THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
the North Pacific, where primitively it inhabited the Kam- 
chatkan coasts, and the islands and shores on the American 
side south to California. At favorable places it was 
in plenty, so that voyagers and traders toward the 
end of the eighteenth century gathered thousands of cloaks made 
by the Indians from its skin (less valued by them than some 
others), besides bales of fresh pelts bought for a trifling price. 
Within a few years, however, hunters had driven the exces- 
sively wary otters from all but a few remote and rocky islets in 
Bering Sea; and such as still remain alive must be sought in the 
open ocean, since none now comes ashore, even about the deso- 
late Senaach Rocks — their last refuge as a nursery for young. 
All modern accounts of the animal are derived from the 
masterly studies of its life history made by Henry W. Elliott’ 
during his residence in the Aleutian Islands from 1872 to 1874, 
supplemented by Scammon’s**’ observations at sea; both are 
extensively reproduced by Coues.*” 
Sea Otter. 
The sea otter is a truly pelagic animal, rarely ever landing farther than 
to climb upon outer rocks and reefs, amid the dash and thunder of the surf. 
An adult will measure three and a half to four feet from the nose to the tip 
of the tail, which is short and stumpy. The general form is like a beaver’s, 
and the skin is far too large, apparently, for the body, lying in loose folds, 
and likely to be greatly stretched in removal. The limbs are short, the fore 
paws small and feeble, and the hind feet enlarged by great enveloping 
webs into a semblance of flippers — powerful swimming paddles. Its 
senses of smell and of hearing are surpassingly acute, and with no other 
fur bearer must the hunter — for trapping is out of the question — take 
such extraordinary precautions against alarming the game. Although 
‘‘pups” were obtained every month of the year, and used to be brought 
ashore, the Alaskans from the first reported that they had never known 
one to be born on land, and were of the opinion that the birth was always 
when the mother was resting on a bed of floating kelp. Nowadays, cer- 
tainly, no birth occurs in any other situation; and the whole life of the ma- 
jority of sea otters is passed in the open ocean. A single offspring is the 
rule, and its first coat is gray. ‘From this poor condition,” says Elliott, 
“they improve as they grow older, shading darker, finer, thicker, and softer, 
and by the time they are two years old they are ‘prime,’ though the animal 
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