THE WALRUS OR MORSE. 



251 



in each half of the jaw, both above and below, 

 and five molars above as against four below. 

 The incisors gradually disappear. All the 

 transitions between the two extremes may be 

 observed in the dentition according to the 

 age of the individual. The formulas are thus 

 as follows: — 



3 • I • 5 



Milk dentition: 



Permanent dentition: 



I 

 3 -"i" 

 o . 1 



0,1.2 



= 34- 



= 14 teeth. 



The walrus is accordingly a carnivore 

 which has gradually lost its teeth and at the 

 same time had their forms modified through 

 adaptation to a special kind of diet. It feeds, 

 in fact, chiefly on molluscs and sea-urchins, 

 which it digs up from the sea-bottom by 

 means of its tusks. But it does not despise 

 either fish or the flesh of slain whales. 



Walruses live in numerous flocks in the 

 neighbourhood of coasts and ice-fields, and 

 only seldom undertake extensive migrations 

 by allowing themselves to be carried away 

 on ice-floes. Sluggish and dull on land, 

 where they nevertheless sometimes betake 

 themselves, raising their bodies by means of 

 their fore-paws or flippers, they are tolerably 

 agile in the water, swimming with great 

 rapidity, diving under the ice, and knocking 

 holes in it from below with their head in 

 order to breathe. They visit the coasts only 

 during and after the melting of the ice, are 

 fond of settling down for a long time in bays 

 where the shallows afford them a rich crop 

 of sand-dwelling molluscs and bivalves. 



Furious battles take place between the 

 males in the breeding season. The walruses 

 are advantageously distinguished from other 

 seals by the courage with which they defend 

 themselves against man, by the devotion 

 with which they aid one another, and by 

 the self-sacrificing love with which parents 

 and young ones remain faithful to each 

 other to death. Walruses are hunted very 

 eagerly for the sake of their thick tough 

 skin, their fat, and their tusks, which are 



estimated at the price of ivory. The hunt is 

 very dangerous. The walrus when pursued, 

 and especially when wounded, endeavours to 

 capsize or shatter the boats with his tusks 

 and fins, and since the others hasten up to 

 the defence of their surprised comrade, terrible 

 encounters ensue, sanguinary both for men 

 and for animals. The bellowing of the en- 

 raged walrus is compared to the roaring of a 

 lion. When caught young the walrus becomes 

 attached to man, and it might certainly be 

 tamed if we could furnish it with the necessary 

 means of subsistence. The Eskimo declare 

 that the walruses sometimes have to wage 

 battle against polar bears and killer-whales 

 {Orca gladiator), but European observers 

 have not been able to confirm these accounts. 



An interesting account of the hunting of the 

 walrus as still pursued by the inhabitants of the 

 north of Norway is given by Weyprecht, one of the 

 leaders of the Austrian polar expedition of 1873-74. 



"The true man of the ice," he writes, "is the 

 walrus-hunter. Whatever comes within range of 

 his gun or can be reached by his harpoon, that he 

 carries away with him. He kills the white whale 

 if he finds him, but does not despise even the shark; 

 he shoots the reindeer on the land and fills the 

 empty space with birds' eggs, which lie at his dis- 

 posal in thousands; he collects eider-down if he has 

 nothing better to do, and salts geese and ducks as 

 a reserve for winter in his home. But his proper 

 booty, that which he always has in his eye, which 

 he pursues as long as he can, and for the sake of 

 which he is ready to risk his Hfe at any time, con- 

 sists in the walrus, the seal, and the polar bear. 

 Uninterruptedly he searches for traces of them ; as 

 soon as the ice is in sight they become for three or 

 four months the goal of his existence, for which he 

 ventures everything — the dream which he pursues 

 night and day. 



" The chase demands small, easily managed, and 

 strongly built ships of about the size of our coasters, 

 which can take advantage of every break in the ice, 

 every open channel, to get forward. According as 

 they carry one boat or two they are manned with 

 eight or twelve men, and one or two harpooners, or 

 Fangmanner as they are there called. . . . 



"There are twodifferent nationalities which furnish 

 crews for this employment: the blond and more 



