. Cyclopedia of farm animals. Domestic animals; Animal products. FUR-BEARING ANIMALS FUR-BEARING ANIMALS 399 into port in the spring of 1894, loaded down to the water's edge, with 42,000 seals, valued at $105,- 000. These loups-marins, or sea-wolves, of the gulf of St. Lawrence, as the French-Canadians call them, must not be confounded with the fur seals of Alaska (Callorhinus Alaseanus, Fig. 406), whose soft coat. Fig. 406. The Alaska fur seal [Callorhinus Alaseanus). is one of the cherished possessions of the city belle. They are commonly known as the Newfoundland or hair seals (Phoca Granla
. Cyclopedia of farm animals. Domestic animals; Animal products. FUR-BEARING ANIMALS FUR-BEARING ANIMALS 399 into port in the spring of 1894, loaded down to the water's edge, with 42,000 seals, valued at $105,- 000. These loups-marins, or sea-wolves, of the gulf of St. Lawrence, as the French-Canadians call them, must not be confounded with the fur seals of Alaska (Callorhinus Alaseanus, Fig. 406), whose soft coat. Fig. 406. The Alaska fur seal [Callorhinus Alaseanus). is one of the cherished possessions of the city belle. They are commonly known as the Newfoundland or hair seals (Phoca Granlandica). Until the last few years their skins were used chiefly for the manu- facture of a coarse-grained but expensive leather; but in the last few winters, the fur has been exten- sively dressed in both Newfoundland and Canada, and coats and other articles of wearing apparel have made their appearance on the streets of Montreal and Quebec, made from this dark, rough, dappled- gray, or pepper-and-salt colored fur. As it is far from unsightly, and is uninjured by rain, it is altogether likely, in view of the now almost pro- hibitive price of the Alaska seal, that the Atlantic seal may rapidly pass into popularity and fashion. The story of the fearfully diminished seal-herd of Bering's sea is matter of American history. In 1874, it numbered close on five millions. In less than a quarter of a century it had been reduced to a single million. In less than another decade, only 175,000 seals of the herd remained. Ten to twelve thousand skins a year are all that can be depended on from this source until protection may have con- tributed to an increase in the size of the herd. On the Pribilof islands, the Alaska seals are slaught- ered by hunters with sticks, much as the hair-seal is on the ice-floes of the gulf of St. Lawrence. The life-history of the seal, whether of the Pacific or the Atlantic ocean, is more familiar to the aver- age reader than is that of the sea-otter, or of most o
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