SEA OTTER. 
175 
tion of the fur from one who was engaged in the trade, to extracting a 
scientific account of the animal from systematic works, which are in the 
hands of every naturalist.” 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 
The Sea Otter inhabits the waters which bound the northern parts of 
America and Asia, and separate those continents from each other, viz. the 
North Pacific Ocean and the various seas and bays which exist off either 
shore from Kamtschatka to the Yellow Sea on the Asiatic side, and from 
Allaska to California on the American. 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
Although this animal has been known and hunted for more than a 
century, and innumerable skins of it have been carried to China (where 
they formerly brought a very high price), as well as to some parts of 
Europe, yet no good specimens, and but few perfect skulls of it, exist in 
any museum or private collection. The difference between the dentition 
of the young and the adult, being in consequence unknown, has misled 
many naturalists, and caused difficulties in the formation of the genus. 
Linnaeus, strangely enough, placed it among the martens ( Mustela ) ; 
Erxleben, in the genus Lutra ; Fleming established for it a new genus 
(Enhydra ) ; Fischer in his synopsis endeavoured to bring this to the Greek 
(j Enydris), which was also applied to it by Lichtenstein. 
The best generic descriptions of the Sea Otter that we have seen are 
those of the last named author, who has given two plates representing the 
skull and the teeth ; the latter however were deficient in number, owing 
to the fact of his specimen being a young animal with its dentition incom- 
plete. In the Philosophical Transactions (1796, No. 17) we have a 
description of the anatomy of this animal by Everard Home and Archi- 
bald Menzies, which gives a tolerable idea of its structure. 
There are only two authors, so far as we are aware, who have given 
reliable accounts of the habits of the Sea Otter — Steller and Cook. The 
information published by the former is contained in Nov. Com. Acad. 
Petropolit., vol. ii. p. 267, ann. 1751 ; the latter gives an account of the 
animal in his Third Voyage, vol. ii. p. 295. 
