THEY ALSO SAILED (Continued from Page 3), • • j
When spring came the carpenters ’among the crew-.went slowly to work. From the j
driftwood and salvage- of the St. Peter they gradually shaped an open boat. It was j
a rickety craft, less than forty feet long, and held together by pegs and thongs.
But on trial runs it sailed. Better anything, the survivors thought, than another j
winter on the island. * • j
While the carpenters worked, Steller studied and took notes on the island
life. Pulled together into a book, Beasts of the Sea, his notes remained for more j
than a century the only reliable work on the North Pacific marine animals. Steller ;
was most excited by a little cousin of the weasel—the sea otter. j
Steller had seen the sea otter befall, swimming off the Kamchatkan coast.
Siberian natives had killed a few and their furs were highly prized. But no Russian!
had ever found their breeding grounds before, and Bering Island swarmed with the j
lustrous-coated creatures. They supplied the party with most of its furs, and the j
naturalist with a unique opportunity for study. j
MThe sea otter," he wrote in his notes, "is usually five feet long and three j
feet in circumference at the breast bone, where the body is thickest. The largest j
weighed 70 to 80 pounds. The skin, which lies as loose on the flesh as in dogs I
and shakes all over when the otter runs, so far surpasses in length, beauty, black- j
ness and gloss of the hair that of all river beavers that the latter cannot be com- j
pared with it." I
"Altogether, in life it is a beautiful and pleasing animal, cunning and amus- j
ing in its habits, and at the same time ingratiating and amorous. Seen when they j
are running, the gloss of their hair surpasses the blackest velvet. They prefer
to lie together in families, the male with its mate, the half-grown young, and the s
very young sucklings* The male caresses the female by stroking her, using the fore >
feet as hands, and places himself over her; she, however, often pushes him away
from her for fun and in simulated coyness, as it were, and plays with her offspring \
like the fondest mother. Their love for their young is so intense that for them
they expose themselves to the most manifest danger of death. "When their young are j
taken away from them, they cry bitterly like a small child and grieve so much that, j
as we came to know on several occasions, after ten to fourteen days they grow as
lean as a skeleton, become sick and feeble, and will not leave the shore.
• "When frightened they take the suckling young in the mouth, but the grown-up \
'[ ones they drive before them. If they have the luck to escape they begin, as soon [
I as they are in the water, to mock their pursuers in such a manner that one cannot j
I look on without particular pleasure. Now they stand upright in the water like a
I man and jump up and down with the waves and sometimes hold the fore foot over the j
i eyes, as if they wanted to scrutinize you closely in the sun; now they throw them- j
j selves on their back and with the front feet rub the nose. Then they throw the
\ young ones into the water and catch them again, etc. If a sea otter ,is attacked.
| and nowhere sees any escape it blows and hisses like an angry cat. When struck it j
I prepares itself for death by turning on the side, draws up the hind feet, and j
1 covers the eyes with the fore feet. When dead it lies like a dead person, with thes
| front feet crossed over the breast." j
After having killed near a thousand otters and made a few experimental voy- j
I ages, the survivors piled into the open boat, which they called Little St. Peter. j
I By guess and good luck they reached the Kamchatka coast. And when “at last they
I sailed into Avatcha Bay, bearded, starved, clad in clothes made from poorly cured, j
j rough-stitched pelts, their arrival caused tremendous excitement.
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