NORTHERN SEA-BEAR — NORTHERN SEA-COW 265 



have dwindled down to a remnant of between thirty and fifty thousand head ; and 

 in order to preserve this remnant, the United States Government has recently 

 established a close time for five years. 



The sea-bears reach the Pribiloffs (St, George and St. Paul Islands) during 

 June and July, the old males arriving first, and each collecting round him a harem 

 of breeding females, as the latter make their appearance somewhat later. Younger 

 seals, of both sexes, associate by themselves in herds apart from the breeding parties, 

 and of the former only the males or " bachelors " may legally be killed for com- 

 mercial purposes. During the time of their sojourn on the Pribiloffs many of those 

 not actually engaged in breeding (exclusive of the old males) take long excursions 

 out to sea, frequently travelling to a distance of from fifty to one hundred miles 

 from the shore, and remaining at sea from ten days to a fortnight at a time. It is 

 these seals which fall victims to pelagic, or open sea, sealing, a pernicious practice 

 which appears to be the main factor in the recent depletion of the herds. 



By a treaty executed a few years ago American subjects were debarred from 

 pelagic sealing, while British subjects resident in Canada were permitted to engage 

 in this pursuit only outside the sixty-mile limit, and this alone during the non- 

 breeding seasons. Japan was no party to the Anglo-American agreement, and 

 Japanese vessels were consequently at liberty to practise pelagic sealing to any 

 extent their owners please anywhere outside the three-mile limit without restric- 

 tion as to season. 



Northern The manatis and dugongs were formerly represented in the Xorth 



sea-cow. Pacific by the northern sea-cow (Rhytina gigas), a gigantic species 

 exterminated soon after its discovery. In the autumn of 1741 Bering was ship- 

 wrecked on the larger of the two Commander Islands, which lie about 100 miles 

 off the coast of Kamchatka. The survivors, who remained on the island for ten 

 months, are said to have lived chiefly on the flesh of the large sea-cow they dis- 

 covered, although they did not begin to kill these animals until the 12th of June 1742. 

 For a sirenian, the size was gigantic, the length being from 25 to 30 feet, the girth 

 20 feet, and the weight estimated at over 3| tons. The head was small ; and, with 

 the exception of a couple of small incisors shed in early youth, the jaws were 

 without teeth, whose function was discharged by horny plates on the palate and 

 lower jaw. The flippers, too, were devoid of nails, terminating merely in some 

 coarse bristles, and the dark brown bare skin was so thick, rough, and wrinkled that 

 Steller compared it to the bark of a tree. In habits the northern sea-cow was social, 

 living in herds near the mouths of rivers and feeding on seaweed. It was unable 

 to dive, and so poor a swimmer as to be occasionally washed ashore by heavy seas. 



Soon after Bering's crew returned to Kamchatka expeditions of fur-hunters 

 went out to winter on the Commander Islands, where the sea-cows afforded plenty of 

 fresh meat. These expeditions were succeeded by others, the members of which 

 also killed sea-cows for food ; and ships sailing to the north-western coast of North 

 America were in the habit of landing parties on Bering Island to kill and salt sea- 

 cows, there being at that time no cattle in Kamchatka. 



In 1754 the sea-cow was exterminated on Copper Island, and by 1763 there 

 were very few left on Bering Island, where at the time of its discovery the number 

 was estimated at from 1500 to 2000. 



