72 ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. 



the last tliirty [now about forty-six] years. [*] After their 

 desertion of the Finniarken coast, Bear Island [or Cherie Island, 

 lying about two hundred and eighty miles north of the Xorth 

 Cape] became the principal scene of their destruction ; and next 

 the Thousand Islands [southeast of Spitzbergeu], Hope Island 

 [a little further north, but stiU in the southeast corner], and 

 Eyk Yse Island, which in their turn are now ver}^ inferior 

 hunting-ground to the banks and skerries lying to the north of 

 Spitzbergen. 



" Fortunately for the persecuted Wakuses, however, these lat- 

 ter districts are only accessible in open seasons, or j^erhaps once 

 in three or four summers, so that they get a little breathiug 

 time there to breed and replenish then- numbers, or undoubt- 

 edly the next twenty or thirty years would witness the total 

 extinction of Eosmarus tricliecus on the coasts of the islands of 

 Northern Europe. 



"The Walrus is also found all round the coasts of IS^ovaZem- 

 bla, but not in such numbers as at Spitzbergen; and he under- 

 goes, if possible, more persecution in those islands from some 

 colonies of Eussians or Samoiedes, who, I am told, regularly 

 winter in Kova Zembla for the purpose of hunting and flsh- 

 ing."t 



" The war of extermination," says Mr. Lamont, in his later 

 work, " which has been carried on for many j^ears in Spitzber- 

 gen and Novaya Zemlya has driven all the Arctic fauna [mam- 

 mals] from their old haunts, and, in seeking retreats more inac- 

 cessible to man, it is probable that they ha^'e had in some 

 degree to alter their habits. For example, up to about twenty 

 years ago it was customary for all Wakus-hunters to entertain 

 a reasonable hope that by waiting till late in the season aU for- 

 mer ill-luck might be compensated in a few fortunate hours by 

 killing some hundreds on shore ; in fact, favorite haunts were 

 well known to the fishers, and were visited successively before 

 finally leaving the hunting-grounds. Now, although the Arctic 

 seas are explored by steamers and visited annually by as bold 

 and enterprising hunters as formerly, such a windfall as a herd 

 of Walruses ashore is seldom heard of. 



" Each year better found vessels and more elaborate weapons 



* Mr. Lamont has since reported the capture of a large bull " in Magero 

 Sound near the North Cape about 1868." Yachting in the Arctic Seas, p. 58, 

 footnote. 



t Seasons with the Sea-horses, pp. 167, 168. 



