river 

 heavers, otters, arctic foxes, foxes, sables and muskrats. 



Possessing such extremely unfavourable conditions, not so much on account of its geo- 

 graphical situation as of Its climate, the Okhotsk-Kamchatka region, being included among 



