14* FOOD OF Till-: WALRUS. 



head also, and made diverse movements that it might 

 change its position. There was something disgusting in 

 the look of the group; when the naked, round masses of 

 fat, on which scarcely an outward limb was to be distin- 

 guished, interlaced themselves, so to say, with each other, 

 one could readily fancy them to be a cluster of gigantic; 

 worms. The almost inanimate appearance of these s. a 

 monsters, which for several days together can lie motion- 

 less in the same place, together with their clumsy and so 

 to speak chaotic form, would seem to give certain hold 

 inquirers some ground for looking upon them as merely 

 animals in embryo. And I do not doubt that philoso- 

 phers who venture to speculate on the origin of the 

 human species, and who believe that mankind, once 

 inhabitants of the ocean, have by an insect -like meta- 

 morphosis been developed out of forms similar in type to 

 the cetaceous mammals which are akin to fishes, would, if 

 they had beheld what I did shuddering, feel satisfied that 

 their theory was still further strengthened." 



Naturalists seem not to have altogether agreed 

 as to what constitutes the food of the walrus; some 

 authorities, Schrebcr amongst the rest, a dinning that it is 

 not at all carnivorous. Hut the evidence is strong to tin- 

 contrary ; Scores! >y having found in its stomach shrimps, 

 a kind ofcray-fish, and the remains of young seals. That 

 it feeds largely Oil certain sea-weeds, such as the FtfCUS 

 diyiltttiot, has, by dissection, been ascertained beyond 

 doubt. This the animal severs with its tusks from the 

 spot where they grow ; and whilst so occupied, according 

 to Professor Loven, who visited Spitzhcrgen some ye 



, "stands perpendicular in the water, with its head 

 directed downwards." 



The \\alrus, like the seal, seems capable of endur- 

 ing long abstinence. Lord Shuldham states that "it is 

 in the habit of crawling up the shore, in a convenient 



