“The spearing-surround is the orthodox native system of capture, and reflects the highest credit upon them as bold, hardy watermen. A party of fifteen or twenty bidarkies with two men in each, as a rule, all under the control of a chief elected by common consent, start out in pleasant weather, or when it is not too rough, and spread themselves over a long line, slowly paddling over the waters where the Sea Otters are most usually found. When any one of them discovers an Otter asleep, most likely, in the water, he makes a quiet signal, and there is not a word spoken or a paddle splashed while they are on the hunt. He darts towards the animal, but generally the alarm is taken by the sensitive object, which instantly dives before the Aleut can get near enough to throw his spear. The hunter, however, keeps right on, and stops his canoe directly over the spot where the Otter disappeared. The others, taking note of the position, all deploy and scatter in a circle of half a mile wide round the point of departure thus made, and patiently wait for the re-appearance of the Otter, which must take place within fifteen or thirty minutes, for breath; and as soon as this happens the nearest one to it darts forward in the same manner as his predecessor, when all hands shout and throw their spears, to make the animal dive again as quickly as possible, thus giving it scarcely an instant to recover itself. A sentry is placed on its second diving-wake as before, and the circle is drawn anew; and the surprise is often repeated, sometimes for two or three hours, until the Sea Otter, from interrupted respiration, becomes so filled with air or gases that he cannot sink, and becomes at once an easy victim. “The clubbing is only done in the winter season, and then at infrequent intervals, which occur when tremendous gales of wind from the northward, sweeping down over Saanach, have almost blown themselves out. The natives, the very boldest of them, set out from Saanach, and scud down on the tail of the gale to the far outlying rocks, just sticking out above surf-wash, where they creep up from the leeward to the Sea Otters found there at such times, with their heads stuck into the beds of kelp to avoid the wind. The noise of the gale is greater than that made by the stealthy movements of the hunters, who, armed with a short, heavy, wooden club, dispatch the animals one after another without disturbing the whole body, and in this way two Aleuts, brothers, were known to have slain seventy-eight in less than an hour and a half.” [Illustration: SEA OTTER.]