214 



FiiiTS Johansen. 



The food of the wah'us mainly consists, as is known, of 

 shell-fish; thus in the North-East Greenland walrus we found the 

 "feet" of Cardinm groenlandicum (but not the shells); further, in one 

 animal a large Sclerocrangon boreas, in another small stones and in 

 a third remains of a seal (Phoca foetida) in the form of hind flip- 

 pers, the skin of the head with a part of the skull etc. (^''/э 07). 

 This last kind of food, not elsewhere found in walrus, was probably 

 the remains of a meal of a bear the walrus had found and then 

 eaten for want of better; there can naturally be no talk of the walrus 



Fig. 7. Remains of a Phoca foetida in the stomach of a wah'us. 

 Danmarks Havn "'/у 1907. 



having killed the seal. With regard lo the manner in which the- 

 animals obtain their food (which occurs on the sandy bottom ir^ 

 shallow water near the coasts or on banks in the sea), it was- 

 observed, that they sink down to the sea-bottom in a sloping direction 

 (the front end downmost), until they almost stand on their heads ; 

 they then move backwards ploughing the bottom with their tusk§;, 

 after a short time they return to the surface to breathe and then 

 again go down (September 1907). Or they may lie for hours (even: 

 several days) on an ice-floe near a shell-fish bank out in the fjord^ 

 now and then diving down for ca. 10 minutes under the water to- 

 return with their mouth full of shell-fish (off Cape Bismarck (76° 42.' 

 N. L., 18° 36' W. L.j, August 1907; the depth here was ca. 70 m.). 



