WALRUS 



Odob.enus rosmarus. 



There are few more ungainly beasts than these strange inhabi- 

 tants of the Arctic waters. They usually travel in herds and, as a 

 single male measures ten or twelve feet in length and often weighs a 

 ton, we may readily understand why a group of them has been called 

 "one moving mass of heaviness." Each walrus alone presents a 

 well-nigh uncanny appearance ; first, there is the shapeless bulk of 

 the body and the rolling, lumbering gait, due, in part, to the enor- 

 mous size of the creature, but still more to his means of locomotion, 

 as the fore limbs are free only from the elbow and the hind ones 

 are enclosed in the body almost to the heels, while the flippers, which 

 must do the service of feet, have broad, flat, webbed surfaces, little 



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