172 ODOB^ENUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALEUS. 



eastern portion of the Arctic coast of Asia, about the middle of the 

 seventeenth century, by the Cossack adventurer Staduchin, who 

 found (about 1G45 to 1648) its tusks on the Tschuktschi coast, 

 near the inouth of the Kolyma Eiver. A century later Deschnew 

 found also large quantities of Walrus teeth on the sand-bars at 

 the mouth of the Anadyr. These explorations, so interesting 

 geographically, appear not to have been known in Moscow till 

 Miiller, in 1735, discovered the reports of them at Jakutsk which 

 he published in his " Samnilung russischer Geschichte." * 

 Hence not until the last half of the eighteenth century did the 

 Pacific Walrus become fairly known, mainly through the explora- 

 tions of Steller, Kraschininnikoff, Cook, Kotzebue, Liitke, Bil- 

 lings, Pallas, and others, each of whom referred to or gave 

 more or less full accounts of it. The Pacific Walrus was first 

 figured in Cook's "Last Voyage,'? and subsequently by Pallas. 

 Later it was noticed by Wrangell on the Tschutkchi coast and 

 by Beechey in Behring's Straits and the neighboring waters. 

 More recently we have notices of it by Dall, Scaminon, and 

 Elliott, the two last-named authors giving us by far the most 

 detailed account of these animals which has, to my knowledge, 

 thus far appeared, and from whose writings I have freely bor- 

 rowed in the preparation of the following pages. 



FIGURES. The first figures of the Pacific Walrus appear to 

 be those published in Cook's "Last Voyage," t in 1784, when a 

 group of Walruses is represented as resting on the ice. The 

 more prominent of these figures was copied by Shawf in 1800, 

 and later by Godman and others. It was also reproduced by 

 Gray in 1853, || and is here republished (Fig. 36). 



According to von Baer, Pallas, in his "Icones,"^ gave two 

 illustrations of the AA 7 alrus. The one, he says, shows the animal 

 from the side, the other as lying on its back. Von Baer describes 

 these as being far better than any figures of the Walrus that 

 had preceded them, with the exception of Gerard's (1612), al- 

 ready described. The structure of the hind feet, he says, is well 

 represented, except that the nails on all the feet are too long. 



* For this history hi greater detail, see von Baer, 1. c. , pp. 175-177. 



t Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, etc., under the direction of Captains Cook, 

 Clerke, and Gore, in the years 1766-1780, vol. ii, pi. lii. 



t General Zoo'l., vol. i, 1800, pi. Ixviii, facing p. 234. Also Nat. Miscel., 

 pi. Isxvi. 



SAmer. Nat. Hist., vol. i, 1826, pi. 



|| Proc. Zoo'l. Soc. Lond., 1853, p. 116. 



1 "Icoues ad Pallasii Zoographiam, fuse, ii." 



