98 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



* 



the water, floating almost vertically, with barely more than the nostrils above water, and can be easily approached 

 if care is taken as to the wind, so as to spear it or shove a lance into its bowels; that the bulls do not tight as 

 savagely as the fur-seal or the sea-lion; that the blunted tusks of these combatants seldom do more than bruise 

 their thick hides ; that they can remain under water nearly an hour, or about twice as long as the seals ; and 

 that they sink like so many stones, immediately after being shot at sea.* 



FIRST RECORD OF THE occUEEENCE OP FEMALES. The reason why this band of males, and many of them 

 old ones, should be here to the exclusion of females throughout the year, is not plain. The natives assured me that 

 walrus females, or their young, never have been seen around the shores of these islands; but I have trustworthy 

 advices from the village of St. Paul, at the date of this publication, declaring the fact of the capture of a fe-jiale 

 on Walrus islet last fall, the first one ever recorded. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE WALRUS OF ALASKA. The walrus has, however, a very wid'j range 

 of distribution in Alaska, though not near so great as in prehistoric titnes.t They abound to the eastward and 

 southeastward of St. Paul, over in Bristol bay, where great numbers congregate on the sand-bars and flats, now 

 flooded, now bared by the rising and ebbing of the tide. They are hunted here to a considerable extent for their 

 ivory; no walrus are found south of the Aleutian islands; still, not more than forty -five or fifty years ago, small 

 gatherings of these animals were killed here and there on the islands between Kadiak and Oonimak pass; the 

 greatest aggregate of them, south of Bering straits, will always be found in the estuaries of Bristol bay and on the 

 north side of the peninsula. 



PREHISTORIC RANGE OF THE WALBUS. Geologists find the record of the great ice period well filled up by 

 the range of the walrus, then, as far down on the Atlantic coast as the littoral margins of South and North 

 Carolina; and its fossil remains are common in the diluvial deposits of England and France, while the phosphate 

 beds of New Jersey are exceedingly rich in old walrus bones; but, within historic times, there is no evidence that 

 points to the existence of the walrus on the New England coast. During the last half of the sixteenth century they 

 are known to have frequented the southern confines of Nova Scotia. That hardy navigator, James Cartier, tells 

 us, in his quaint vernacular, that in May, 1534, he met at the island of "Ramea" (probably Sable island), sporting 

 in the sea, "very greate beastes, as greate as oxen, which have two greate teeth in their mouths like unto Elephant's 

 teeth, & live also in the Sea. We saw them sleeping on the banke of the water; wee, thinking to take it, went 

 with our boates, but so soon as he heard us he caste himselfe into the sea". Another old salt, "Thomas James, of 

 Bristoll," speaking of the same subject shortly after, says, "the fish cometh on banke (to do their kind) in April, 

 May, and June, by numbers of thousands, which fish is very big, and hath two great teeth : and the skin of them 

 is like Beeff'es leather; and they will not away from their yong ones. The yong ones are as good meat as Veale. 

 And with the bellies of five of the saide fishes they make a hogshead of Traine, which Traine is very sweet, which, 



the walrus is concerned. There were no females or young among the herds of Mosmarus which I observed at Walrus island ; hence, I am 

 unable myself to give any facts based upon life-studies. 



The reported affection and devotion of the mother walrus seems only natural, being, as it is, the rnle throughout all the higher 

 grades of mammalia; while this attitude of the sea-lion and fur-seal is decidedly opposed to it ; and, were it not that it was so plainly 

 presented in a thousand and one cases to my senses, I should have seriously doubted its correctness. Still, the best authority that I can 

 recognize on the habits of the Pliocidce, Kumlein, says that the hair-seals all display the same indifference which I portray in this respect 

 as characteristic of the fur-seal and sea-lion. [Kumlein: Contributions to the Natural History of Arctic America. Hull. U. S. National 

 Museum : Washington, p. 59, 1879. ] 



* I personally made no experiments touching the peculiarity of sinking immediately after being shot ; of course, on reflection, it 

 will appear to any mind that all seals, no matter how fat or how lean, would siuk instantly out of sight, if not killed at the stroke of the 

 bullet ; even if mortally wounded, the great involuntary impulse of brain and muscle would be to dive and speed away ; for all 

 swimming is submarine when the pinnipeds desire to travel. 



Touching this mooted question, I had an opportunity when in Port Townsend, during 1874, to ask a man who had served as a 

 partner in a fur-sealing schooner off the straits of Fuca. He told me that unless the seal was instantly killed by the passage of the rille 

 bullet through its brain, it was never secured, and would sink before they could reach the bubbling wake of its disappearance ; if, however 

 the aim of the marksman had been correct, then the body was invariably taken within five to ten minutes after the shooting. Only one 

 man did the shooting; all the rest of the crew, 10 to 12 white men and Indians, manned canoes and boats which were promptly 

 dispatched from the schooner, after each report, in the direction of the shooting. How long one of the bodies of these '''clean "killed seals 

 would float, he did not know ; the practice always was to get it as quickly as possible, fearing that the bearings of its position, when shot 

 from the schooner, might be confused or lost ; he also affirmed that, in his opinion, there were not a dozen men on the whole northwest 

 coast who were good enough with a rifle, and expert at distance calculation, to shoot fur-seals successfully from the deck of a vessel on the 

 ocean. The Indians of Capo Flattery get most of the pelagic far-seals by cautiously approaching from the leeward when they are asleep, 

 and throwing line darts or harpoons into them before they awaken. 



tl have been frequently questioned whether, in my opinion, it was more than a short space of time ere the walrus was exterminated 

 or not, since the whalers had begun to hunt them in Bering sea and the Arct-c ocean. To this I frankly make answer, that I do not know 

 enough of the subject to give correct judgment. The walrus spend most of their time in waters that are within reach of these skillful 

 and hardy navigators ; and if they (the walrus) are of sufficient value to the whaler, he can, and undoubtedly will, make a business of 

 killing them, and work the same sad result that he has brought about with the mighty schools of cetacea, which once whistled and bared 

 their backs throughout the now deserted waters of Bering sea in perfect peace and seclusion prior to 1842. The returns of the old Russian 

 America Company show That an annual average of 10,000 walrus have been slain by the Eskimo since 1799 up to 1867. There are a great 

 many left yet. But unless the oil of Kosmarus becomes very precious, commercially, I think the shoal waters of Bristol bay and Kuskokvira 

 mouth, together with the eccentric tides thereof, will preserve it indefinitely. Forty years ago, when the North Pacific was the rendezvous of 



