No. 1 40 V m: 1 MM A LS OF NOR THWEST TERRITORIES— MA CPA RLA KE. 725 



an interesting and most unusual occurrence. Sir George Nares\s party 

 secured several specimens in 1875-76. General Greely o])tained sev- 

 eral. He writes that they were very rare in Smith Sound, north of 

 Cape Sabine. Lieutenant Lockwood, however, saw a polar bear at 

 Cape Benet on the Greenland coast in latitude 82'^ 24' north, which is 

 the most northerly American record. Sir Edward Parry, in 1827, 

 observed one on the ice also in latitude 82° 24' north, to the north of 

 Spitzbergen Island. "On August 18, 1859, while almost becalmed off 

 Cape Burney, a mother polar bear, with two interesting cubs about 

 the size of very large dogs, swam off to the J^'ox and were all shot." 

 McClintock says that the "veal" of the young appeared among the 

 delicacies of their table, and that Christian had asked him for a 

 portion of the old bear to carry home to his mother in Greenland, 

 where the flesh is considered a real delicacy. He further says that he 

 acquired the arctic acquisition of eating frozen bear's blubber in very 

 thin slices on biscuit, and vastly preferred it to frozen pork. At the 

 time of writing, however, he thought he could not even taste it, but 

 the same privation and sense of starvation from cold^ rather than 

 hungei\ which induced him to eat it then^ would doubtless enable him 

 again to partake thereof very l-hidly, if similarly "cooked by frost." 



PINNIPEDIA. 



WALRUS. 



Odohienus rosmarus (Linnaeus) and 0. ohesu^ (Illiger). 



Fifty years ago, the walrus was numerous in the northern seas 

 between Point Barrow and Cape Bathurst and to the eastward. On 

 several of our overland bird and egg collecting expeditions from 1862 

 to 1865 we observed a few individuals basking in the sun on the pack, 

 as well as on large blocks of tide-swayed ice at the southern end 

 of Franklin Bay. The Anderson Eskimos frequently brought into 

 the post for trade various articles made from the ivory tusks of the 

 walrus. Their umiaks, or women's ])oats, are usually made by sewing 

 the requisite number of hides together and placing them over a frame- 

 work composed of drift timber. The skins are also cut up into stout 

 thongs, which are highly valued, and the best procurable for dog-sled 

 line lashings. Its flesh and oil are greatly prized by the Eskimos. 

 After passing to the east of Point Barrow, Doctor Armstrong was 

 "surprised by seeing numerous herds of walruses {Trieheehus rosma- 

 rus) grouped together on the large detached masses of ice, drifted oft' 

 from the main pack, apparently asleep or basking in the sunshine. 

 The novelt}^ of a sight so unexpected was gladly welcomed, and various 

 and amusing were the opinions given l)y the men who had never seen 

 them before as to what they could possibly be, while they gazed in 

 mute wonder and amazement at the strange sight before them. They 



