GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION AND DESCENT. 



2S3 



thrust against the thin wooden planl<s; every one 

 of them tries to pierce the gunwale from above 

 with the strongly recurved tusks with which it is 

 accustomed to pull itself forward on the ice. If it 

 should manage to effect this the boat is destroyed 

 at one blow. 



" In spite of the struggle going on the harpooneer 

 is ever bent on making new victims. As long as 

 he has a single harpoon free he keeps fastening 

 fresh animals to the line. It sometimes happens 

 that six such monsters are pulling and tugging at 

 the boat at one time, and endeavour to drag it 

 underneath. Only the admirable dexterity and 

 coolness of the steersman, who, in the midst of the 

 exciting scene, dares not allow any movement of 

 the directing harpooneer to escape him, can protect 

 the boat from capsizing. 



; ^' Snorting and bellowing with rage the beaten 

 ^animals surround the boat in ever-widening circles. 

 -Not till then does the harpooneer take to his lance. 

 By means of the line he pulls one of the stricken 

 animals, already weakened by the loss of blood, 

 nearer to him, and strikes it on the head with the 

 shaft. As soon as it turns round towards the boat 

 •he plunges the lance deep into its breast and thus 

 gives it its death-blow. In this manner he puts 

 them all to death one after the other. 



" Such battles take place now only occasionally, 

 for the number of the animals is greatly reduced. 

 Not very long ago there were still so many that 

 when the ship was filled with blubber the hunters 

 continued to slaughter the animals for the sake of 

 the ivory derived from their tusks, and left the dead 

 bodies as a prey to the bears and birds. But even 

 yet a successful hunter may kill from 150 to 200 

 walruses in a summer." — Weyprecht in Petennaniis 

 Mittheilungen, November, 1876. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION AND 

 DESCENT OF THE SEALS. 



The geographical distribution of the Pinni- 

 pedia presents a remarkable pecuHarity in the 

 presence of seals in basins such as the 

 Caspian Sea, the Sea of Aral, and Lake 

 Baikal, now entirely cut off from the ocean. 

 In general the members of this group inhabit 

 the shores of the ocean and delight in salt 

 water. Yet they ascend a good way up 



rivers in pursuit of fish, and some are 

 regularly caught every year in Iceland, for 

 example, after following salmon up the rivers. 

 Accordingly it cannot be said that fresh 

 water is a hindrance to their settlement. On 

 the other hand, the first two of the inland 

 basins above mentioned are proved by the 

 character of their fauna otherwise and by the 

 form of the depressions by which they are 

 now separated from the sea, to have been 

 formerly in communication with the waters 

 of the ocean, and have been severed there- 

 from only by a comparatively recent elevation 

 of the land. The seals have been able to 

 survive this separation all the more easily 

 since the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral 

 are both slightly salt and both abound in fish. 



Quite different is it with Lake Baikal, 

 which is inhabited by a seal only slightly 

 different from the Greenland seal, and perhaps 

 only a variety of the latter. The water of 

 Lake Baikal is quite fresh. The lake lies in 

 the midst of a mountainous district at the 

 height of more than 1 500 feet above sea-level, 

 is surrounded by high mountain peaks, and is 

 separated from the Arctic Ocean in the north 

 of Siberia by a very considerable stretch of 

 land. Even if we assumed that the seals 

 had traversed the plains of Siberia by means 

 of the rivers, there still remained a distance 

 of perhaps 130 miles to cross in the mountains 

 themselves in order to reach the lake. That 

 this was actually accomplished is a supposition 

 hardly credible, and, on the other hand, an 

 elevation of the land so great as to have cut 

 off Lake Baikal from the sea can scarcely be 

 believed to have taken place in quite recent 

 times. All explanations hitherto offered of 

 this remarkable fact appear to be unsatis- 

 factory. 



As for the oceanic seals, the facts regard- 

 ing their distribution are tolerably simple. 

 The animals prefer the coasts of the cold and 

 temperate seas, and in tropical regions are 

 altogether wanting. The walrus is purely 

 Arctic, and transgresses the limit of the 



