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don Steinegeri. The flesh and fat of which can only be 

 given to dogs, the natives cannot make use of it for 

 themselves, as the fat has a purging effect; these whales 

 are generally called plavouni. 



In spring and summer shoals of the Delphinapterus 

 and Delphinus (2 spec.) visit the Islands, in hunting after 

 fish, during the tide they often jump onto the shore and 

 remain there. Periodically near the shores of the Comman- 

 der Islands the «Kasatka» (Orca) appears in large shoals. 

 This rapacious whale proves itself to be a veritable 

 plague to the fur seals herd, which it tears into 

 pieces; salmon are driven away by it far from the 

 shore, if the persecution takes place at a distance from 

 the mouth of the river. Competent persons, who have 

 studied the Kasatka — whale in the Japanese sea and on 

 the shores of the yesso Island state, that they are con- 

 vinced, that these whales are as much to blame in the 

 exterminations of fur seals, as the hunters, who kill the 

 seals in the open sea. Certainly this is exaggeration, 

 but who could, as myself, observe the extermination of 

 seals in lots in the water by Kasatkas, that person will 

 have been convinced, that not only one thousand of fur 

 seals are sacrifices to the wild inclinations of Kasatkas, 

 so well called „killer" by the English. The seals get 

 into a panic fright, as soon as they see the killer's back 

 swimmers, and instead of staying on the shore, the}' 

 rapidly throw themselves into the water (distort instinct), 

 where they become the sacrifice of the hunting whale, 

 gifted with teeth, capable to tear their- prey. There are 

 some killers every year near the Commander. Isl. but in 

 large shoals they only come periodically. In 1899 there 

 were remarked shoals of 150 — 200 individuals. Besides 

 seals the Kasatka extirpates sea-lions, as well as whales, 

 but seldom the latter. Hunting after a sea-lion a killer 

 was thrown out alive onto the shore of Behring Island, 

 an apparition observed too on the American shore, where 

 killers are seldomer still and there in some places (the 



