ord is
said about the sea-cow (PALLAS, _Neue nordische Beytraege_, ii. p.
310).

SCHELECHOV passed the winter 1783-84 on Behring Island, but during
the whole time he only succeeded in killing some white foxes, and in
the narrative of the voyage there is not a word about the sea-cow
(GRIGORI SCHELECHOV _russischen Kaufmanns erste und zweite Reise_,
&c., St. Petersburg, 1793).

Some further accounts of the sea-cow have been obtained through the
mining engineer PET. JAKOVLEV, who visited Commander's Islands in
1755 in order to investigate the occurrence of copper on Copper
Island. In the account of this voyage which he gave to Pallas there
is not indeed one word about the sea-cow, but in 1867 PEKARSKI
published in the _Memoirs_ of the Petersburg Academy some extracts
from Jakovlev's journal, from which it appears that the sea-cow
already in his time was driven away from Copper Island. Jakovlev on
this account on the 27th November, 1755, laid a petition before the
authorities on Kamchatka, for having the hunting of the sea-cow
placed under restraint of law and the extermination of the animal
thus prevented, a thoughtful act honourable to its author, which
certainly ought to serve as a pattern in our times (J. FR. BRANDT,
_Symbolae Sirenologicae, Mem. de l'Acad. de St. Petersbourg_, t.
xii. No. 1, 1861-68, p. 295).

In his account of Behring's voyage (1785-94) published in 1802,
Sauer says, p. 181: "Sea-cows were very common on Kamchatka and the
Aleutian Islands,[364] when they were first discovered, but the last
was killed on Behring Island in 1768, and none has been seen since
then."

On the ground of the writings of which I have given an account
above, and of various pieces of information collected during this
century from the Russian authorities in the region, by the skilful
conservator WOSNESSENSKI, the academicians von Baer and Brandt[365]
came to the conclusion that the sea-cow had scarcely been seen by
Europeans before the 19th/8th November, 1741, when Steller, the day
after his landing on Behring Island for the first time saw some
strange animals pasturing with their heads under water on the shores
of the island; and that the animal twenty-seven years afterwards, or
in 1768, was completely exterminated The latter statement however is
undoubtedly incorrect; for, in the course of the many inquiries I
made of the natives, I obtained distinct information that living
sea-cows had been seen much later. A _creole_ (