When I first made the acquaintance of Europeans on the island, they told me that there was little probability of finding anything of value in this respect, for the company had offered 150 roubles for a skeleton without success. But before I had been many hours on land, I came to know that large or small collections of bones were to be found here and there in the huts of the natives. These I purchased, intentionally paying for them such a price that the seller was more than satisfied and his neighbours were a little envious. A great part of the male population now began to search for bones very eagerly, and in this way I collected such a quantity that twenty-one casks, large boxes, or
barrels were filled with Rhytina bones; among which were three very fine, complete skulls, and others more or less damaged, several considerable collections of bones from the same skeleton, &c.
The Rhytina bones do not lie at the level of the sea, but upon a strand-bank thickly overgrown with luxuriant grass, at a height of two or three metres above it. They are commonly covered with a layer of earth and gravel from thirty to fifty centimetres in thickness. In order to find them, as it would be too troublesome to dig the whole of the grassy bank, one must examine the ground with a pointed iron rod, a bayonet, or some such tool. One soon learns to distinguish, by the resistance and nature of the sound, whether the rod stuck into the ground has come into contact with a stone, a piece of wood, or a fragment of bone. The ribs are used by the natives, on account of their hard ivory-like structure, for shoeing the runners of the sledges or for carvings. They have accordingly been already used up on a large scale, and are more uncommon than other bones. The finger-bone, which perhaps originally was cartilaginous, appears in most cases to be quite destroyed, as well as the outermost vertebræ of the tail. I could not obtain any such bones, though I specially urged the natives to get me the smaller bones too and promised to pay a high price for them.
The only large animal which is still found on Behring Island in perhaps as large numbers as in Steller's time is the sea-bear. Even it had already diminished so that the year's catch was inconsiderable,[367] when in 1871 a single company obtained for a payment to the Russian crown, if I recollect right, of two roubles for every animal killed, and exclusive right to the hunting, which was accordingly arranged in a more purposelike way. At certain times of the year the killing of the sea-bear is wholly prohibited. The number of the animals to be killed is settled beforehand, quite in the same way as the farmer at the time of killing in autumn is wont to do with his herd of cattle. Females and young are only killed exceptionally. Even the married males, or more correctly the males that can get themselves a harem and can defend it, commonly escape being killed, if not for any other reason, because the skin is too often torn and tattered and the hair pulled out. It is thus the bachelors that have to yield up their skins.
That a wild animal may be slaughtered in so orderly a way, depends on its peculiar mode of life.[368] For the sea-bears are found year after year during summer at certain points projecting into the sea (rookeries), where, collected in hundreds
