THE RARER FURS.
IT seems as if not only seals, but many of the rarer fur- bearing animals, were decreasing so fast as to be already threatened with extinction for the purposes of commerce.
The prices fetched by choice furs in the spring sales last held in London were in many cases the highest known ; and though price is largely dictated by fashion, in the case of furs which are alike scarce and beautiful, it depends mainly on the "visible supply" in the City warehouses. Now that London is the depot for the entire fur trade, both of Europe and America, the immense accumulation of skins stored up for the spring and winter sales affords complete data for calculating the annual decrease in the number of the choice furs, and the probable rate of extinction of the animals which produce them. Seal, sea-otter, silver-fox, blue-fox, and beaver are those which the evidence of costliness and scarcity marks as destined to disappear earliest. For the sales of next month the supply of seal-skins will be less than that of a year ago by sixty thousand. At the spring sales a single skin of the silver-fox fetched L170 The silver-fox has always been among the scarcest as well as the most beautiful of furs. Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle, in their journey on foot across the Hudsons Bay territory, only succeeded in trapping one ; and the skin of that was spoiled by a wolverine. But such a price is a " record " never before reached. Sable skins are on an average 30 per cent, dearer than last year, and the cost of chinchilla has doubled. The latter is hardly a " rare " fur, though it ranks among the most beautiful. But the chinchillas, though fairly numerous on the slopes of the Andes, where their silky coats were once woven into cloaks for the Inca Princes, are so diminutive that each skin affords only a few inches of fur. Sables were already so much in demand that there was not much margin for further apprecia- tion. The finest Russian sables, with the perfect " ashen " lustre, are now offered at as much as DO "in the rough," and an equally beautiful and far rarer far—that of the sea-otter- fetches, where the skin is perfect, almost any price the seller cares to ask, provided he can find a Russian, American, or Chinese buyer. The sea-otter is nearly twice the size of the common river-otter, and the fur, without finishing or pre- paration of any kind, is more beautiful, as it is stripped from the animal, than the richest sealskin, which has to be scraped, plucked of the long upper hairs, and then dyed, before it could be recognised as the beautiful object which the "finished" far undoubtedly is. In the sea-otter's fur, the soft under- coat—the true fur—is as thick as that of the seal, and nearly twice as long, while the long outer hairs are as soft as a sable's tail, and often of a pale grey, which gives to the whole coat an appearance as of dark fur, slightly frosted over. The sea-otter's range was formerly from the Aleutian Islands to California, and its destruction will be deplored by naturalists no less than by furriers. The creature combines the habits of a seal with the intelligence and amusing character of the otter. When met in herds far out at sea, they are commonly seen swimming on their backs; they even eat their food lying in this position on the water, and nurse their young ones on their chests between their paws, exactly as a South Sea island mother swims with her baby in the water. When swimming in this attitude, they even shade their eyes with their paws when the sun dazzles them. Now they are so rare that the sight of a single otter swimming out at sea is a signal for a fleet of Aleutian boats to set out for its capture, and the poor beast is hunted till it can keep below water no longer, and allows itself to be speared. From the whole area of the North Pacific in which these pelagic animals are found, the supply of sea-otter- skins during the past year was only one thousand and fifty- six. For six years it has steadily decreased, at the rate of five hundred skins a year ; and it is probable that in a few years' time the creature will only be seen in the collections of naturalists. The skin of the Antarctic seal, the richest and thickest of all seal-fur, is even rarer than that of the sea.otter. The herds which Mr. Weddell found in his lucky voyage almost to the South Pole in 1823, seem to have been exter- minated on the South Orkney and South Shetland Islands. In 1892, eight hundred and thirty-four of these precious skins were brought to London ; in 1893 only forty-five. In 1895 none were obtained, and none are as yet " advised " for the great winter sale in December. Southern seals are brought in small quantities from the Lobos Islands and Cape Horn, but they have not the splendid fur of the true Antarctic animal. Recently two ships appeared in the London Docks, fresh from an Antarctic voyage, with sealskins for sale. Some excite- ment was caused in the belief that these were true fur sealskins. But they proved to be only "hair-seals," which have the long fur only, without the thick undercoat ; and were only suited for tanning into leather.
