78 ODOB^ENUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. 



and other Hands lying to the North-wards as farre as seventie 

 eight degrees, this Pinnasse was some twentie tunnes, and had 

 twelve men in her, who killed one thousand Sea-horses on 

 Edges Hand, and brought all their Teeth home for London." 



In 1017, they " employed a ship of sixtie tunnes, with twenty 

 men in her, who discovered to the Eastward of Greenland, as 

 farre North- wards as seventy-nine degrees, and an Hand which 

 he named Witches Hand, and divers other Hands as by the 

 Map appeareth, and killed store of Sea-horses there . . ."* 



The Dutch, Danes, and Spaniards began, in 1612, also to 

 visit Spitzbergen in pursuit of Whales and Sea-horses, but are 

 reported by the English to have made indifferent voyages. The 

 company soon also had rivals in the "Hull-men," who, as well 

 as the Dutch, did them much "ill service."! 



About the years 1611 and 1612, the Whale-fishery was found 

 to be more profitable than Walrus-hunting, and subsequently 

 became the main pursuit, not only by the English, but by the 

 Dutch and Danes. Yet the Walruses were by no means left 

 wholly unmolested, having been constantly hunted, with more 

 or less persistency, down to the present day, and, as already 

 shown, were long since exterminated from Cherie Island and 

 other smaller islands more to the northward, and greatly re- 

 duced in numbers on the shores of Spitzbergen. 



Walruses have been recently reported as occurring on the 

 outer or northwestern coast of Nova Zembla, but as not exist- 

 ing on the inner or southeastern coast. Yon Baer, on the au- 

 thority of S. Gr. Gmelin and others, gave the eastern limit of the 

 distribution of the Atlantic Walruses as the mouth of the Jene- 

 sei Eiver, though very rarely single individuals wandered as 

 far eastward as the Piasina Eiver. He even regarded the Gulf 

 of Obi as almost beyond their true home.J Von Middendorff, 

 however, considers von Baer's eastern limit as incorrect, and 

 cites old Kussian manuscript log-books ("handschriftliche 

 Schiffsblicher") in proof of their occurrence in numbers in Au- 

 gust, 1736, as far east as the eastern Taimyr Peninsula, and of 

 their being met with in August, 1739, as far east as Chatanga 

 Bay. Still further eastward, in the vicinity of the mouth of the 

 Lena Eiver, he gives similar authority for their occurrence in 

 August, 1735, and says that Dr. Figurin attests their presence 



*Purchas Ms Pilgrimes, vol. iii, p. 467. tlbid., pp. 472, 473. 



tM6m. de PAcad. des Sci. de St. P<5tersb., vi c s6r. ? Sci. math., phys. etnat., 

 tome iv, 2 dc pars, pp. 174, 184. 



