Georg Wilhelm Steller

It happened to me on one unlucky occasion that I could watch the habits and ways of these beasts daily for ten months¹ from the door of my hut, and I will briefly note down the observations that I made with great care.

These animals are fond of shallow sandy places along the seashore, but they like especially to live around the mouths of rivers and creeks, for they love fresh running water, and they always live in herds. They keep the young and the half-grown before them while they feed, but they are careful to surround them on the flank and rear and always to keep them in the middle of the herd. When the tide came in they came up so close to the shore that I often hunted them with my stick or lance, and sometimes even stroked their backs with my hand. If they were badly hurt, they did nothing but withdraw to a distance from the shore, and after a short time they would forget their injury and come back. Most commonly whole families live together in one community, the male with one grown female and their tender little offspring. They appear to me to be monogamous. The young are born at any time of year, but most frequently in autumn, as I judged from the new-born little ones that I saw about that time. From this fact, as I noticed that they copulated by preference in the early spring, I concluded that the foetus remained more than a year in the womb. From the shortness of the [uterine] cornua (ex cornuum brevitate), and from the fact that there are only two mammæ, I infer that they have but one calf, and I have never seen more than one with the mother at a time.

These animals are very voracious and eat incessantly, and because they are so greedy they keep their heads always under water, without regard to life and safety. Hence a man in a boat, or swimming naked, can move among them without danger and select at ease the one of the herd he desires to strike—and accomplish it all while they are feeding. When they raise their noses above the water, as they do every four or five minutes, they blow out the air and a little water with a snort such as a horse makes in blowing his nose. As they feed they move first one foot and then the other, as cattle and sheep do when they graze, and thus with a gentle motion half swim and half walk. Half of the body—the back and sides—projects above the water. […]