ce of seal or walrus will not avail here. Seals and walruses must
have been as familiar to these Polar mariners as cows to a dairy-maid.
Unless the whole story was a concerted lie between the two men,
reasonless and objectless,--and the worthy old navigator doubtless knew
the character of his men,--they must have seen, in the black-haired,
white-skinned creature, some form of being as yet unrecognised.

Steller, a zoologist of some repute, who examined the natural history of
the Siberian seas, reports having seen, near Behring's Straits, a
strange animal, which he calls a Sea-ape. "It was about five feet long,
with a head like a dog's; the ears sharp and erect, and the eyes large;
on both lips it had a kind of beard; the form of the body was thick and
round, but tapering to the tail, which was bifurcated, with the upper
lobe longest; the body was covered with thick hair, grey on the back,
and red on the belly. Steller could not discover any feet or paws. It
was full of frolic, and sported in the manner of a monkey, swimming
sometimes on one side of the ship and sometimes on the other, and
looking at it with seeming surprise. It would come so near the ship that
it might be touched with a pole; but if any one stirred, it would
immediately retire. It often raised one third of its body above the
water, and stood upright for a considerable time; then suddenly darted
under the ship, and appeared in the same attitude on the other side;
this it would repeat for thirty times together. It would frequently
bring up a sea plant, not unlike a bottle-gourd, which it would toss
about and catch again in its mouth, playing numberless fantastic tricks
with it."

There is nothing in this description which would exclude it from
well-recognised zoological classification. It is highly probable that it
was one of the seal tribe, but of a species, perhaps a genus, not yet
identified. All analogy would suggest that fore-paws must have been
present in an animal with a dog-like head, and clothed with hair; but
they were perhaps small,--smaller even than in other _Phocadae_, and may
have been so concealed in the long hair, or held so closely pressed to
the body, as not to be visible. The only other difficulty is in the
posterior extremity. This is described by Steller in terms that imply a
true piscine tail, expanded in a direction vertical to the plane of the
body, and of that peculiar form called _heterocercal_, which
distinguishes the cartilag