84 THE ASIATIC FUK-SEAL ISLANDS. 



III.-SEAL LIFE ON THE COMMANDER ISLANDS. 



HISTORICAL AND GENERAL. 



The northern fur seal {Oallotaria umina) was known to the natives of Kamchatka 

 and the invading Kussiau promyshleniks long before the islands to which they resort 

 to breed were discovered. The seals were seen to arrive in spring, on their way north 

 and east, and to return in autumn, and the correct conclusion was formed that the 

 seals went to some unknown coast to bring forth their young. 



The discovery of Bering Island revealed this unknown coast. Steller, the natu- 

 ralist of Bering's expedition, had a whole spring season on the island in which to study 

 their habits, and that he made good use of it is evidenced by the account he gave of 

 these animals in his famous memoir, "De Bestiis Marinis," published in 1751 in St. 

 Petersburg.' In this paper, written in the Latin language and finished on Bering 

 Island for publication, he established the salient points in the natural history of the 

 fur seal. Two figures, one of a bull (fig. 1) and one of a female (fig. 2, pi. xy), probably 

 made by the artist Berckhan, as shown by Dr. E. Biichner (M6m. Ac. Imp. Sc. St.- 

 P^tersb. (7), xxxviii, No. 7, pp. 12, 13), accompany the descriptions. Fig. 2, at least, 

 is a fairly characteristic representation of a bull, and superior to several figures 

 published much later. 



Steller described in some detail the external and internal anatomy of the fur-seal, 

 or sea bear, as he called it, and gives a pretty accurate account of their migrations 

 and their habits on the island during the breeding season. He stated that they are 

 polygamous, each bull having "8, 15 to 50 females;" describes the harems and the 

 bravery of the bulls fighting for the possession of the females; the birth of the one 

 pup shortly after the arrival of the mothers; the nursing and the play of tbe pups; 

 the long fast of the bulls on the rookery, etc. In fact, he covered nearly all the 

 essential features of their lives. Later researches have made but few corrections, and 

 the additions have been those of detail and elaboration. 



Such detail and elaboration was to some extent furnished by the venerable 

 " apostle of the Aleuts," Ivan Veniaminof, who gathered his information on St. Paul 

 Island, Pribilof group, more than eighty years later than Steller. A very precise 

 and concise account, both of the natural history of the animal and of the sealing 

 business, communicated by Veniaminof to Admiral von Wrangell, then chief manager 

 of the Eussian- American Company, was published In 1839 by the latter in the German 

 language,^ and was thus made easily accessible to the scientific world of his day. His 

 somewhat more voluminous account in the Russian language did not appear until the 



1 Novi Comment, Acad. Sc. Imp. Petrop., ii, pp. 289-398; pp. 331-359 relate entirely to the fur seal. 

 A translation of this paper will be found in Part III of this Eeport. 



2 Statistisohe und Ethnographische Naohrichton tiher die Eussiachen Besitzungen an der Nord- 

 westkustevon Amerika. Gesammelt von dem ehemaligen Oberverwalter dieser Besitzungen, Contre- 

 Admiral v. Wrangell. St. Petersburg, 1839, 8™, XXXvm + 332 pp. and map; pp. 39-48 treat of the 

 "Seebiir (P/ioea wj-sino)." 



A rilsum^ of Khlebnikofs observations on the habits, brief but accurate, had already been pub- 

 lished by Liitke as early as 1835 (Voyage a.ut. Monde, i, pp. 252-264) in the French language. 



