674 



NATURAL HISTORY 



long previous to that time by the natives, and in the early days of Russian 

 possession of those northern shores, almost fabulous numbers were killed, 

 two men killing five thousand on one island in a single year. The skins 

 commanded enormous prices in China, and the result was that their 

 numbers were soon decimated. 



Saanach Island is now the great sea-otter hunting-ground, but the 

 numbers now are greatly reduced. The last accessible statistics put the 

 total number of skins at about four thousand a year. The natives, who 

 hunt on Saanach Island, go there every winter, and their sufferings must 

 be terrible. They cannot make fires even to cook their food, because fires 





XJLL.fi/SX.XA. 



Fig. 518. — Sea-otter (Enhydris tutrix). 



scare away otters, and here they live for weeks, the thermometer below 

 zero, in a northerly gale of wind. The otters have the senses of hearing 

 and smell acutely developed. A fire five miles -away alarms them, and 

 even the tracks of man upon the beach must be washed by many tides 

 before they will land ou that part. They arc taken by surf-shooting, 

 by spearing-surrounds, by clubbing, and by nets. Surf-shooting is accom- 

 plished with rides. As soon as a head appears, even a thousand yards 

 out, it is shot, and then the surf brings in the body. Spearing-surrounds 

 are more difficult. A dozen or twenty boats start out in a long line, and 

 when one sees an otter, he rows quickly to it. It usually dives before he can 

 spear it. He stops right where it was last seen, and the others scatter 

 round in a circle, each on the lookout. When the otter appears again, the 



