steller's account of the sea otter. 213 



than any other jjlace; now, however, it is but little and rarely used. Hunters came 

 in greater numbers about the Promontory of Kronotski, which has come to be most 

 frequented next after the mouth of the river Kamchatka; but there also the catch bas 

 grown smaller. About Ostrovnaia, the Gulf of Avatcha, the Promontory of Lopatka, 

 and the first three Kuril Islands they are now caught in much greater numbers than 

 before. The Penschin Sea they do not enter, although crabs and other shellfish are 

 to be found there in at least as great if not greater numbers than on the Kamchatkan 

 shore. But why they do not go beyond the first tliree Kuril Islands, although they 

 might easily pass from one to the other and so on clear to Japan, admits of a three- 

 fold explanation. (1) Because the sea lions and sea bears, inhabiting the desert 

 islands in very great numbers, devour the sea otter and injure them in every possible 

 manner, the latter are very much afraid of them and are driven away. (2) There is 

 never any ice in those regions, and so no sea otter are ever brought. (3) The distance 

 between America and the farther Kuril Islands is very great, and there are no islands 

 in between, and so these animals cannot reach them by swimming. Besides, these crea- 

 tures are not naturally of a roving disposition; but if they might find a suitable place 

 designed, as it were, for them, even so the inhabitants of the first islands are so bent 

 on hunting them that those which have managed to escape in winter rarely escape in 

 summer. They hunt the otter in all seasons, but in most diverse manner according to 

 the demands of the season. They are captured in greatest numbers in winter, par- 

 ticularly in the months of February, March, and April, but their capture is made at 

 the expense of tremendous exertion, great daring, and not infrequently loss of human 

 life. When in the months before mentioned the east wind blows for two or three days 

 in succession, a vast quantity of ice is carried over from the American shore; the ice 

 comes over even more quickly if it has been carried away in the autumn and held in 

 the channel between the islands. While the wind blows, the hunters lie in wait 

 in their straw-covered huts; the ice drifts in in so great quantities that it fills 

 the surface of the sea for several miles out from land in the region of the Kuril 

 Islands, and oftentimes connects the Promontory of Lapatka with the first island. 

 Then the hunters, arming themselves with clubs and knives, put on their snowshoes 

 (called "if(^A:i"), and either alone or attended by dogs go out upon the ice. With 

 their clubs they kill the otter they find in a few moments, moving continually the 

 while that they may not break the ice. They have the skins carefully pulled off, and 

 leave the carcasses, if they be too far from the shore. Meanwhile the dogs hunt out 

 others. When the otter catches sight of the dog and the dog stops, the otter is 

 brought terrified to bay, and attempts to hide, until the hunter, following the foot- 

 prints of the dog, comes upon his quarry and dispatches it. So eagerly do they pursue 

 the hunt that they often go out so far upon the ice that they get out of sight of laud. 

 If, as often happens, the ice is brought in with a gale or tempest and a heavy fall 

 of snow, the catch is even larger, but fraught with greater danger; for when the 

 hunters can not look ahead nor see the holes in the ice at their feet, thej^ must follow 

 their dog or mere blind chance. This most venturesome chase can not be witnessed 

 from the land without terror. The ice rises and falls with the waves ; the hunters walk 

 now upon a mountain which was but a moment before a valley or a deep pit; again they 

 are lifted up on high, and again they sink and disappear from sight. But the best and 

 easiest hunting takes place when the ice remains on the shore for a long time; for while 

 the tempest lasts, the otter, not knowing whether they are on the floating ice or on the 



