THE WALRUS, OR MORSE. 213 



is a narrow belt girding Labrador, Hudson's and Baffin's Bays, and skirting the East Greenland 

 coast towards Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, and still farther stretching on to Beh ring's Strait 

 and the islands off Alaska. Certain writers are inclined to regard the animal found in the 

 North Pacific as a different species from that inhabiting the North Atlantic seas ; but on this 

 head no very justifiable evidence is yet offered. Meantime, its geographical distribution, briefly 

 defined, is the Arctic Circle. Here, thinned by its hereditary enemy, the Polar Bear on the 

 land side, and stricken down wholesale by man seawards, the day of its extermination seems 

 not far distant. The living Walrus, indeed, presents to us a solitary example of a family once 

 more numerous and widespread, and doubtless coincident with a period when climate was different 

 from that now existing where their fossil remains have been discovered. In the deposits of Virginia, 

 on the American Continent, in the Suffolk crag, and possibly in contemporaneous beds around the 

 neighbourhood of Antwerp, bones of Walruses allied to the present northern form have been dug up. 

 But others, moreover, have been found which, from greater size and characteristic peculiarities, 

 evidently belonged to at least two genera (Trichechodon and Alachtherium) distinct from the Arctic- 

 animal. Thus, by degrees, the more massive representatives of the family Trichechidse have 

 died out, while the last of the descendants visibly diminish amongst the bergs of their secluded, 

 ice-bound home. 



The Walrus of the present day is a creature which attains large dimensions. Elliott mentions a, 

 great fellow, shot in the Behring Sea, nearly 1 3 feet long, and with a girth of 1 4 feet ; and he estimates 

 the gross weight of an ordinary full-grown male at 2,000 Ibs. Well have some likened the hide, 

 which is of a tawny brown colour, to a tough, flexible coat of mail, which harpoon and even bullets 

 penetrate with difficulty. In old age these creatures do not only become obese, shapeless masses, but 

 their gnarled hide, scarred by tusk-marks, bullet, or harpoon wounds, gets blotchy, pustular, and 

 hairless. This, with small, fierce, bloodshot eye, in marked contrast with that of the Seals, and for- 

 midable pair of tusks, gives it a ferocious and demoniacal look. 



The unusually flattened head seems disproportionately small to the great neck and sack-like body, 

 the tusks and moustaches being all in all either in profile or front view. Their movement on land is. 

 very awkward and di-oll. With high-set shoulders and low hind-quarters, and squat limbs to their 

 heavy body, the fore feet are successively thrust flat forwards from the wrist, each followed by a hitch 

 and swing of the hind foot, as from a pivot on the heel, ending in a sudden sort of jerk or check. 

 Thus they straddle in a clumsy, indolent way along the rough ice, in emergency exerting themselves 

 into a kind of hobbling canter. 



This ungainly creature, though so repellent in features, is in reality quiet and inoffensive, unless 

 attacked or roused in love-time, when woe betide those who measure his strength, especially if he 

 reach his native watery element. They are very gregarious, seldom being met with singly, but often 

 in herds from a dozen to several hundreds, as Captain Cook long ago observed. They crowd up from 

 the water on to the rocks or ice one after the other, grunting and bellowing. The first arrived is 

 no sooner composed in sleeping trim, than a second comes prodding and poking with its blunt tusks, 

 forcing room for itself, while the first is urged farther from the water ; the second in turn is similarly 

 treated by the third ; and so on, until numbers will lie packed close, heads and tails resting against 

 and on each other, in the most convenient and friendly manner possible. There they sleep and snore 

 to their hearts' content, but nevertheless, according to Elliott, keep guard in a singular fashion. 

 Some one would seem to disturb another ; then this fellow would raise his head listlessly, give a grunt 

 and a poke to his nearest companion, who would rouse up a few minutes, also grunt, and pass the 

 watchword to his neighbour, and so on through the herd, this disturbance always keeping some few 

 on the alert. Danger announced, they scuttle pell-mell and topsy-turvy into the water. 



Once in the sea, their sluggish deportment vanishes, and activity is the order of the day. 

 Curiosity aroused, or attack threatened, as Lament remarks, the herd keep near each other. One 

 ! moment a crowd of grisly heads and long, gleaming white tusks are above the waves ; then follow 

 I snorting and hasty breathing ; immediately thereafter, a host of brown hemispherical backs, followed 

 i by pairs of flourishing hind-flippers, and the lot have dived, again to appear at an interval, and the 

 ,same performance be gone through. If one gets injured, or a young one is in danger, the host of 

 Walruses close round the boat, grunting, rearing, and snorting, and if their wrath be roused, they 



