[43] Perhaps fully half the brown-bear skins taken by the Alaskan natives are retained by them, used as bedding, and hung up as portières over the entrance-holes or doors to their houses; the smaller skins are tanned and then cut into straps and lines to use in sledge-fastenings, snowshoe network bottoms, because this leather does not stretch when moist like deer and moose skin. [44] The greatest number of different mammals found wild in any one region of Alaska is to be recorded here: bears, brown and black; deer, reindeer and the woodland cariboo; big-horn mountain sheep, a long-haired variety. These animals are all shot. The trapped varieties are: beaver, land-otter, porcupines, whistling marmot or woodchuck, large gray wolves, lynx, wolverine, marten, mink, ermine, weasels, and muskrats. Wild-fowl: grouse both white and ruffled, geese, ducks, sandhill cranes, and the great northern swan. Berries: whortleberries, salmonberries, gooseberries, and cranberries; all gathered in season and mixed with the everlasting rancid oil used by every native in every section of Alaska. [45] _Oncorhynchus chouicha_—examples of this species have a recorded weight of one hundred pounds each, and six feet in length; it is also abundant in the Yukon and Kuskokvim Rivers. [46] Dr. T. H. Bean, who, as a trained ichthyologist, passed the season of 1880 investigating the fish of Alaska by cruising throughout its waters, says: “The greatest fish-wealth of Alaska, so far as the shore fisheries are concerned, lies in the abundance of salmon of the genus _Oncorhynchus_, which is represented by five species—_chouicha_, _keta_, _kisutch_, _nerka_, and _gorbuscha_. The first three of these are the largest, the whole series being named in the order of their size. _O. chouicha_ is the giant of the group, and is the most important commercially; it attains to its greatest size in the large rivers, which it ascends long distances in its spawning season. In Alaska it is known to extend as far north as Bering Strait, and it is especially abundant in Cook’s Inlet and in the Yukon. Individuals weighing nearly one hundred pounds are occasionally reported from these waters, and even in the Columbia. The finest product of this salmon is the salted bellies, which are prepared principally on the Kenai, Kassilov, and Yukon Rivers; the fame of this luxury once extended to the centre of government in Russia, The well-known ‘quinnat salmon’ is the same species; its importance, as evidenced by the efforts of the United States Fish Commission and other commissions toward its propagation and distribution, is too well understood to require additional mention. The great bulk of the salted salmon exported from Alaska are the small ‘red fish,’ _O. nerka_; and this species is sought after simply on account of the beautiful color of the flesh and not for its intrinsic value, which is far below that of most of the other species. All the salmon extend