THE WALRUS, OR MORSE. 305 



reside in, and are almost always found together. They 

 have the same habitudes in every respect, excepting that 

 there are fewer varieties of the Morse than the seal : they 

 likewise are more attached to one particular climate, and 

 are rarely found except in the northern seas. 



" There was formerly," says Zordrager, "great plenty 

 of Morses and seals in the bays ot Horisont and Klock, but 

 at present there are very few. Both these animals quit the 

 water in the summer, and resort to the neighboring plains, 

 where there are flocks of them, from eighty to two hundred, 

 particularly Morses, which will remain there several days 

 together, till hunger obliges them to return to the sea. 

 This animal externally resembles the seal, but it is stronger 

 and much larger : like that, it has five toes to each paw, 

 but its claws are shorter, and its head thicker and rounder ; 

 its skin is 'thick, wrinkled, and covered with very short 

 hair of different colors ; its upper jaw is armed with two 

 teeth about half an ell or an ell in length ; these tusks, 

 which are hollow at the root, become larger as the animal 

 grows older. Some of them are found to have but one, the 

 other being torn out in fighting, or perhaps fallen out through 

 age. This ivory generally brings a greater price than that 

 of the elephant, as it is of a more compact and harder sub- 

 stance. The mouth of this animal is like that of 4 the ox, 

 and furnished with hairs which are hollow, pointed, and 

 about the thickness of a straw. Above the mouth are two 

 nostrils, through which the animal spouts the water like a 

 whale. There are a great number of Morses towards 

 Spitzbergen, and the profit that is derived from their teeth 

 and fat fully repays the trouble of taking them, for the oil 

 is almost as much valued as that produced from the whale. 

 When the hunter is near one of these animals in the water, 

 or on the ice, he darts a very strong harpoon at it, which, 

 though made expressly for the purpose, often slips over its 

 hard and thick skin ; but if it has penetrated into it, they 

 haul the animal towards the boat, and kill it with a sharp 



