Observations on Seals and Whales. 215 



The largest male walrus which was measured was 370 cm. All 

 had especially on the mammæ numerous lice {Haematopinus tri- 

 chechi) attached to them (this has not before been observed on the 

 East Greenland walrus). 



In conclusion I may note from my journal two observations on 

 the walrus, which I am unable to explain fully but which seem to 

 me specially interesting, as both of them liave been unknown hitherto 

 and are very peculiar. 



The one observation was made by Captain Koch on the return 

 voyage from Кар Bridgman (''/i; 07). At 81° 10' N. L. there was a 

 large opening with clear water and a stretch of ice about 10 inches 

 thick. On the latter lay a male walrus and close to it a seal {Phoca 

 foetida). The walrus lay near a hole in the ice, through which 

 presumably the seal had first come up and afterwards the walrus. 

 When the men approached, both animals moved away in the direc- 

 tion of the open water, but as the walrus moved faster than the 

 seal it quickly overtook the latter, and then the remarkable thing 

 was seen, that it did not go round the seal, but turned on it and 

 shoved at it; and as presumably it did not imagine this sufficient 

 it dug its tusks into the animal lying almost helpless on the 

 ice. When both animals were shot later, the seal was found to be 

 cruelly marked from this rough treatment with bleeding wounds on 

 the body. Whether the reason was, that the walrus had simply 

 become greatly enraged because the seal was in its way, or whether 

 it was a time of year when the walrus is specially brutal towards 

 its rivals (pairing time?), and thus in the absence of these had 

 broken loose on the seal, must remain unanswered. 



The second observation was made by myself at Stormkaj) 

 (ca. 76i/-2° N. L., ca. 18^2° W. L.), ^'4s 07. "The Storm Bugt previously 

 free of ice was to-day filled with drift-ice; yet there were many 

 larger and smaller spaces with open water, near the land covered 

 with thin ice. Here 1 saw two walrus in the forenoon. Sometimes 

 they were close under the land (so near, that the body was above 

 the surface while swimming), sometimes they swam outward side 

 by side under the thin ice and came up in a clear space further 

 out, one at a time; then they blew and approached one another 

 floating, until they suddenly turned on the side and belly to belly 

 sunk in the water. They reappeared again shortly after, close to 

 one another, turned somersaults and played about in all possible 

 directions, so that it was impossible to distinguish the one body 

 from the other; each time they circled round, their two heads came 

 up together, then they swung round one another, their bodies almost 

 entwined and finally all four hind flippers hung vertically in the 



