136 ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. 



food, is further proven by Mr. Bartlett, who states that the one 

 received at the Gardens of the London Zoological Society in 

 1867 was fed on fish, mussels, whelks, clams, and the stomachs, 

 intestines, and other soft parts of fishes, and that while on the 

 way from the Davis's Straits to the Shetland Islands was fed 

 on strips of boiled pork, and subsequently during the voyage 

 on mussels. He says he is inclined to believe it would eat car- 

 rion or decomposed flesh, and raises the question whether the 

 Walruses may not " be the scavengers of the Arctic seas, the 

 Vultures among mammals," and suggests that the strong bris- 

 tles of the muzzle may have something to do with the gather- 

 ing of this kind of food, " as well as with shrimp-catching." 

 He further states that it declined every kind of sea-weed 

 offered.* 



Mr. Larnont informs us that he has found their stomachs 

 to contain great quantities of sand-worms, star-fish, shrimps, 

 clams (Tridacna), and cockles (Cardium), and that he believes 

 that they also eat marine algae, or sea- weeds. 



Malmgreu states that he found that the Walruses of Spitz - 

 bergen subsist almost exclusively upon two species of mussel, 

 namely, Mya truncata and Saxicava rugosa, which live buried 

 from 3 to 7 inches deep in the mud, in 10 to 50 fathoms of water. 

 By aid of their grinding teeth and tongue they remove the shells, 

 and swallow usually only the soft parts of the animal. Only once 

 among many thousands examined did Malmgren find any to 

 which a piece of the shell adhered. The young subsist for two 

 years almost solely upon the milk of the mother, they being 

 unable to dig mussels from the mud until their tusks have 

 attained a length of 3 or 4 inches, which length is not acquired 

 till the animals have reached the age of two years.t 



In common with some other Pinnipeds, the White Whale and 

 probably other Cetaceans, the Walrus takes into its stomach 

 small stones and gravel, but for what purpose appears as yet 

 unknown. Mr. Brown tells us that considerable quantities of 

 these are always seen around its atluk, or breathing-holes.:): 



*Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1867, p. 820. 



t See Malmgren as translated in Toschel's Arch, fur Naturgesch., 1864, 

 pp. 68-72. The reasons here given to account for the long period of nursing 

 seem reasonable, but other authorities believe that they derive nourishment 

 from the mother for only one year. 



tProc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 430. 



