124 ANIMAL SKETCHES. CHAP. 



complete and most excellent mastery. He will tear 

 through the water; and if he have been harpooned he 

 will tow a large boat astern as if it were a cockle-shell. 

 He will dive with consummate ease as to the manner 

 born. The simultaneousness, says Mr. Lament, with which 

 a herd of walruses will dive and reappear again is remark- 

 able. One moment you see a hundred grisly heads and 

 long gleaming white tusks above the waves ; they give 

 one spout from their blowholes, take one breath of fresh 

 air, and the next moment you see a hundred brown hemi- 

 spherical backs, the next a hundred pair of hind flippers 

 flourishing ; and then in a twinkling they are all down. 

 Yes ! The walrus can swim and dive excellently. In the 

 water he is at home, Like the British tar he leaves his 

 awkwardness ashore. 



In hunting the walrus, a peculiarly barbarous device 

 is or let us hopefully say used to be sometimes adopted. 

 This consisted in securing a young calf, which must be 

 harpooned lightly and tenderly lest it untimely perish. 

 Thus secured it was " stirred up " by much prodding 

 with the butt end of a harpoon. The object of this 

 humane procedure was to cause it " to emit a peculiar, 

 plaintive, grunting cry, eminently expressive of alarm 

 and of a desire for assistance." The mother and other 

 walruses then came to its aid, and were thus brought 

 within lance-thrust; for this ugly and ungainly brute 

 has a strange and beautiful tenderness for its young. 

 Lamont describes how a cow- walrus protected her infant 

 with touching solicitude. Whenever the harpooner (whose 

 name, of all others, was Christian), desirous of obtaining 

 a calf to " stir up," prepared to launch his weapon " she 

 seemed to watch the direction of it, and interposed her 

 own body, receiving several harpoons which were intended 

 for the young ones. I don't think I shall ever forget," 



