CAKNIVORA 



A full-grown male Walrus measures from 10 to 11 feet from the 

 nose to the end of the very short tail, and is a heavy, bulky animal, 

 especially thick about the shoulders. The soles of both fore and 

 hind feet are bare, rough, and warty. The surface of the skin 

 generally is covered with short, adpressed hair of a light, yellowish- 

 brown colour, which, on the under parts of the body and base of 

 the flippers, passes into dark reddish-brown or chestnut. In old 

 animals the hair becomes more scanty, sometimes almost entirely 

 disappearing, and the skin shows ample evidence of the rough life 

 and pugnacious habits of the animal in the innumerable scars with 

 which it is usually covered. It is everywhere more or less wrinkled, 



FIG. 274. The Walrus (Trichechiis roamarus). 



but especially over the shoulders, where it is thrown into deep and 

 heavy folds. 



The tusks are formidable weapons of defence, but their principal 

 use seems to be scraping and digging among the sand and shingle 

 for the molluscs and crustaceans on which the Walrus feeds. They 

 are said also to aid in climbing up the slippery rocks and ledges of 

 ice on which so much of the animal's life is passed. Although this 

 function of the tusks is affirmed by numerous authors, some of 

 whom appear to have had opportunities of actual observation, it is 

 explicitly denied by Malmgren. 



Walruses are more or less gregarious in their habits, being met 

 with generally in companies or herds of various sizes. They are 

 only found near the coast or on large masses of floating ice, and 

 rarely far out in the open sea ; and, though often moving from one 

 part of their feeding ground to another, they have no regular 

 seasonal migrations. Their young are born between the months of 



