MAMMAXS OF XOETHEEN CANADA 215 

 Gray Sea-Ottek — Latax lutris (Linnaeus). 



During the oft-mentioned twenty-five years the Hudson's 

 Bay Company obtained from the natives of Alaska and 

 northern British Columbia a total of 4,100 skins of this 

 formerly aibundant but now rare and very valuable sea-otter. 

 The three best years were 1855, which produced 338 skins ; 

 1856, 319 skins, and 1858, 343 skins; and the three poor 

 seasons were 1862 with 84, 1870 with 90, and 1872 with 

 only 66 pelts. Their London catalogue sales for 1902 and 

 1903 seen by me do not contain a single entry of this animal. 



Geizzly Beaje — Ursus horribilis Ord. 



There are no bears of this species in the Anderson River 

 country, nor on the adjoining Arctic coast, but I believe they 

 are sometimes encountered, and their skins secured, in other 

 parts of the northern districts on the west side of the valley 

 of the Mackenzie to the Rocky Mountains. The female, it 

 is said, brings forth one or two, and occasionally as many 

 as three, at a birth, every third year. The first few years 

 are always spent by them in their mother's company, after 

 which they are expected to provide food, a mate, and hiber- 

 nating quarters for themselves. Comparatively few skins 

 of this bear are received from the Indians, and they, together 

 v.'ith most of those of U. richardsoni, figure under gray in 

 the Company's accounts. As all of the four kinds — ^black, 

 brown, gray, and white — are grouped together in the fur 

 sales statement, it is impossible to give the quantities of 

 each for the period in question ; but the catalogues for 1902 

 and 1903 furnish details, while their totals are only 143 

 skins below the average collections for the twenty-five years. 

 The year 1902 yielded 161, and 1903, 246 skins of the 

 "gray" bear. For fifteen of the twenty-five years (1863 

 to 1877) Mackenzie River District furnished 665 "gray" 

 bears. There are no available data for a similar period for 

 Athaibasca; but in 1886, 1887, and 1889, 68 more skins 