The costliness of choice furs is not due either to caprice or to mere rarity. It arises largely from the intrinsic merit of the furs themselves. Their warmth, softness, richness, and colour excel in each case that of the commoner varieties which resemble them. This superiority seems constant in what- ever uses the fur is employed. Russian sable, for instance, owes its warmth and gloss to the fact that the longer hairs, as well as the under fur, are absolutely uniform in size and "section." Thus the sable tail makes a perfectly propor- tioned natural pendant to the skin when used as a cape, and the whole skin has the unity of a manufactured fabric, with the other qualities only found in natural fur. This pre- eminence of sable fur gives it a value in the most minute quantities. The longer hairs, or surplus pieces of the fur, are carefully saved, and made into the best paint. brushes, which always "keep a point ; " and in the colour- men's catalogues the price of these brushes is only approximately fixed, and varies according to the price of sables. Sealskin and beaver fur are not only softer but warmer than any of the furs which, at first sight, seem to approach them closely in colour and texture. Hare-skin can be clipped and dyed so as to resemble sealskin; but even if lined with wool it does not approach the pelagic far in warmth or in lustre. The wonderful fineness of the under-fur of the seal causes it to hold minute quantities of air in the infinitely small interstices between the hairs ; and while the air enclosed is warmed by contact with the body, the far is a non-conductor to the cold from without. Beaver, for the same reason, is warmer and softer tlan "nutria," the fur of the South American coypu, a beaver-like rodent, which, being an inhabi- tant of warm climates, has a less deep coat, and one less thickly coated with the inner down. This natural grading of furs of allied species finds an appropriate use in the manufacture of far garments. Sealskin or beaver-skin make a robe by them- selves, but the lighter and less warm kinds are best adapted for combination with woven cloth. They are "lining furs," and the double layer of far and cloth is sufficient to resist the lowest temperatures of England or Central Europe. The use of fur-lined overcoats marks the line of medium winter temperature, as surely as the "all-fur" pelisse does that of hyperborean cold, whether used by the Russian noble or the Eskimo or Samoyed. In Hungary, Northern Turkey, Austria, and Germany, the fur-lining has been com- mon wear for centuries. In England, partly from fashion, partly from the unusually low temperature of the last few winters, it is now almost as common with the well-to-do, though the poor have not yet discovered, as has the Russian monjik, that a sheepskin-coat, with the wool inside, is warmer wear than the stoutest frieze or duffel. The combined light- ness and warmth of the lining-furs, such as squirrel, hampster, musk-rat, and nutria, in combination with fine cloth, is now appreciated. A coat lined throughout with the latter beaver- like fur, with beaver collar and cuffs, need not weigh more than 7 lb., and though loose and light, is a perfect defence against the lowest temperature or the coldest winds of an English winter.
There is no present prospect of scarcity of the useful, less costly furs. But the choice furs are something more than useful ; they are among the highest forms of luxury, and their disappearance would mean the loss of a unique form of gratification, partly wsthetic, partly sumptuous. Regarded merely as wraps, furs add an exhilaration to the sense of warmth which no other means can give. But the mere touch of the finest furs is a physical pleasure. No woven material, not even velvet, produces such a sense of richness and comfort by mere contact. There is a suggestion of sumptuousness and repose even in the silence of those deep furs which adapt themselves, without sound and without resistance, to the movement of the wearer. Add to this the beauty of tints and lustre, and the wonder is, not that the scarce furs are costly, but that they should not be more costly than they are. If furs were not perishable they would be as precious as gems. We cannot manufacture a substitute for the choice furs, even by the perfect processes which con- vert the cocoon of a moth into silk plush. But it does not seem impossible to breed fur-bearing animals in sufficient numbers to maintain a certain average supply. Most of the finest slim+ — sable, ermine, chinchilla, martin, and mink—are those of small animals, either rodents or carnivora, and therefore easily fed. Mink-breeding has been tried, and failed because the fur of those kept in confinement was of inferior quality. But there seems no reason why the sable, which is as prolific as the ferret, might not be bred in Siberia, or why the chinchilla, which produces from six to ten young in a litter, might not be domesticated like the rabbit on the dry slopes of the Andes. Bear-farins are already an institution in parts of Russia, and the Chinese of Manchuria rear thousands of richly furred dogs, whose skins are sold for high prices at Moukden. Angora rabbits are bred in tens of thousands, not for their skins, but for the fur itself, which is clipped, and sold for manufacture. "Persian lamb" is obtained from a domesticated animal kept not to produce food or wool, but for the skins of the young lambs. But no sheep's wool is, properly speaking, "fur." It has not the under-hair, with barbules like feathers, which gives to fur its essential qualities. In the case of true fur-bearing animals in domestication, such as the cat, rabbit, or dog, the modification in the coat made by breeding for its improvement tends to lengthen the fur, not to thicken the " pelage " below. On the other hand, domestic dogs have finer coats than the wild dog, though not than the wolf. The preservation of such a specialised natural product as ostrich plumes by the domestication of the wild species is primci facie far more unexpected than the profitable breeding of a prolific and quickly growing animal like the chinchilla, or the ferret-like sable and mink.
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