EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 33 



speaks of having got one day "a very large and fat cow," the 

 length of which he gives as 11 feet 5 inches.* My own measure- 

 ments of three adult males from imstuffed (salted) skins are as 

 follows : (1) length (from nose to tail), 10 feet 5 inches ; (2) 9 feet 

 G inches ; (3) 10 feet 10 inches ; (4) 8 feet 5 inches. The first 

 three were fully adult, while one of them, to judge from its 

 broken, worn tusks and partly naked, scarred skin, was very old; 

 the other was not more than two-thirds grown. These may all 

 have been specimens of less than the average size. Adding, 

 however, 15 to 18 inches for the length of the hind limb (not here 

 included), would give a length of about 12 feet for the larger 

 individuals.! 



Most of the old writers were content with stating it to be as 

 large as an ox and as thick as a hogshead. The accounts of the 

 color are also discrepant ; Fabricius's statement that the color 

 varies with age, the young being black, then dusky, later paler, 

 and finally in old age white, having been quoted by most sub- 

 sequent compilers. Writers who have given the color from 

 actual observation have never, however, confirmed Fabricius's 

 account, they usually describing the color of the hair as " yel- 

 lowish-brown," " yellowish- gray," " tawny," " very light yellow- 

 ish-gray," etc., some of whom explicitly state that after extended 

 observations they have never met with the changes of color 

 with age noted by Fabricius. Thus, Mr. Eobert Brown says 

 that although he has seen Walruses of all stages, from birth 

 until nearly mature age, he never saw any of a black color, all 

 being of " the ordinary brown color, though, like most animals, 

 they get lighter as they grow old."! Scoresby says that the 

 skin of the Walrus is covered " with a short yellowish-brown 

 colored hair." 



Dr. Gilpin states that his Labrador specimen was thinly cov- 

 ered with " adpressed light yellowish-green hair," about an inch 

 in length. He adds that the surface of the whole skin was 



* Yachting in the Arctic Seas, p. 77. 



1 1 find it to be a nearly universal custom with writers (especially with 

 non-scientific writers), in giving the length of Pinnipeds to measure from 

 the point of the nose to the end of the outstretched hind flippers, so that 

 "length" must generally be understood as the total length from " point 

 to point," and not merely that of the head and hody. Taking, for example, 

 Dr. Gilpin's specimen, and deducting the length of the hind flipper from the 

 "extreme length," would leave 10 feet 5 inches. 



t Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1868, p. 428. 



Account of the Arctic Regions, vol. i, p. 503. 

 Misc. Pub. No. 12 3 



