34 THE SEALS' AND WALRUSES. 



and leave the water only for very short intervals. They usually bring forth their young on the ice, 

 must oi' (lie species being confined to the colder latitudes. Only one of the various species of the 

 Pinniju'tliii appears to be strictly tropical, and very few of them range into tropical waters. As a 

 group, the Pinnipeds are distinctively characteristic of the arctic, antarctic, and temperate portions 

 of the globe, several of the genera being strictly arctic or subarctic in their distribution. The 

 Walruses are at present confined mainly within the Arctic Circle, and have no representatives south 

 of the colder portions of the Northern Hemisphere. The Otariidmatid Phocidce, on the other hand, 

 are abundantly represented on both sides of the Equator, as will be noticed more in detail later. 



18. THE WALRUSES. 



DISCUSSION OF THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC SPECIES. There are two species of Walrus, 

 that of the Atlantic, Odoltccnwt roxmants Malmgren, and that of the Pacific, 0. obesus (Illiger) Allen. 

 These animals are found only in the extreme north, and it was for many years commonly supposed 

 that there was but a single circumpolar species. Mr. Allen has confirmed the views of Pennant, 

 expressed in 1702 and emphasized since 1870 by Elliott and Gill. Their differences are thus 

 described : 



The Pacific Walrus is similar in size, and probably in general contour, to'that of the Atlantic 

 (though possibly rather larger, and commonly described or depicted as more robust or thicker at the 

 shoulders), but quite different in its facial outlines. The tusks are longer and thinner, generally more 

 convergent, with much greater inward curvatures, the bristles upon the muzzle shorter and smaller. 

 The chief external difference appears to consist in the shape of the muzzle and the size and form 

 of the bristly nose-pad, which has a vertical breadth at least one-fourth greater than in the 

 Atlantic species. Very important differences -between the two species are exhibited in the skulls, 

 which are fully described in Mr. Allen's book. 



DISTRIBUTION OF THE ATLANTIC WALRUS. The Atlantic Walrus is not now to be found 

 within the limits of the United States, nor has it been within historic time, or during the last three 

 hundred and fifty years, though, like the musk ox, the caribou, and the moose, it ranged during 

 the great Ice Period much beyond the southern limit of its boundary at the time the eastern coast 

 of North America was first visited' by Europeans. During the last half of the sixteenth century 

 they are known to have frequented the southern coast of Nova Scotia as well as the shores aud 

 islands to the northward, but this appears at- that time to have been their southern limit of 

 distribution, and to these islands New England vessels seem occasionally to have resorted to kill 

 them for their teeth and oil. 1 In 1775 they were abundant in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, at the 

 Magdalen Islands, Saint John's, and Anticosti, where they congregated yearly to the number of 

 seven or eight thousand, and where they were soon exterminated by the "Americans." 2 



In ItSGO and 1809 Packard and Gil phi recorded the killing of individuals near the Straits of 

 Belle Isle, and in 1S(>S one was driven ashore in Saint George Bay, Newfoundland. The last seen 

 in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence was, according to Professor Packard, in 1841, when one was killed 

 at Saint Augustine, Labrador. Dr. Bernard Gilpin speaks of the occurrence of their bones at 

 Miscou, on the Day of Chaleur, in such numbers as to form artificial sea-beaches. These were, 

 doubtless, victims of "the Royal Company of Miscou," founded during the earlier part of Hie seven- 



1 A vessel that returned at thai time (KVI1) from the Jsles of Sables made a bettor voyage, bringing I'our hundred 

 pair of Sea-horse tcclli with divers tun of oil, besides much other goods of like sort which they left In-hind, worth 

 15(10. HuiiBAUD'.S Histoiy of New I'.ngland from^hc discovery to 1C4S, p. :',79. 



The Son-Cow or .Morse is plenty upon the coasts of Nova-Soot ia and the (iulph of Si. Laurence, particularly at Ilio 

 island of St. John's: it is of (lie bigness of a middling cow (it is not the same with the Manatee of the Gnlpli of 

 Mexico), a very thick skin with hair like that of a seal. Dona. ASS' North America, 17.")."). 



-Meaning, of course, people from Hie southern colonies. 



