AMONG THE WALRUS HERDS 129 



we hunted were males. The females at this season were 

 segregated for the purpose of nursing their young, which 

 are born in the spring. 



But our chief attention was centered on the large 

 gathering of animals crowded upon the ice pan to wind- 

 ward of us. They were at least forty in number, for we 

 counted that many that we could see, and were packed 

 together to the very edge of the ice. Many, lucky 

 enough to have arrived early and secured places in the 

 middle of the floe, were forced to sit up by the pushing 

 of later comers, and expressed their discontent by- fre- 

 quent grunts and ill-natured tusk jabs at their neighbors. 

 Some hung to the edge of the dry ice by their fore- 

 flippers, their bodies resting on the under-water shelf, 

 awaiting a chance to force a way up on a newly vacated 

 spot. Some bodies lay over the others, and when one, 

 annoyed at being too insistently squeezed or lain upon, 

 sat up and brandished his formidable teeth in the air, 

 several more generally were inconvenienced enough to 

 rear up too and argue out the point with him by voice 

 and ivory. Their squabbles lasted only a minute, began 

 with a couple of sharp pecks at the flank or shoulder of 

 the offending animal, caused a sudden shift out of the 

 way or a few clashes of tusks, and ended by both crea- 

 tures falling back to sleep with a long sigh of resignation 

 at the petty bothers in having to Hve with others. 

 Large tuskers seemed to be the tyrants of the rookery 

 and the others often imitated their example; in a small 

 herd they even prepared to He down again after a bullet 

 had brained the leader and laid him motionless on the 

 snow. Around the edges of the pan walrus were "mill- 

 ing" all the time, rising to blow and sinking at once; 

 some rose high out of water looking for a vantage ground 



