OCEANIC MAMMALS 473 



FIGS.: Allen, J. A., 1880, figs. 1, 2, 3, 15, 16, 18, 20, 23, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 35 (skull): 

 Stone and Cram, 1902, col. pi. opp. p. 222; Anderson, R. M., 1935, p. 79 (photo- 

 graph). 



The walruses, although not breeding in large rookeries like 

 fur seals, are nevertheless highly social and consort together in 

 smaller or larger groups, often "hauling out" on ice floes to 

 rest, or on shelving beaches in certain favored localities. Like 

 the fur seals, they still retain the power of turning the hind 

 feet forward when on land or ice, and the feet are modified for 

 swimming through the development of webbing between the 

 toes and the elongation of the digits. The thick heavy body 

 may weigh up to a ton and a half, with a well-developed neck. 

 The short coarse hairy covering is dark yellowish brown, but 

 it often may rub off with wear so that the back and shoulders 

 are more or less hairless. External ears are lacking. The large 

 canine teeth are developed as tusks, which are used in fighting, 

 in digging on shallow bottoms for the clams on which they 

 chiefly feed, or as aids in dragging the heavy body out on land 

 or ice. The muzzle is narrower than in the Pacific walrus, and 

 the tusks of males are shorter and slightly divergent outward. 

 Well-developed tusks may be 1 as much as 20 inches long, but 

 the portion projection from the mouth seldom exceeds 15 

 inches. They are therefore shorter than in the Pacific species. 

 The cheek teeth are soon worn down to large, flat-surfaced pegs. 



In glacial times this walrus was found as far south as the 

 coast of Virginia, as proved by fossil remains, but at the time 

 of the discovery of America by Europeans it probably did not 

 come farther south than Massachusetts Bay, and then only 

 occasionally. In colonial times its most southern breeding 

 ground was Sable Island off Nova Scotia. On the European 

 side it occasionally occurs as a straggler as far south as the 

 British Isles and in one instance to the coast of Holland 

 (Nieuwediep, in November, 1926, see Van den Brink, 1931, p. 

 176). It rarely appears in the seas about Iceland and southern 

 Greenland. Northward its range extends to the western side 

 of Hudson Bay and south into James Bay, and throughout the 

 eastern archipelago to Smith Sound in about latitude 80 N. 

 The eastward limits are the seas about Spitsbergen and Franz 

 Josef Land and possibly to the Lena Delta. Apparently its 

 range at no point now meets that of the Pacific walrus. 



Over all the southern parts of its Atlantic range the walrus 



