AMONG THE WALRUS HERDS 141 



It was now almost a flat calm. We had given the 

 walrus a half-hour to forget their assault, and this 

 seemed ample for their stupid brains. Then we set out 

 on the most interesting of our stalks: interesting because 

 the water between us and our prey was alive with mem- 

 bers of the herd that we had just provoked and we could 

 not tell what their temper might be if we ventured 

 among them. A number were swimming around the 

 occupied ice-pan seeking a roost, as was their habit; 

 others were arriving and leaving, above and under water. 



Prudently making dashes from one straggling cake to 

 the next, we got within two hundred yards. Just as we 

 pushed out from the refuge at this point, a huge walrus 

 rose right in front of us and dived with a snort of sur- 

 prise. Not less startled than he, we retreated to the 

 other side of the berg, which was about six feet high, 

 and lay for a few minutes in a little cove of the floe. 

 Then we fared forth again and made a dash to the next 

 cover. Fifty yards to the right of this a group of wal- 

 rus stood in the water and turned their fishy eyes at us, 

 but we passed them unmolested and waited for some 

 time at the third floe, until the several individuals on 

 both sides of it had gone their ways. It was now a 

 longer stretch to the most likely position we could see 

 for a shot. Once safely there we got up to the top, five 

 or six feet above water, and looked across to the densely 

 crowded rookery seventy yards away. At one corner of 

 this a wounded animal from the other troop was staining 

 the ice red as he tried to climb to a resting place, but he 

 did not succeed in finding asylum and went back again 

 to the others in the water. 



''I'll take a shot from here," announced Lovering, 

 rather dubious at the distance, which was somewhat too 



