132 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



at least six feet in length, with the proportionate girth and shape 

 of a mink or weasel. 



There is no sexual dissimilarity in color or size, and both male 

 and female manifest the same intense shyness and aversion to man, 

 coupled with the greatest solicitude for their young, which they 

 bring into existence at all seasons of the year, for the natives capt- 

 ure young pups in every calendar month. As the hunters never 

 have found the mothers and their offspring on the rocks or beaches, 

 they affirm that the birth of a sea-otter takes place on the numer- 

 ous floating kel2>beds which cover large areas of the ocean south of 

 the Aleutian chain and off the entire expanse of the northwest 

 coast. Here, literally " rocked in the cradle of the deep," the young 

 kahlan is brought forth and speedily inured to the fury of fierce 

 winds and combing seas. Upon these algoid rafts the Aleutes often 

 surprise them si^orting one with the othei', for they ai-e said to be 

 very playful, and one old hunter told the writer that he had watched 

 a sea-otter for half an hour as it lay upon its back in the rollers 

 and tossed a bit of sea-weed up into the air from paw to paw, ap- 

 parently taking great delight in catching it before it fell into the 

 water. 



The sea-otter mother clasps her young to her breast between 

 her fore-paws, and stretches herself at full length on her back in the 

 ocean when she desires to sleep, and she suckles it also in this po- 

 sition. The pup cannot live without its mother, though frequent 

 attempts have been made by hunters to raise them, for the lit- 

 tle animals are very often captured alive and wholly uninjured ; 

 but, like some other animals, they seem to be so deeply imbued 

 with fear or dislike of man that they invariably die of self-imposed 

 starvation. The enhydra is not polygamous, and it is seldom, in- 

 deed, that the natives, when out in search of it, ever see more than 

 one animal at a time. The flesh is very unjDalatabre, highly charged 

 with a rank taste and odor. A single pup is born, as the rule, about 

 fifteen inches in length and provided with a natal coat of coarse, 

 brownish, grizzled hair and fur, the head and nape being rather 

 brindled, and the nose and cheeks whitish-gray, with the roots of 

 the hair everywhere much darker next to the skin. From this poor 

 condition of fur at birth the otter gradually improves as it grows 

 older, shading darker, finer, thicker, and longer by the time they 

 are two years of age. Then they rapidly pass into prime skins of 

 the most lustrous softness and ebony shimmering, though the creat- 



