Since the primitive days before the arrival of civilized men in their haunts, sea-lions were of the greatest economic importance to the Aleutian Islanders and other coast natives. Food and fuel were obtained from their flesh and blubber; coverings for boats were made of their skins; water-proof overshirts of their intestines; boot soles from the tanned skin of their flippers; trimmings of fancy garments from their tanned gullets and bristles, and thread from their sinews. They are preëminently animals of the most rugged of shorelines and the stormiest of seas, being superbly powerful beasts with extraordinary vitality. The ease with which they pass through a smother of pounding seas to mount their rugged resting places is an admirable exhibition of skill and strength. The males have a bellowing roar, which rises continually from the herds on the rocks in savage unison with the booming of the sea against the base of their refuge. The harems of the bulls on Pribilof Islands rarely exceed a dozen members, which are under less strict discipline than the harems of the fur seals. The old bulls, especially during the mating season, are aggressive and savage fighters, inflicting severe wounds on one another. At all times they are more courageous and belligerent than fur seals, and hunters driving parties of them back from the beach on the Pribilofs approach them with extreme caution, to avoid the dangerous charges of angry bulls. It is reported that an umbrella opened and closed suddenly in the faces of the old sea-lions appears to terrify them more than any other weapon and is used successfully in drives. At sea they have only a single known enemy to fear--the fierce killer whale. [Illustration: PACIFIC WALRUS] [Illustration: ALASKA FUR SEAL] [Illustration: STELLER SEA-LION] =SEA OTTER= (=Latax lutris= and its subspecies) Sea otters, distant relatives of land otters, are heavy-bodied animals, about 4 feet long, with broad webbed hind feet. When in the water they have a general resemblance to seals, whose mode of life is similar to theirs. Their fur is extremely dense and on the skins of adult males is almost black, closely sprinkled with long white-tipped hairs. The fur of prime skins has a silky luster, equaled in beauty by only the finest silver-tipped fox skins. For centuries sea-otter fur has been highly prized and single skins have brought more than $1,000 in the London market. Otters are limited to the coasts of the North Pacific, where formerly they were incredibly abundant all the way from the shores and islands of Lower California to the Aleutians, and thence along the Asiatic coast to the Kuriles. Through excessive hunting, they are now extinct along most of this extended coast-line.