CHAPTER III 
HOW I HUNTED THE SEA-OTTER 
So far as I am aware, no account has hitherto been 
published dealing with the sea-otter and sea-otter 
hunting which does not contain many errors, not 
only in the description of the animal, but as regards 
its habits, food, methods of capture, and other par¬ 
ticulars. All drawings of the otter that I have ever 
seen are simply grotesque. Even Steller, the Rus¬ 
sian naturalist (always quoted as the chief authority 
on the sea-otter), who was with Bering when he was 
wrecked on the island which now bears his name, is 
partly inaccurate in his account of the habits of the 
sea-otter, as he certainly is when dealing with the 
sea-lion and fur-seal. Possibly, however, the in¬ 
accuracies are due to those who elaborated his notes 
(they were not published until after his death) or to 
faulty translations. 
Most accounts of the sea-otter appear to have 
been written from the appearance of stuffed speci¬ 
mens found in museums, all of which, so far as the 
writer has seen or heard of them, are set up in a way 
which gives a wrong idea, not only of the general 
shape of the animal, its head, tail, and hind-quarters 
more particularly, but also of its attitude when out 
of the water. 
39 
