THE OCEAN MAMMALS 363 



seas it would seem they are getting scarcer, and the huge 

 herds once so common are now seldom seen. The ex- 

 tinction of the walrus in Hudson Bay will mean death to 

 many of the only class of human beings able to flourish 

 in that environment. Nevertheless, the increasingly fatal 

 weapons of modern civilization are being directed against 

 the walrus for the paltry return they give the white man 

 or for "pure sport." 



Surely the time has come to extend some protection to 

 the northern people by preserving almost their sole food- 

 supply. Professor Henry Elliot describes the absolute 

 destitution of two villages of three hundred Eskimo, whom 

 he knew personally and regarded as a superior race of 

 Eskimo; their starvation, in this case, resulted from the 

 fact that a special movement of the ice that year deprived 

 them of walrus. A. P. Low records the death of every 

 single soul in a Hudson Bay community from starvation 

 because the whalers had supplied modern weapons to neigh- 

 bouring Eskimo, who were then employed in destroying the 

 only walrus (for export of the skins) available to the fated 

 settlement. Were it in my power, I would most certainly 

 close for " civilized" walrus hunting all the water to the 

 west of Labrador and Baffin's Bay, and thus prevent the 

 intentional or the unintentional robbing of another people's 

 means of existence. 



After all, the walrus catch is of no great value to the 

 white man. The dense skin from a half inch to three inches 

 in thickness is useful only for a few special purposes. The 

 ivory of the tusks keeps its colour well, but is very faulty, 

 and not large enough for the manufacture of billiard balls. 

 It is of comparatively little value. I once bought from a 



