270 



MAMMALS AND BIRDS OF THE ARCTIC 



north of Scotland, and so far east as the Lena, but it is now restricted to the more 

 remote parts of the Arctic regions, where it is yearly becoming scarcer. 



When feeding on bivalves the walrus rejects the shells before the soft parts are 

 swallowed ; and when taken from the stomach these soft parts, if recently swallowed, 

 are quite uninjured, the siphons, lobes of the mantle, etc., being found in perfect 

 preservation. This indicates that the molluscs cannot be ground up by the blunt 

 cheek-teeth, as has been asserted, but that the shells are removed in some other 

 way, probably by the action of the lips. Off Greenland, at any rate, walruses like- 



WALRUS. 



wise consume large quantities of the small shrimp known as Gammarus locusta, of 

 which the males are about an inch in length, while the females are still smaller. 

 In this case also the shell is removed and rejected before the morsel is swallowed. 

 How this is accomplished is difficult to imagine. 



That the walrus catches and eats fish, the cod being the chief species preyed 

 upon, appears to be little known. Equally noteworthy is the fact that numbers of 

 eider-ducks and Arctic fulmars are seized and devoured by these animals. This, 

 however, by no means exhausts the constituents of the diet, for, when a walrus 

 comes across a dead whale, porpoise, or seal, it gorges itself with the flesh, and 

 walruses will occasionally attack and kill live cetaceans and seals. How they 

 accomplish this, or how they commence operations when about to devour a dead 



