SEA-OTTER. 99 



cated at the end : while the disparity in the size of the fore and hind-feet is quite 

 unknown in any of the Carnivores hitherto described. The skin is remarkably 

 large and loose for the size of the animal, so that when removed from the body it 

 can readily be stretched to a third more than its normal length. The pelage 

 consists mainly of a fine soft woolly under- fur, among which are a small proportion 

 of long stiff hairs. The general colour is dark liver-brown, silvered over with the 

 greyish tips of the long hairs. 



Remarkable as are the external characteristics of the sea-otter-, it is not, how- 

 ever, solely, or even chiefly on them, that the zoologist relies in referring the animal 

 to a genus apart from that containing the true otters. Equally noteworthy 

 peculiarities occur in the number and structure of the teeth. In the first place, 

 there are but two pairs of incisor teeth in the lower jaw, a feature in which this 

 species differs not only from other otters but likewise from every other true 

 Carnivore. The total number of teeth is, therefore, thirty-two, as against thirty-six 

 in the common otter ; there being, as in the Indian clawless otter, but three pairs of 

 premolar teeth in both the upper and the lower jaws. The cheek-teeth, although of 

 the same general plan of structure as in the true otters, differ by their extremely 

 blunted and rounded cusps. " If," remarks Dr. Coues, " the teeth of ordinary 

 carnivorous quadrupeds be likened to fresh-chipped, sharp, and angular bits of 

 rock, those of the sea-otter are comparable to water- worn pebbles " ; and we know 

 of no simile which can better express the difference between the cheek-teeth of the 

 common and the sea-otter. 



The sea-otter is an inhabitant of both coasts of the North 

 Habitat. 



Pacific ; its chief haunts on the American side being Alaska, the 



Aleutian Islands, the neighbourhood of Sitka Island on the west coast of Canada, 

 and Vancouver Island ; its southern limits being the shores of Oregon. On the 

 Asiatic side it occurs in Kamschatka, but apparently more rarely than on the 

 eastern shores of the Pacific. 



It is stated by Mr. H. W. Elliot that when the Russian traders first opened up 

 the Aleutian Islands, they found the natives commonly wearing cloaks made of the 

 fur of the sea-otter, which they were at first willing to sell for a mere trifle, 

 esteeming these skins much less than they did those of the fur-seals. Again, when 

 the Prybiloff Islands, situated in Behring Sea to the eastward of the Aleutians, 

 were first discovered, upwards of five thousand skins of this species were taken in 

 the first season, while in six years these animals had completely disappeared from 

 the islands. Nearly the same story is told in all the haunts of the sea-otter, which 

 has now become a very rare animal indeed, and stands in sore need of protection if 

 it is to escape total extermination. Mr. Elliot states that " over two-thirds of all 

 the sea-otters taken in Alaska are secured in two small areas of water, little rocky 

 islets and reefs around the islands of Saanach and Chernobours, which proves that 

 these animals, in spite of the incessant hunting all the year round on this ground, 

 seem to have some particular preference for it to the practical exclusion of nearly 

 all the rest of the territory, This may be due to its better adaptation as a breeding- 

 ground.'' A similar preference for a small area in the neighbourhood of Gray's 

 Harbour over the whole of the remainder of the coast of Washington and Oregon 

 is also exhibited by these animals. 



