I. 



^ 



AFFECTION. 183 



montlis," and that both sexes and the youug are often found m 

 company. He adds that the paring' season occurs during- the 

 "last of the spring months or the fii'st of summer." His gen- 

 eral account of their habits is quite in harmony with the early 

 account given by Cook. " The mother and her offspring," he 

 says, " manifest a stronger mutual affection than we have ob- f 

 served in any other of the marine mammals ; the cub seeks her 

 l^rotection, clinging to her back whenever there is cause for 

 alarm, and she will at all times place herself between the foe 

 and her helpless charge; frequently has she been known to 

 clasp to her breast the terrified little one, embracing it with her 

 fore flippers, while receiving mortal wounds from the whale- 

 man's lance." Captain Scammon further states, in respect to the f 

 affection of the young for its mother, on the authority of Capt. \ 

 T. W. Williams, an experienced and observing whahng master, ^ 

 that " a female was captured two miles from the ship and the , 

 young cub kept close to the boats that were towing its dead I 

 mother to the vessel ; and when arrived, made every effort to 

 follow her as she was being hoisted on board. A rope uith a 

 bowline was easily thrown over it, and the bereaved creature 

 taken on deck, when it instantly mounted its mother's back and 

 there clung with mournful solicitude, until forced by the sailors 

 to again retm^n to the sea ; but even then it remained in the 

 vicinity of the ship, bemoaning the loss of its parent by utter- 

 ing distressful cries." "A male, and a female with her cub," 

 continues our author, " are often seen together ; yet herds of 

 old and young, of both sexes, are met with, both in the water 

 and upon the ice. AVhen undisturbed they are quite inoffensive, 

 but if hotly pursued they make a fierce resistance ; their mode of 

 attack is by hooking their tusks over the gunwales of the boat, 

 which may overturn them, or they strike a blow through the 

 planking, which has repeatedly been the means of staving and 

 sinking them."* 



The commercial products of the Pacific Walrus are, as in the 

 case of the other species, its tusks, oil, and hide. They are, fur- 

 thermore, to the Tschuktschi what the Greenland Walrus is to 

 the Esquimaux, their most important source of food, utensils, 

 and means of commercial interchange. Cook, Wrangell, and 

 numerous other exi)lorers of the Arctic waters beyond Behring's 

 Straits, unite in the testimonj" that they form the chief means of 

 support of the coast tribes. To quote the words of a recent 



* Marine Mammalia, p. 178. 



