3G8 ARTICLE BY DR. J. A. ALLEN. 



Family ODOBENID.^. 



WALRUSES. 



The walruses are cliaraeterized by their thick, lieavy form, the ab- 

 sence of external ears, the development of the canine teeth into enor- 

 mous tusks, and the correlated great expansion of the facial portion of 

 the slaill. The hind feet are capable of being turned forward to aid 

 in terrestrial locomotion. 



Tlie two existing species of walrus constitute the genus Odohcnus 

 Briss. {Trichechits of many authors; not of LiniiiEus, 1758). There 

 are several extinct forms, usually referred to other genera. The exist- 

 ing walruses are now Arctic in distribution, altliough formerly their 

 habits extended much further south than at present. 



1. Atlantic Walrus. Odohemis rosmams (Linn.). — The Atlantic 



walrus greatly resembles the Pacilic walrus (0.o&es«.v), 



externally, but the front of the head is much narrower 



and less dee]>, and tlie tusks are shorter and more divergent, resulting 



in a very different facial expression. The essential dilterences are in 



the cranial characters, where the differences are strongly pronounced. 



At the close of the glacial period the Atlantic walrus ranged as far 



south, on the eastern coast of I^orth America, as Vir- 

 ^'''^"'•^' ginia, and as late as the middle of the sixteenth cen- 



tury was abundant oil" the coast of Nova Scotia. In Charlevoix's time 

 there was an extensive Avalrus fishery at Sable Island. During the 

 latter part of the eighteenth century they were hunted extensively at 

 the Magdalen and other islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where as 

 many as lifteen or sixteen hundred were sometimes killed in a single 

 onslaught. Through w^holesale destruction for their oil, hides, and 

 tusks they were speedily exterminated south of LaV)rador. They arc 



now rarely met with south of Hudson Bay, l3avis 

 mn'tii':'^'"'' ^"^^ ^^"' Strait, and the coast of Greenland; more to the north- 

 ward they still exist, but only in comparatively small 

 numbers. They have been found as far north as explorers have pene- 

 trated. 

 On the coast of Europe the walrus has occurred within historic 



times as far south as Scotland, and strayed to the Ork- 

 uuHiuru^OTopo. ^° iieys as late as 1857. There is good evidence that it 



also regularly frequented, two or three centuries ago, 

 the coast of Finmark. It ranged thence eastward on the Siljerian coast 

 as far as the mouth of the Yenesei River. Its principal phices of re- 

 sort, however, were Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, and the smaller islands 



of the Arctic Sea. In this region the walrus has been 

 o/tiio wai'riis'""*"''^ relentlessly hunted for its commercial products since 



the beginning of the seventeenth century. During the 

 early part of this century (1003 to lOlli) thousands were killed annually 

 by Englisli seamen for their oil and tusks, first at Cherrie Island, and 

 later at Spitzbergen. The slaughter was continued by the^J)utch, 

 Danes, and Spaniards till too fe^' were left to render the juirsuit of them 

 longer profitable, the whale fishery then su])])lanting walrus hunting. 

 The persecution of the walrus, however, continued as o])i)()rtunity 



favored, eitherfor its commercial ])roducts or for sport, 

 Extermination ini- ^^y^i j^g extermination in these waters has seemed only 



IIllIl6Illr. . ^ , 4 1 » 1 TkX • J • • "^ 



a question ot tune. Bror. iVltred Newton, writing in 

 1864, said: "Now they are hemmed in by the packed ice of the Polar 



