MORSE AND MAHLEMOOT. 451 



those clams in that stomach, large as my clinched hands, were not 

 even broken ; and it is in digging this shell- fish food that the ser- 

 vices rendered by its enormous tusks become apparent.* 



I am not in accord with some singular tales told, on the Atlan- 

 tic side, about the uses of these gleaming ivory teeth, so famous 

 and conspicuous : I believe that the Alaskan walrus employs them 

 solely in his labor of digging clams and rooting bulbs from those 

 muddy oozes and sand-bars in the estuary waters peculiar to his 

 geographical distribution. Certainly, it is difficult for me to rec- 

 oncile my idea of such uncouth, timid brutes, as were those spread 

 before me on Walrus Islet, with any of the strange chapters written 

 as to the ferocity and devilish courage of a Greenland " morse." 

 These animals were exceedingly cowardly, abjectly so. It is with 

 the greatest difficulty that the natives, when a herd of walruses are 

 surprised, can get a second shot at them. So far from clustering 

 in attack around their boats, it is the very reverse, and a hunter's 

 only solicitude is which way to travel in order that he may come 

 up with the fleeing animals as they rise to breathe. 



On questioning the natives, as we returned, they told me that 

 the walrus of Bering Sea was monogamous, and that the difference 

 between the sexes in size, color, and shape is inconsiderable ; or, in 

 other words, that until the males are old the young males and the 

 females of all ages are not remarkably distinct, and would not be at 

 all if it were not for their teeth. They said that the female brings 



* It is, and always will be, a source of sincere regret to me and my friends 

 that I did not bodily preserve this huge paunch and its contents. It would 

 have filled a half -barrel very snugly, and then its mass of freshly swallowed 

 clams (Mya truncata), filmy streaks of macerated kelp, and fragments of crus- 

 taceans, could have been carefully examined during a week of leisure at the 

 Smithsonian Institution. It was, however, ripped open so quickly by one of the 

 Aleutes, who kicked the contents out, that I hardly knew what had been done 

 ere the strong-smelling subject was directly under my nose. The natives then 

 were anxious that I should hurry through with my sketches, measurements, 

 etc., so that they might the sooner push off their egg-laden bidarrah and cross 

 back to the main island before the fogs would settle over our homeward track, 

 or the rapidly rising wind shift to the northward and imperil our passage. 

 Weighty reasons these, which so fully impressed me, that this unique stomach 

 of a camiwra was overlooked and left behind ; hence, with the exception of 

 curiously turning over the clams (especially those uncrushed specimens), which 

 formed the great bulk of its contents, I have no memoranda or even distinct 

 recollection of the other materials that were incorporated. 



