86 ODOB^ENUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. 



Walrus at these islands, and in one place a quaint description 

 and some very curious figures of the animal.* 



In 1675, the Walrus was again described and wretchedly 

 figured by Martens, t who is said to have been the first " natu- 

 ralist" who ever saw the Walrus in its native haunts. Zorg- 

 drager, $ in 1720, supplied by far the fullest account of these 

 animals, as observed by him in Spitsbergen, that had appeared 

 up to that date. He gives not only a quite detailed and truth- 

 ful account of their habits, especially under persecution, but also 

 of their wholesale destruction at that early time in the Spitz- 

 bergen seas, and of their extermination at some of the points 

 at which they had formerly been accustomed to land in immense 

 herds. He also notes the increasing difficulties of their capture 

 owing to the great shyness of man they had acquired in conse- 

 quence of persecution, and describes the manner in which they 

 were captured, and also their products. Copious extracts from 

 Zorgdrager's account of the Walrus are given by Buffon (trans- 

 lated into French from a German edition), and he has also been 

 extensively quoted by even much later writers. 



The Greenland Walrus was described by Egede in 1741, by 

 Anderson || in 1747, by Ellis fl in 1748, byCranz**in 1765, 

 and by Fabricius tt in 1780, some of whom added much infor- 

 mation respecting its habits and distribution, its usefulness to 

 the natives and their ways of hunting it, as well as respecting 

 its external characters. 



The above-cited accounts of the Walrus formed the basis of 

 numerous subsequent compilations, and most of those last given 

 are cited by the early systematic writers, few of whom, as pre- 

 viously shown (see antea, pp. 8-11), had any just appreciation 

 of even its most obvious external characters. Linn, as already 

 noted (antea, p. 8), profited little by what had been written 

 by preceding authors, while Brisson, Erxleben, and Gmelin 

 manifest a scarcely better acquaintance with this badly misrep- 

 resented and poorly understood creature. IsTo little confu- 

 sion has hence arisen in systematic works respecting its posi- 



* See antea, p. 74-78, and posted. 

 t Spitsbergen, pp. 78-83, pi. P, fig. b. 



t Bloeyende Opkomst der Aloude en Hedendaagsche Groenlandsche Vis- 

 schery, etc., ed. 1720, pp. 1(35-172. 



Det gamle Gr<|>nlauds nye Per lustration, etc., 1741, p. 45. 



|| Nachricliten YOU Island, Gronland und der Strasse Davis, p. 258. 



If Voyage to Hudson's Bay, p. 134. 



** Historic von Gronland, pp. 165, 167. 



tf Fauna Groenl., p. 4. 



