FAUNA. The fauna of Alaska is very extensive and economically valuable. The catalogue of its mammals and birds forms a long list of high zoological interest. Reptiles and amphibians are of course few, but insects present a wide variety, diminishing toward the north; among these mosquitoes are painfully conspicuous, swarming in summer on the central and northern plains in such dense masses as to make life in the lowlands almost imprissible for either men or animals. The neighboring seas are peculiarly rich in small marine creatures (see ARCTIC RE GION); hence fishes abound, and these support numerous marine carnivores. such as seals, etc., to be spoken of later. The larger land animals include the moose, south of the Yukon; caribou, formerly widely numerous, but now nearly ex terminated. when, e the efforts of the Govern ment to restock the country with reindeer ; and, in the southeastern mountains, sheep and goats. Porcupines and hares of various species abound, and form an important food resource for the inland natives, besides marmots, squir rels, mice, etc.; while suitable streams every where south of the Arctic borders support bea vers (110w unemninon) and muskrats. These animals supply food for bears, lynxes, and a long list of smaller fur-bearing carnivores. The bears include. besides the polar. grizzly, and black species, the huge Kadiak bear and the glacier bear, which are exclusively local. (See BEAR.)
The marine mammals are whales of several kinds, the Pacific walrus, Steller's sea-lion, and five other species of hair seals (see SEAL), and the fur-seal. The fur animals embrace gray wolves, the basal stock of the native sledge-dogs; the white arctic fox, common near the coast from the Aliaska Peninsula northward, and on the islands of Bering Sea, while its "blue" vari ety inhabits the Aleutian Islands; the red fox, and its variety, the "cross" fox, occur every where; but the black variety is rare and almost unknown, except in the eastern mountains. Of the nmstelines, the sable is numerous wherever coniferous forests extend; and more generally distributed are the weasels (ermine) and wol verines. while minks are common along all :water courses. and otters less so. The most notable of Alaskan fur animals, however, is the sea otter (Latex lutris), which formerly was numerous along the entire southern coast, but now is found only on a few remote islands, where it will soon become extinct unless rigorously protected. Choice skins are now worth $100 to the hunter, and bring $500 in New York or London. With their disappearance will go the last resources of many Aleuts. In 1809 the catch reported in San Francisco was 154 skins, worth $30,000.