268 BIG GAME SHOOTING IN ALASKA chap. 



be made a success on Kodiak Island there will be an ever- 

 increasing demand for the meat, especially if the projected 

 railway is constructed which is intended to run from Valdez 

 into the Yukon Valley. The mining centres in Alaska are 

 daily increasing in size and numbers, and at such places price 

 is no particular object provided that such luxuries as fresh 

 beef and mutton are to be had by paying for them. 



It appears to the ordinary visitor that the soil and 

 climate of Kodiak and Cook's Inlet should be capable 

 of growing good crops of corn and other farm produce. 

 But the U.S. Government has started an experimental 

 farm at Kenai, which is managed by a Norwegian named 

 Mr. Nielsen. He informed us that although cereals would 

 grow and apparently mature, the seed was not fertile, and 

 would not produce another crop if sown again. 



Hearing that Mr. Goss had a young cub of the Kodiak 

 brown bear (^Ursus middendorffi) which was intended for the 

 Zoological Park at Washington, we went to inspect it in the 

 stable where it was kept. The poor brute looked very 

 miserable. It was in poor coat, and did not appear to me as 

 if it would live long. It had been captured by our old native 

 hunter Nicolai after he returned with us to Kodiak, and it 

 was no mean performance to kill the old she-bear and capture 

 the cub single-handed as he did. The latter job he effected 

 by throwing his coat over the cub. So far there is no 

 specimen of a true Kodiak bear in the Park at Washington, 

 although there is a magnificent specimen of the Alaska brown 

 bear captured on the mainland near Cape Douglas, which is 

 misnamed by the officials of the Zoological Park a Kodiak 

 bear. It is in reality a specimen of either Ursus kidderi or 

 Ursus dalli gyas, and is referred to elsewhere in these pages. 



Whilst at Kodiak we inspected the skins of all the bears 



