4 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



were seldom in a hurry to get away till after they have 

 been once fired at, then they would tumble one over 

 the other into the sea in the utmost confusion ; and if 

 we did not at the first discharge kill those we fired at, 

 we generally lost them, though mortally wounded. 

 They do not appear to us to be that dangerous animal 

 some authors have described ; not even when 

 attacked. They are rather more so to appearance 

 than in reality. Vast numbers of them would follow 

 and come close up to the boats, but the flash of a 

 musquet in the pan, or even the bare pointing of one 

 at them, would send them down in an instant. The 



The number of walruses killed annually by the 

 Norwegian and Russian hunters is very considerable ; 

 probably nearly an equal number are wounded and 

 lost. As the female produces only a single young one 

 at a birth, which remains with the mother nearly two 

 years, "until its tusks are grown long enough to be 

 used in grubbing up the shell mud at the sea- 

 bottom," it will readily be imagined that the destruc- 

 tion is greatly in excess of the production, and that 

 they are rapidly decreasing in numbers. About the 

 month of August they repair to the shore, and congre- 

 gating in vast herds on the beach of some secluded 



Fig. I. The Morse or Walrus {Trichechus Rosmarni), from Buckland's " Log-Book of a Fisherman and Zoologist." 



female will defend the young one to the very last and 

 at the expense of her own life, whether in the water 

 or upon the ice. Nor will the young one quit the 

 dam, though she be dead ; so that if you kill one you 

 are sure of the other. The dam, when in the water, 

 holds the young one between her fore-fins" (Cook's 

 Last Voyage, vol. ii. p. 458, edition 1784). Since 

 Cook's time the Walrus has learned to fear man, its 

 only enemy except the Polar bear, and is more 

 difficult to approach. When wounded, or its young 

 in danger, it has been known fiercely to attack the 

 boats sent for its capture, striving to overturn them, 

 and piercing their sides with its tusks : many serious 

 accidents have been the result. 



bay, lie for weeks together in a semi-torpid condition,, 

 without moving or feeding. Should their retreat be 

 discovered whilst in this state, great is the slaughtei-. 

 Mr. Lament, in his "Seasons with the Sea Horses," 

 says that in 1852 on a small island off Spitzbergen 

 (one of the Thousand Islands), two small sloops 

 discovered a herd of walruses consisting of three or 

 four thousand, nine hundred of which they succeeded 

 in killing, only a small portion of the produce of 

 which, however, they were able to carry away. The 

 colour of the Walrus is brown, paling with age, and 

 the skin covered with short hairs ; the adult reaches 

 the length of from 10 to 15 feet, or, according 

 to some authorities, even more, and weighs froob 



