THE SEA LION AND THE FUR SEAL 225 



us to find ^28 ^ha(- Quj. command could be sustained a whole 

 week on two or, at the most, three such animals. As I had 

 furthermore already learned in Kamchatka that these animals 

 migrate in herds every spring to the east upwards [northwards] 

 past the Kurile Islands and the coast of Kamchatka and in 

 September back again from there to the south, also that the 

 females are generally all found to be pregnant during the first 

 part of the migration, ^29 j immediately concluded that these 

 and other islands in the Channel ^^^ must doubtless be the summer 

 grounds of these animals where they bear their young, and I 

 now surmised that these were only an advance guard of a larger 

 movement. In this hope we later indeed were not deceived /^^ 

 as soon countless herds followed and within a few days covered 

 the whole beach to such an extent that it was not possible to 

 pass without danger to life and limb; indeed, in certain places 

 where they completely covered the ground they often forced us 

 to make a detour over the mountains. But with this unexpected 

 abundance and blessing a twofold difficulty shortly arose. 

 The first was that the animals landed only on the south side of 

 the island, [namely] that facing Kamchatka; consequently, 

 they had to be dragged not less than 18 versts from their nearest 

 grounds to our huts. In the second place the meat of these 

 animals smelled like fresh white hellebore, thereby became re- 

 pulsive to the taste, and in the case of many of the men induced 

 violent vomiting with diarrhea. Soon, however, we found out 

 that another, smaller, kind of sea bear, grayish in color, ^^^ 

 which appeared in even greater numbers, had much more tender 



i-s Instead of "It was a great consolation to us to find" the MS has "We 

 saw." 



129 The words "during the first part of the migration" do not occur 

 in the MS. 



130 Instead of "these and other islands in the Channel" the MS has 

 "these islands." On the Channel see above, p. 73, footnote 149. 



131 In the MS a parenthetical clause here intervenes, as follows: "and 

 with the assistant surgeon I later killed another." 



"2 This was not a different species, only the younger males and the 

 females. The old males arrive on the island a long time ahead of these. (S) 



