XV.] 
THE FAUNA OF BEHRING ISLAND : FOXES. 
269 
The immense quantity of valuable furs brought home by 
the survivors of Behring’s so unfortunate third voyage affected 
the fur-dealers, Cossacks, and hunters of Siberia much in the 
same way as the rumour about Eldorado or about the riches of the 
Casic Dobaybe did the Spanish discoverers of middle and southern 
America. Numerous expeditions were fitted out to the new 
land rich in furs, where extensive territories previously unknown 
were made tributary to the Czar of Russia. Most of these 
expeditions landed on Behring Island during the voyage out 
and home, and in a short time wrought a complete change in the 
fauna of the island. Thanks to Steller’s spirited sketch of the 
animal life he observed there, we have also an opportunity of 
forming an idea of the alteration in the fauna which man brings 
about in a land in which he settles. 
Arctic foxes were found in incredible numbers on the island 
during the wintering of the Behring expedition. They not only 
ate up everything that was at all eatable that was left in the open 
air, but forced their way as well by day as by night into the 
houses and carried off all that they could, even such things 
as were of no use whatever to them, as knives, sticks, sacks, 
shoes and stockings. Even if anything had been never so well 
buried and loaded with stones, they not only found the place 
but even pushed away the stones with their shoulders like men. 
Though they could not eat what they found, they carried it 
off and concealed it under stones. In such a case some foxes 
stood on guard, and if a man approached all assisted in speedily 
concealing the stolen article in the sand so that no trace of it 
was left. When any of the men slept out of doors at night 
his return to St. Petersburg, and was already beyond Novgorod, when he 
received orders to appear before the court at Irkutsk. After a year he 
obtained permission to travel to St. Petersburg, but when he came to the 
neighbourhood of Moscow, he received a new order to return, and for 
further security he was placed under a guard. They had travelled a good 
way into Siberia, when he froze to death while the guard went into a 
public-house to warm themselves and quench their thirst. 
