72 ODOB^ENUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. 



the last thirty [now about forty-six] years. [*] After their 

 desertion of the Finmarken coast, Bear Island [or Cherie Island, 

 lying about two hundred and eighty miles north of the North 

 Cape] became the principal scene of their destruction ; and next 

 the Thousand Islands [southeast of Spitzbergen], Hope Island 

 [a little further north, but still in the southeast corner], and 

 Eyk Yse Island, which in their turn are now very inferior 

 hunting-ground to the banks and skerries lying to the north of 

 Spitzbergen. 



" Fortunately for the persecuted Walruses, however, these lat- 

 ter districts are only accessible in open seasons, or perhaps once 

 in three or four summers, so that they get a little breathing 

 time there to breed and replenish their numbers, or undoubt- 

 edly the next twenty or thirty years would witness the total 

 extinction of Eosmarus trichecus on the coasts of the islands of 

 Northern Europe. 



" The Walrus is also found all round the coasts of Nova Zem- 

 bla, but not in such numbers as at Spitzbergen j and he under- 

 goes, if possible, more persecution in those islands from some 

 colonies of Russians or Samoiedes, who, I am told, regularly 

 winter in Nova Zembla for the purpose of hunting and fish- 

 ing.''! 



" The war of extermination," says Mr. Lainont, in his later 

 work, " which has been carried on for many years in Spitzber- 

 gen and Novaya Zeinlya has driven all the Arctic fauna [mam- 

 mals] from their old haunts, and, in seeking retreats more inac- 

 cessible to man,* it is probable that they have had in some 

 degree to alter their habits. For example, up to about twenty 

 years ago it was customary for all Walrus-hunters to entertain 

 a reasonable hope that by waiting till late in the season all for- 

 mer ill-luck might be compensated in a few fortunate hours by 

 killing some hundreds on shore ; in fact, favorite haunts were 

 well known to the fishers, and were visited successively before 

 finally leaving the hunting-grounds. Now, although the Arctic 

 seas are explored by steamers and visited annually by as bold 

 and enterprising hunters as formerly, such a windfall as a herd 

 of Walruses ashore is seldom heard of. 



" Each year better found vessels and more elaborate weapons 



* Mr. Lament lias since reported the capture of a large bull "in Magero 

 Sound near the North Cape about 1868." Yachting in the Arctic Seas, p. 58, 

 footnote. 



t Seasons with the Sea-horses, pp. 167, 168. 



