GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 69 



and islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, says: "At Miscou, 

 Bay Chaleur, Perley found only their bones, but 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 the seventeenth century, by the King of France, and 

 whose ephemeral city of New Rochelle, numbering at one time 

 some thousands, has passed away leaving no sign. The mur- 

 dered Sea-horses have left a more enduring monument than 

 the murderers." He further adds: "Though we have no 

 accounts later than the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of 

 their inhabiting Sable Island, yet it is very probable that they 

 continued to resort there until they entirely left these latitudes. 

 Its difficulty of access, its being uninhabited, and its sandy 

 bars fringed with a ceaseless surf, point it out as their last 

 hold."* 



Dr. Gilpin also records the capture of a Walrus in the Straits 

 of Belle Isle, Labrador, in March, 1869, which was dragged on 

 the ice for five miles, and then taken by ship to St. John's, 

 Newfoundland, and thence to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where it 

 was described and figured by Dr. Gilpin. t Mr. Reeksf states 

 that a "specimen was driven ashore in St. George's Bay," New- 

 foundland, about 18C8, and alludes to the frequent occurrence 

 of their bones along the Newfoundland coast. 



It is still an inhabitant of the shores of Hudson's Bay, Davis 

 Strait, and Greenland, where, however, its numbers are annu- 

 ally decreasing. In Greenland, according to Mr. Robert Brown 

 (writing of its distribution in 1867), "it is found all the year 

 round, but not south of Rifkol, in lat. 65. In an inlet called 

 Irsortok it collects in considerable numbers, to the terror of the 

 natives, who have to pass that way. ... It has been found 

 as far north as the Eskimo live, or explorers have gone. On the 

 western shores of Davis's Strait it is not uncommon about 

 Pond's, Scott's, and Home Bays, and is killed in considerable 

 numbers by the natives. It is not now found in such numbers 

 as it once was ; and no reasonable man who sees the slaughter 

 to which it is subject in Spitzbergen and elsewhere can doubt 

 that its days are numbered^ It has already become extinct in 

 several places where it was once common. Its utter extinction 

 is a foregone conclusion." 



*Proc. and Trans. Nova Scotia Inst. Nat. Sci., vol. ii, pt. 3, pp. 126-127. 

 tlbid.. pp. 123-127, with a plate. 



|. ZoGiogist, 1871, 2550. 



Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 433. 



/ A ,X 



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