474 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



has been gradually exterminated during the past three cen- 

 turies, so that it now is rare south of Cape Chidley, Labrador. 

 The influence of cold near-shore waters resulted in its ranging 

 farther south in the western than in the eastern Atlantic, 

 where the Gulf Stream swings northward. The only known 

 occurrence of the walrus in Massachusetts Bay is of one 

 captured at Plymouth, Mass., in December, 1734, apparently 

 a small one, 9 feet long, with 5- or 6-inch tusks. It was on 

 exhibition for a time in Boston. In addition, fragments of 

 skulls with tusks have been brought up by trawlers in the Gulf 

 of Maine in at least four instances of recent years (see G. M. 

 Allen, 1930). In colonial days these animals had as their most 

 southern breeding place the shelving beaches of Sable Island, 

 off Nova Scotia, and must occasionally have come in to the 

 waters off Maine. Between 1633 and 1642 vessels from the 

 Massachusetts Bay Colony made a number of expeditions to 

 this island to secure the tusks and oil. In 1641 a vessel with 

 12 men spent eight months there and returned bringing "400 

 pair of sea horse teeth, which were esteemed worth 300." 

 After about 1650 the walrus was probably exterminated or 

 driven away from this outpost. It remained, however, in some 

 numbers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence for at least another 

 century. The Magdalen Islands were a favorite resort with a 

 "hauling ground" particularly on Brion Island. An old ac- 

 count by Shuldham (quoted by J. A. Allen, 1880, p. 67) tells 

 of their repairing here early in spring "in great numbers; 

 formerly, when undisturbed by the Americans, to the amount 

 of seven or eight thousand." Here they were regularly killed 

 by attacking them at night, and, as Shuldham relates, "in this 

 manner there has been killed fifteen or sixteen hundred at one 

 cut," possibly an exaggeration but at least an indication of 

 their abundance at about 1775. Walruses have occasionally 

 visited the Straits of Belle Isle and the Newfoundland waters 

 down to recent years, but at the present time they occur there 

 only as rare stragglers. One is reported by Grenfell as killed 

 near Cape Meccatina as recently as 1909 (see also Vigneau, 

 1908a, 1908b). Dr. R. M. Anderson (1935) states that Maj. 

 L. T. Burwash, who has made a special study of the matter, 

 reported in 1931 that he did not know of any walruses south of 

 Hudson Strait. Low, in 1906, wrote that they were only rarely 

 killed at Cape Chidley, the most northern part of Labrador. 



