FIRST DAYS ON BERING ISLAND 139 



my cossack, however, shot eight blue foxes, ^^^ the number and 

 fatness of which as well as the fact that they were not shy aston- 

 ished me exceedingly. Moreover, since I saw the many manati^^^ 



31V In the MS: "blue pesci." The blue fox, or Arctic fox {Alopex lago- 

 pus (Linnaeus)) of the Commander Islands has been described by Mer- 

 riam as a separate form under the name Vulpes heringensis (Proc. Biol. 

 Soc. of Washington, Vol. 15, 1902, p. 171). The pesets, as it is called 

 by the Russians {pestsi in the plural, whence pesci, the German form of 

 transliteration in the MS) , is still common on the island and is of consider- 

 able economic importance (see Stejneger, Proc. U.S. Nail. Museum, Vol. 

 6, 1883, pp. 8j-88;idem, Asiatic Fur-Seal Islands, 1898, pp.30, 42-44). (S) 



318 i. e. sea cows. The sea cow {Hydrodamalis gigas, also known as 

 Rhylina gigas or stelleri) possesses great interest on account of its early 

 extermination by man, which took place in 1768, twenty-seven years 

 after its discovery by Steller. He gave a very full description of this 

 animal in his famous treatise "De bestiis marinis" {Novi Commentarii 

 Acad. Sci. Imp. Petropol., Vol. 2, 1751). Skeletons and parts of skeletons 

 are preserved in various museums, such as Petrograd, Helsingfors, Stock- 

 holm, etc. The U. S. National Museum in Washington possesses one 

 whole and several partial skeletons together with an unequaled series of 

 skulls from Bering Island. Most of this material was secured by L. 

 Stejneger in 1882-1883. 



The sea cow was an herbivorous animal, anteriorly shaped somewhat 

 like a seal, but with a large caudal fin like that of a whale and without 

 hind legs. It belongs to the mammalian order Sirenia, which represents 

 an "aquatic modification of the Ungulate tj-pe." The Sirenians are 

 therefore not related to the seals and whales but more probably to 

 the elephants. The members of this once numerous group are nowa- 

 days represented only by the true manatees and the dugong, which 

 inhabit only the tropical waters of both hemispheres. The only northern 

 form known is Steller's sea cow. There is no indisputable evidence of its 

 having ever inhabited other coasts than those of the Commander Islands, 

 as the find of a rib on Attn, the westernmost of the Aleutian Islands 

 proper, does not necessarily prove that the animal once lived there, 

 though that is not improbable. The history of this animal, imperfectly 

 known as it is, fills volumes, and all we can do in the present connection 

 is to refer to some of the more recent literature, viz. Stejneger: On the 

 Extermination of the Great Northern Sea-Cow (Rytina), Bull. Amer. 

 Geogr. See, Vol. 18, 1886, pp. 317-328; idem, How the Great Northern 

 Sea-Cow (Rytina) Became Exterminated, Amer. Naturalist, Vol. 21, 

 1887, pp. 1047-1054; idem. Investigations Relating to the Date of the 

 Extermination of Steller's Sea-Cow, Proc. U. S. Natl. Museum, Vol. 7, 

 1884, pp. 181-189. (S) 



