212 MAMMALIA— MORSE. 



who immediately strikes very forcibly in that part, and draws the lance out 

 again as quick as possible, for fear it should seize the lance with its teeth, 

 and wound those that attack it. Formerly, before these animals were so 

 greatly persecuted, they advanced so far on shore, that when it was high 

 water, they were at a great distance from the sea ; and at low water, being 

 at a still greater, the hunters easily approached them and killed great num- 

 bers. The hunters, in order to cut off their retreat to the sea, and after 

 they had killed several, made a kind of barrier of their dead bodies, and in 

 this manner often killed three or four hundred in a season. The prodigious 

 quantity of bones spread over the shores, sufficiently proves how numerous 

 these animals were in former times. When they are wounded, they be- 

 come extremely furious, often biting the lances in pieces with their teeth, 

 or tearing them out of the hands of their enemies ; and when at last they 

 are strongly engaged, they put their head betwixt their paws, or fins, and 

 in this manner roll into the sea. When there is a great number together, 

 they are so bold as to attack the boats that pursue them, bite them with 

 their teeth, and exert all their strength to overturn them." 



Captain Cook saw a herd of them floating on an ice island off the north- 

 ern coasts of the American continent. "They lie," says he, "in herds of 

 many hundreds, upon the ice, huddling over one another like swine ; and 

 roar or bray so loud, that in the night, or in foggy weather, they gave us 

 notice of the vicinity of the ice before we could see it. We never found the 

 whole herd asleep, some being always on the watch. These, at the ap- 

 proach of the boat, would wake those next to them ; and the alarm being 

 thus gradually communicated, the whole herd would be awaked. But they 

 were seldom in a hurry to get away, till after they had been once fired at. 

 They then would tumble over one another into the sea, in the utmost con- 

 fusion. And if we did not, on the first discharge, kill those we fired at, we 

 generally lost them, though mortally wounded. Vast numbers of these ani- 

 mals would follow and come close up to the boats; but the flash of a musket 

 in the pan, or even the pointing of a musket at them, would send them 

 down in an instant. The female walrus will defend her offspring 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 one be killed, the other is a certain prey." 



We find the Avalrus can live, at least for some time, in a temperate cli- 

 mate. We do not know how long it goes with young, but if we judge by 

 the time of its growth and size, we must suppose it to be upwards of nine 

 months. It cannot continue in the water for a long time together, and b 

 obliged to go on shore to suckle its young, and for other occasions. When 

 they meet with a steep shore, or pieces of ice to climb up, they make use 

 of their tusks to hold by, and their feet to drag along the heavy mass of 

 their body. They are said to feed upon the shell-fish which are at the 

 oottom of the sea, and to grub them up with their strong tusks. Others 



