164 SEA-COWS 



between Moreton Bay and Cape York, that a regular fishery 

 was established at Moreton Bav. 



%j 



The Rhytina, or Arctic Sea-Cow, is of special interest 

 to Americans because of the important part it played about 

 the middle of the eighteenth century in the discovery of 

 Alaska. In 1741 the Russian navigator, Captain Vitus 

 Bering, was shipwrecked on Bering Island and compelled to 

 winter there. The majority of the crew of the St. Peter died 

 of hardship, and the remainder also would have perished but 

 for the presence of the great Arctic Sea-Cow, then seen for 

 the first time. To George William Steller, the official natural- 

 ist of the ill-fated expedition, the world owes all it ever will 

 know of the life history of this animal. Despite the suffer- 

 ings he endured, he faithfully and laboriously reduced to 

 writing everything that he observed of the ponderous animal 

 whose flesh sustained the lives of the castaways. 



The Rhytina was an animal closely resembling the dugong 

 and manatee, but greatly exceeding the maximum size of 

 either. Steller declared that "the full-grown animal weighs 

 about 8,000 pounds," and from the skeletons that were col- 

 lected on Bering Island in 1883 by Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, 

 and now on exhibition in the United States National Museum, 

 we know that full-grown animals attained a length of between 

 20 and 30 feet. 



This species was exterminated by whalers who sought it 

 for food, aided by the natives who used both its flesh and 

 skin. It was practically exterminated about 1780, but the 

 last animal was not killed until 1854. (Nordenskiold's "Voy- 

 age of the Vega.") 



