THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 97 



most anomalous feature, I remember well how surprised I was when I followed the incision of the broad-axe used 

 in beheading' the specimen shot for my benefit, to find that the skin over the shoulders and around the throat aud 

 chest was three inches thick — a puffy, spongy epidermis, outward hateful to the sight, and inwardly resting upon 

 the slightly acrid fat or blubber so characteristic of this animal. Nowhere is this hide, upon the thinnest point of 

 measurement, less than half an inch thick. It feeds exclusively upon shellfish (Lamcllihraiichiatti), or clams 

 principally, and also upou the bulbous roots and tender stalks of certain marine plants and grasses which grow 

 in great abundance over the bottoms of broad, shallow lagoons and bays of the. main Alaskan coast. I took from 

 the paunch of the walrus above mentioned, more than a bushel of crushed clams in their shells, all of which that 

 animal had evidently just swallowed, for digestion had scarcely commenced. Many of those clams in that stomach, 

 large as my clenched hands, were not even broken; and it is in digging this shellfish food that the services 

 rendered by the enormous tusks become apparent.* 



Cowardice of the walrus op Bering sea. — It may not accord with the singular tales told, on the 

 Atlantic side, about the uses of these gleaming ivory teeth, so famous and conspicuous; but I believe that the 

 Alaskan walrus employs them solely in the labor of digging clams and rooting bulbs from those muddy oozes and 

 sandbars in the estuary waters peculiar to his geographical distribution. Certainly, it is difficult for me to 

 reconcile the idea of such uncouth, timid brutes, as were those spread before me on Walrus islet, with any of the 

 strange chapters written as to the ferocity and devilish courage of the Greenland morse. These animals were 

 exceeding cowardly ; abjectly so. It is with the greatest difficulty that the natives, when a herd of walruses 

 are surprised, can get a second shot at them: so far from clustering attacks around their boats, it is the very 

 reverse; aud the hunter's only solicitude is which way to travel in order that he may come up with the fleeing 

 animals as they rise to breathe. Again, I visited Walrus islet in 1874, accompanied by Lieutenant Mayuard, United 

 States navy, and the captain of the revenue-cutter l'eliance. We rowed from the ship directly toward the islet, to 

 a point where we saw the accustomed aud expected sight of walrus lying thereon. The wind was fair for us and we 

 came up almost to within a boat's oar distance of the dozing, phlegmatic herd. One was singled out, and 

 Captain Baker shot it— his first walrus ; the whole herd, as usual, hustled with terrible energy into the water, and 

 all around our boat, for we had not lauded, and they did not rise about or near us to give one suort of defiance, 

 or to give us the faintest suggestion of any disposition to attack us, but they disappeared unpleasantly soon— too 

 quickly. 



Absence of females on Walrus island. — As I have said before, there are no females on this 

 island, and I can therefore say nothing about them; I regret it exceedingly. On questioning the natives, as 

 we returned, they told me that the walrus of Bering sea was monogamous; and that the difference between the 

 sexes in size, color, and shape is inconsiderable ; or, in other words, that until the males are old, the young males 

 and the females of all ages are not remarkably distinct, and woidd not be at all if it were not for the teeth; they 

 said that the female brings forth her young, a single calf, in June, usually, on the ice-floes in the Arctic ocean, 

 above Bering straits, between point Barrow and cape Seartze Kaminin ; that this calf resembles the parent in 

 general proportions and color when it is hardly over six weeks old, but that the tusks (which give it its most 

 distinguishing expression) are not visible until the second year of its life; that the walrus mother is strongly 

 attached to her offspring,! and nurses it later through the season in the sea; that the walrus sleeps profoundly in 



received in exchange for these furs thus enveloped, and which were carried hence to Moscow. Here the soundest portions of the hide 

 remaining on the boxes were finally cut up and stamped into "kopecks" and a variety of small change, in time, to revisit its native seas ; 

 used as a circulating medium, for value received, throughout all Alaska where the Russians held power. A leather currency was long 

 known to that country, and old Philip Volkov, of St. Paul, told me that he never saw silver or gold coin used on the seal-islands until our 

 people brought it in 1868. These walrus parchment roubles were worth much less than their face value— sometimes only one-third. The 

 Russians also made harness out of walrus leather. As long as the weather remained cold and dry the wear of this material was highly 

 satisfactory, but woe to the "kibitscha" if caught out in a rain storm! The walrus harness then stretches like india-rubber, and the 

 horses fairly leave the vehicle far behind, sticking in the road, though the traces are unbroken. 



"It is, and always will be, a source of sincere regret to me aud my friends, that I did not bodily preserve this huge paunch and its 

 contents. It would have tilled a half barrel very snugly, aud then its mass of freshly swallowed clams (Mi/a truncata), filmy streaks of 

 macerated kelp, and fragments of crustaceans, could have been carefully examined during a week of leisure at the Smithsouiau Institution. 

 It w as. however, ripped open so quickly by one of the Aleuts, who kicked the concents out, that I hardly knew what had been done, ere the 

 strong-smelling subject was directly under my nose. The natives then were anxious that I should hurry through with my sketches, 

 measurements, etc.. so that they might the sooner push off their egg-laden bidarrah and cross back to the main island, before the fogs 

 would settle over our homeward track, or the rapidly rising wind shift to the northward and imperil our passage. 'Weighty reasons, these, 

 which so fully impressed me, that this unique stomach of a carnivora was overlooked and lefl behind; hence, with the exception of curiously 

 turning over the clams (especially those uncrushed specimens ), which formed the great bulk of its contents, I have no memoranda or even 

 distinct recollection of the other materials that were incorporated. The olivaceous green color of its soft, pasty excrement must be derived 

 from eating chlorospermce and divers branches of algoid growth. 



tThat the sea-lion and the fur-seal should be so apathetic when danger to their young arises, and that the clumsy, timid walrus 



tights tor their protection to the death, under the same circumstances, is somewhat strange. According to all reports which I can 



gather from reputable authority, notably Captain Cook's brief, yet explicit, account, the walrus never deserts its young in that manner, 



hitherto described, so characteristic of the Otariidce of Bering sea; this odd contrast in behavior is worthy of further attention, as far as 



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