446 



OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



principally located over the shoulders and around the necks, pain- 

 fully suggested unwholesomeness. 



On examining the herd individually, and looking upon perhaps 

 one hundred and fifty specimens directly beneath and within the 

 sweep of my observation, I noticed that there were no females 

 among them ; they were all males, and some of the younger ones 

 had considerable hair, or enough of that close, short, brown coat to 

 give a hirsute tone to their bodies hence I believe that it was only 

 the old, wholly matured males which offered to my eyes such bare 

 and loathsome nakedness. 



I noticed, as they swam around, and before they landed, that 

 they were clumsy in the water, not being able to swim at all like 



Section showing Construction of Mahlemobt Winter Houses at Poonook. 



the Phoddoe and the Otariidce ; yet their progress in the sea was 

 wonderfully alert when brought into comparison with that terres- 

 trial action of theirs ; the immense bulk and weight of this walrus, 

 contrasted with the size and strength of its limbs, renders it sim- 

 ply impotent when hauled out of the water on those low, rocky 

 beaches or shelves upon which it rests. Like the seals, however, it 

 swims entirely under water when travelling, but it does not rise, in 

 my opinion, so frequently to take breath ; when it does, it blows or 

 snorts not unlike a whale. Often have I heard this puffing snort 

 of those animals (since the date of these observations on Walrus 

 Islet), when standing on the bluffs near the village of St. Paul and 

 looking seaward ; on one cool, quiet morning in May I followed 

 with my eye and ear a herd of walrus, tracing its progress some 

 distance off and up along the east coast of the island by those tiny 



