HUNTING AND THE FUR INDUSTRY. 129 



CHAPTER X. 

 Hunting and the fur industry in the Far East. 



The seal industry; cursory sketch thereof from the end of the eighteenth century; the 

 Russian-American Company; Hutchinson, Cool, Filipeus and Co.; statistics of the yield 

 of seal skins; the preparation of the fur; the trade in skins in London; activity of the 

 firm of Hutchison and Co.; formation of the Russian Association of Seal Traders; new con- 

 ditions of the lease; piratical destruction of the seals; international agreements for the reg- 

 ulation of the seal industry; heaver, arctic fox, morse and whale trades; fur industries; 

 total dimensions of the yield of furs for all Siberia; mammoth ivory. 



THE hunting of fur and other animals in the Far East has formed for more than a 

 hundred years a source of revenue to the State. In consequence of the remoteness of 

 this region, the Government always farmed out these industries to private undertakers, reserv- 

 ing to itself the sovereign right of controlling the regular carrying on of the industry and 

 preserving the animals from extermination. 



The most considerable of the industries named is the catching of the sea fur seal 

 (otaria), that bear-like seal yielding an exceedingly valuable fur, while its capture is com- 

 paratively easy. The Russian name m o r s k o i k o t i k, or sea-cat, is far from answering 

 to its appearance. The fur seal is a fairly large animal, attaining a length of seven feet, its 

 average length being about an arshine. Extremely lively and quick in its movements in the 

 water, on land it is exceedingly clumsy and therefore exceedingly helpless. This animal has 

 several varieties, of which the best known is the otaria ursina or calorhinus ursinus, breed- 

 ing in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean between California, Japan and Behring 

 Straits. Another variety, otaria australis, breeds in South America on the Galopagos Islands; 

 A third variety, otaria pusilla or arctocephalus antarcticus, breeds at the Cape of Good Hope, 

 a fourth variety, otaria Forsteri, upon the oceanic islands near Tasmania, and others. Possessing 

 splendid fur the otaria early attracted the attention of sea hunters, who long sought the spot 

 where this animal comes out upon dry land to breed. 



It was only at the end of the last century that the celebrated navigator. Commander 

 Behring, succeeded in discovering a group of four islands, called in his honour the Commander 

 Islands. One of them, upon which subsequently the navigator himself perished, was called 

 Behring Island, and another Miedny. The two others, on account of their small dimensions, 



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