GENERAL HISTORY. 83 



an object of chase on the coast of Finmark as early as 980, and 

 must have been met with by the Norsemen when they visited 

 Greenland about the end of the tenth century. Their tusks 

 were an article of commercial value among the Mongolian and 

 Tartar tribes as early as the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. 

 Aside from the various notices by Scandinavian writers, the 

 earliest unmistakable reference to the "Walrus, other than that 

 connected with Othere, as above mentioned, was, according to 

 von Baer (1. c., p. 108), by Albertus Magnus, in the first half 

 of the thirteenth century. 



Says this writer (as quoted by von Baer), whose account is here 

 paraphrased : The hairy Cetaceans have very long tusks, by 

 which they suspend themselves to the rocks in order to sleep. 

 Then conies the fisherman and separates near the tail as much 

 skin as he can from the underlying fat, and then attaches a 

 cord, which has at the other end a large ring, which he makes 

 fast to a post or tree. Then when the fish awakens (by all of 

 these operations he was not yet awakened), they cast a huge 

 sling-stone upon his head. Being aroused, he attempts to get 

 away, and is held by the tail near to the place and captured, 

 either swimming in the water or half alive on the shore. This 

 ludicrous description von Baer believes had for its foundation 

 misunderstood reports of the Walruses' habit of reposing upon 

 the shore or upon ice-bergs, the use of their tusks in climbing 

 up to these places of rest, and their deep sleep, and that the 

 account of the mode of capture was based on an incorrect 

 knowledge of the use of the harpoon; and that the account 

 shows that as early as the thirteenth century the Walrus was 

 harpooned on the coast extending from the White Sea north- 

 wards. * 



* This curious legend is quoted by Gesner in his Historia Animalia Aqua-' 

 tilia, 1558, p. 254. The following rendering appears also in the above-cited 

 English version of Olaus Magnus: "Therefore, these Fish called Rosmari, or 

 Morsi, have heads fashioned like to an Oxes, and a hairy Skin, and hair grow- 

 ing as thick as straw or corn-reeds, that lye loose very largely. They will raise 

 themselves with their Teeth as by Ladders to the very tops of Rocks, that 

 they may feed on the Dewie Grasse, or fresh Water, and role themselves in 

 it, and then go to the Sea again, unless in the mean while they fall very fast 

 asleep, and rest upon the Rocks, for then Fisher-men make all the haste 

 they can, and begin at the Tail, and part the Skin from the Fat ; and into 

 this that is parted, they put most strong cords, and fasten them on the rug- 

 ged Rocks, or Trees, that are near; then they throw stones at his head, out 

 of a Sling, to raise him, and they compel him to descend, spoiled of the 

 greatest part of his Skin which is fastened to the Ropes : he being thereby 



