RHYTINA.
1. Drawing in an old map of the Behring Sea, found by Middendorff
(_Sibir. Reise_ iv. 2 p. 839).
2. Sketch by Steller, given to Pallas
(Pallas, Icones ad zoographiam _Rosso-Asiaticam_, Fasc. ii.) ]

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 vertebrae 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.

[Illustration: RECONSTRUCTED FORM OF THE SEA-COW. After J. Fr. Brandt
(_Symbolae Sirenologicae_, Fasc. iii. p. 282). ]

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