2o6 FLESH-EATERS OF THE SEA 



temper that bodes ill for the next prospective prey that is 

 encountered. 



To the Eskimo tribes, the Walrus is the first necessity of 

 life. From the skin are made the coverings of the kayaks, 

 or canoes, in which the Eskimo hunts the seal and the 

 Walrus. The bones furnish him with the runners for his 

 sledges and the heads of his weapons, while the tusks form 

 the points of his spears and harpoons, and are also cut into 

 fish-hooks, the weights of bird-slings, and similar objects. 

 The intestines are split, and twisted into twine of great 

 strength, from which are made the nets and fishing-lines on 

 which the livelihood of the native largely depends. The 

 flesh supplies him with ample stores of food, while the 

 abundant fat is used as fuel in the stone lamp, without 

 which the Eskimo could not possibly live. 



It need scarcely be said that man has wrought terrible havoc 

 among the Walrus tribe. King Alfred records how Othere 

 and his men made a fine battue of these marine mammals on 

 the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and it is a well-known fact 

 that the Greenlanders paid their contribution to the cost 

 of the Crusades in Walrus tusks. In later times one hears 

 of the voyagers to Spitzbergen slaying nine hundred 

 Walruses in a few hours. Mr. Lyddeker says that in the 

 ten years 1870-80, Russian whalers alone obtained 400,000 

 pounds of ivory and 2,000,000 gallons of Walrus oil. These 

 figures point to the capture of at least a hundred thousand 

 Walruses. The diminution in their numbers has reduced 

 Walrus-hunting to rather a low ebb, but so long as there 

 are sufficient to meet the needs of the Eskimo all may be 

 accounted well. 



