114 WALRUS, OR SEA-HORSE. 



dom in a hurry to get away, till after they had been 

 once fired at, when they would tumble over each 

 other into the sea, ir ,he utmost confusion. Vast num- 

 bers of them would follow, and come close up to the 

 boats, but the flash of a musket in the pan, or even 

 the bare pointing of one, would send them down in 

 an instant." Zorgdrager, in his account of the 

 whale-fishery, gives a similar testimony, mention- 

 ing that, before they were persecuted at Spitzber- 

 gen, they advanced far upon land, and were little 

 upon their guard, so that sometimes 300 or 400 of 

 them were killed at a time. They were soon 

 taught, however, a lesson of caution and prudence. 

 "Ere long," continues the interesting voyager, "they 

 withdrew to the most unfrequented places, into re* 

 tired plains and banks of sand, where vessels rarely 

 approach, and when followed there, instructed by 

 the persecution they had suffered, they are so much 

 upon their guard, that they keep always near the 

 water, to facilitate their retreat. This fact I ex- 

 perienced on a large sand-bank near Werland, where 

 I fell in with a troop of thirty or forty ; some were 

 on the very margin of the water, and the others at no 

 great distance. We stopped some hours without 

 landing, in the hopes that they would advance fur- 

 ther into the plain. But as this stratagem did 

 not succeed, we landed with two boats to the 

 right and left of them, but almost the whole of them 

 were in the water the moment we put our feet 

 on shore." Zorgdrager thus ascribes their in- 

 creased caution to dear bought experience ; and the 



