498 WILD ANIMALS. 



visit the Pribylov Islands, for tlie purpose of studying the life 

 and habits of these animals. 



" The fact is, that the acquisition of these pelagic peltries had 

 engaged thousands of men, and that millions of dollars have been 

 employed in capturing, dressing, and selling fur-seal skins during 

 the hundred years just passed by ; yet, from the time of Steller, 

 away back as far as 1751 up to the beginning of the last decade, 

 the scientific world actually knew nothing definite in regard to the 

 life-history of this valuable animal. The truth connected with the 

 life of the fur-seal, as it herds in countless myriads on the Prebyloo 

 Islands of Alaska, is far stranger than fiction. Perhaps the 

 existing ignorance has been caused by confounding the hair-seal, 

 Phoca vituUna and its kind, with the creature now under dis- 

 cussion. Two animals more dissimilar in their individuality and 

 method of living can, however, hardly be imagined, although they 

 belong to the same group, and live apparently on the same food." 

 The two islands, St. Paul and St. George, are the most impor- 

 tant of the whole group, and it was at these places Mr. Elliott 

 made most of his observations, and they were certainly of an 

 extremely interesting and exciting kind. The mass of animal life, 

 the desperate fighting that accompanies their settlement, and at a 

 latter date the gamboling of the thousands and thousands of 

 beautifully coated young sea-bears must be a sight peculiarly 

 fascinating. One ceases to wonder that Steller, whose diary 

 contains some of the most accurate and earliest information 

 regarding these animals, when wrecked with Vitus Bering on 

 the Commander Islands, and suffering bodily tortures, the legacy 

 of gangrene and scurvy, with the energy of a true naturalist, 

 " daily crept with aching bones and watery eyes over the boulders 

 and mossy flats of Bering Island, to catch glimpses of these 

 strange animals which abode there then as they abide to-day." 



The fur-seal, Gallorhinus ursinus, is, according to Mr. Elliot, the 

 highest organized of all the Pinnipedia, and there are few mem- 

 bers of the animal kingdom that can be said to exhibit a higher 

 order of instinct, or one approaching more nearly to human 

 intelligence. The animal is thus described : "I wish to draw 

 attention to a specimen of the finest of this race — a male in the 



