THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 95 



first one up from the sea no sooner gets composed upon the rocks for sleep, than the second one comes along, 

 prodding and poking with its blunted tusks, demanding room also, and causes the first to change its position to 

 another location still farther off and up from the water, a few feet beyond ; then the second is in turn treated in 

 the same way by a third, and so on until hundreds will be slowly packed together on the shore, as thickly as they 

 can lie, never far back from the surf, however, pillowing their heads upon the bodies of one another, and not 

 acting at all quarrelsome toward each other. Occasionally, in their lazy, phlegmatic adjusting and crowding, the 

 posteriors of some old bull will be lifted up, and remain elevated in the air, while the passive owner sleeps with its 

 head, perhaps, beneath the pudgy form of its neighbor. 



USE OP TUSKS. A great deal has been written in regard to the manner in which the walrus uses his 

 enormous canines ; many authors have it that they are employed by Rosmarus as landing hooks, so that by sticking 

 them into the icy floes, or inserting them between rocky interstices or inequalities, the clumsy brute aids his hauling 

 out from the sea. I looked here at Walrus island very closely for such manifestation of their service to the 

 members of the herd, which was continually augmented by fresh arrivals from the surf while under my eye. They 

 did not in a single instance use their tusks in this manner; it was all done by the fore-flippers, and "boosting" of 

 exceptionally heavy surf which rolled in at wide intervals, and lor which marine assistance the walrus themselves 

 seemed to patiently wait.* 



With all this apparent indifference, however, they have established their reputation for vigilance in spite of it; 

 and they resort to a very singular method of keeping guard, if I may so term it. In this herd of three or four 

 hundred male walrus that were under my eyes, though nearly all were sleeping, yet the movement of one would 

 disturb the other, which would raise its head in a stupid manner, for a few moments, grunt once or twice, and before 

 Jying down to sleep again, it would strike the slumbering form of its nearest companion with its tusks, causing 

 that animal to rouse up in turn for a few moments also, grunt, and pass the blow on to the next, lying down in the 

 same manner. Thus the word was transferred, as it were, constantly and unceasingly around, always keeping some 

 one or two aroused, which consequently were more alert than the rest. 



HELPLESSNESS ON LAND. In moving on land they do not seem to have any physical power in the hind limbs ; 

 these are usually dragged and twitched up behind, or feebly flattened out at right angles to the body ; terrestrial 

 progression is slowly and tediously made by a dragging succession of short steps forward on the fore-feet; but, if 

 the alarm is given, it is astonishing to note the contrast which they present in their method of getting back to 

 sea; they fairly roll and hustle themselves over and into the waves. 



How long they remain out from the water, in this country, I am unable to say ; but, stored up as they are with 

 such an enormous supply of surplus fat, dull and sluggish in temperament, I should think that they could sustain 

 a fasting period equal to that of the Otariidee, if not superior to them in endurance. 



These adult males before me looked very much larger than I expected to find the walrus, t and it was fortunate 



* I have seen no description of this Paciflc walrus which is as good as is the first notice of it ever made to English readers, by Captain 

 Cook, in his Last Voyage ; it is, as far as it goes, precisely in accordance with my views of the same animal, nearly a century later, viz, 

 July, 1872. He said: ''They lie in herds of many hundreds upon the ice, huddling one over the other like swine, and roar or bay very lond, 

 go that in the night, or in foggy weather, they gave us notice of the vicinity of the ice before we could see it. We never found the whole 

 herd asleep ; some being always on the watch. These, on the approach of the boat, would wake those next to them, and the alarm being 

 thus gradually communicated, the whole herd would be awake presently. But they were seldom in a hurry to get away till after they had 

 once been fired at, when they would tumble one over the other into the sea in the utmost confusion, and if we did not at the first discharge 

 kill those we fired at, we generally lost them, though mortally wounded. They did not appear to be that dangerous animal some authors 

 have described, not even when attacked. They are rather more so to appe.irance than in reality. Vast numbers of them would follow, 

 and some come close up to the boats ; but the flash of a musket in the pan, or even the bare pointing of one at them, wonld send them down 

 in an instant. The feniale will defend the young one to the very last, and at the expense of her own life, whether in the water or upon 

 the ice. Nor will the young one quit the dam though she be dead ; so that, if you kill one you are sure of the other. The dam, when in 

 the water, holds the young one between her fore-fins." [Cook's (1*78) Voyages to the Pacific Ocean, etc., vol. ii, p. 458. London, 1785.] 



I do not wish to appear in the light of desiring to detract one iota from that credit of accurate description which so justly belongs 

 to Cook ; but he himself did not indicate that he thought the Pacific walrus a distinct species from its Atlantic congener ; his figure of the 

 Bering sea ttosmarut is entirely grotesque; a human face with beard, a thin neck and immensely inflated posteriors, and fore-flippers 

 divided up into distinct fingers, make a creature as totally unlike Odobcenus obesus as need be; yet, naturalists have gravely spoken of it 

 as "excellent"! Had Captain Cook possessed the same explicit and graphic power of description in his pencil that characterizes his pen, 

 I know full well that this caricature above referred to [Cook's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, etc., 1776-1780, vol. ii, pi. Hi] would never 

 have appeared. 



The pinnipeds are, perhaps, of all anima's, the most difficult subjects that the artist can find to reproduce from life; there are no 

 angles or elbows to seize hold of the lines of body and limbs are all rounded, free and flowing ; yet the very fleshiest examples never 

 have that bloated, wind-distended look which most of the figures published give them. One must first become familiarized with the restless, 

 varying attitudes of these creatures, by extended personal contact and observation, ere he can satisfy himself with the result of his 

 drawings, no matter how expert he may be in rapid and artistic delineation. Life-studies, by artists, of the young of the Atlantic walrus 

 have been made in several instances, but of the mature animal, there is nothing extant of that character. 



tThe most satisfactory result that I can obtain from a careful study of what is on record as to the length of the adult 5 Atlantic 

 walrus is a mean of 10 feet 7 inches; while my observations on Walrus island give the Bering sea <5 adult walrus an average of 11 feet; 

 the only two examples which I measured were both over this figure, viz, 11 feet 9 inches, and 12 feet 7 inches, from tip of muzzle to the- 

 skinny nodule or excrescence, scientifically known as the tail; but they were striking exceptions in superior size to all the others in the 

 large herd of old males before my eyes at the time, and were singled out for shooting on that score. I fully realize this, because in July, 



