114 ODOB^ENUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALKux.. 



i 



in Frobisher 7 s Bay had met with no Whales, "Walrus in any 

 numbers could be obtained, and many had been secured for 

 their skins and tusks." 



The Walruses in the Spitzbergen waters, according to Mr. 

 Lamont, usually congregate in August in great numbers on 

 land, " sometimes to the number of several thousands, and all 

 lie down in some secluded bay or some rocky island, and there 

 remain in a semi-torpid sort of state, for weeks together, with- 

 out moving or feeding. 77 They do not usually do this, he adds, 

 till near the end of August, or some months later than they 

 were found to do in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on 

 the shores and islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This is 

 possibly owing to the difference in the climate, although, it 

 seems hardly probable that this can be the whole cause of the 

 difference. Mr. Lamont, in this connection, makes no reference 

 to the time of bringing forth of the young, and does not give 

 this as one of the reasons for their visiting the land. He alludes, 

 however, to their sudden disappearance at this time from the 

 ice-floes. He says the Walrus-hunters consider themselves 

 fortunate if they find one of these resorts, as then they can kill 

 in a few hours a " small fortune's- worth of them. 77 His account 

 of these " trysting-places, 77 however, is mainly at second hand, 

 and possibly the date is not carefully given.* 



Mr. Lainont 7 s account of the great havoc the hunters often 

 make with the then helpless beasts, destroying many hundreds 

 in a few hours, is quite similar, so far as the destruction of life 

 is concerned, to the account given by Lord Shuldham of their 

 destruction a century and a half ago at the Magdalen Islands. 

 Eeferring to one of the southwesternniost of the Thousand 

 Islands, Mr. Lamont says: a lt seems that this island had long 

 been a very celebrated place for Walruses going ashore, and 

 great numbers had been killed upon it at different times in by- 

 gone years. In August, 1852, two small sloops sailing in com- 

 pany approached the island, and soon discovered a herd of Wal- 

 ruses, numbering, as they calculated, from three to four thousand, 

 reposing upon it. Four boats 7 crews, or sixteen men, proceeded 

 to the attack with spears. One great mass of Walruses lay in 

 a small sandy bay, with rocks enclosing it on each side, and on 

 a little mossy flat above the bay, but to which the bay formed 

 the only convenient access for such unwieldy animals. A great 

 many hundreds lay on other parts of the island at a little dis- 

 * Seasons with the Sea-horses, pp. 173, 174. 



