272 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
hunting-grounds where it was commonly killed by thousands, and 
if an effective law be not soon put in force to keep the hunting 
in bounds, and check the war of extermination which greed now 
carries on against it, no longer with clubs and darts but with 
powder and breechloaders, the sea-otter will meet the same fate 
which has already befallen Steller’s sea-cow. Of the sea-lion 
{Eumetopias Stelleri^ Lesson), which in Steller s time were found 
in abundance on the shore cliffs of Behring Island, there are now 
only single animals there along with the sea-bears {Otaria 
ursina, Lin.); and finally, the most remarkable of all the old 
mammalia of Behring Island, the great sea-cow, is completely 
extinct. 
Steller s sea-cow {Bhytina Stelleri, Cuvier) in a way took the 
place of the cloven-footed animals among the marine mammalia. 
The sea-cow was of a dark-brown colour, sometimes varied with 
white spots or streaks. The thick leathery skin was covered with 
hair which grew together so as to form an exterior skin, which was 
full of vermin and resembled the bark of an old oak. The full 
grown animal was from twenty-eight to thirty-five English feet 
in length and weighed about sixty-seven cwt. The head was 
small in proportion to the large thick body, the neck short, the 
body diminishing rapidly behind. The short fore-leg terminated 
abruptly without fingers or nails, but was overgrown with a 
number of short thickly placed brush-hairs; the hind-leg was 
replaced by a tail-fin resembling a whale’s. The animal wanted 
teeth, but was instead provided with two masticating plates, one in 
the gum the other in the under jaw. The udders of the female, 
which abounded in milk, were placed between the fore-limbs. 
The flesh and milk resembled those of horned cattle, indeed in 
Steller’s opinion surpassed them. The sea-cows were almost 
constantly employed in pasturing on the sea-weed which grew 
luxuriantly on the coast, moving the head and neck while so 
doing much in the same way as an ox. While they pastured 
they showed great voracity, aijd did not allow themselves to be 
