THE PACIFIC WALHUS FISHERY. 315 



hince, six hand liooks to hold the blubber while skinning, an ax, four pieces of rope or short warps 

 and several boat waif's. The dingey is used in the actual capture. Sometimes t.wo rifles are car 

 ried, since the rapid firing soon overheats them. 



If the whalemen, after shooting a few walrus, can get on the same piece of ice with the dead 

 ones he may be sure of the whole lot, or as many as he chooses to kill. Great care must be taken 

 when approaching the ice to be as quiet as possible, for if the walrus, which is very timid, detects 

 your approach, the whole company will immediately tumble off into the water and disappear. 



Capt. Wm. M. Barnes, of New Bedford, thinks that if this method of capturing the walrus is 

 pursued for any length of time it will surely result in thfiir_extermination, for the greater part of 

 the animals thus killed are females, accompanied by their offspring, nearly all too young to live 

 without their mothers. When the earlier method of catching them with harpoons was employed, 

 only a few could be caught out of a large herd, and the calves of those captured would follow the 

 walrus that escaped. Often two or three calves were seen with a single cow, and the whalemen 

 used to hope that the little orphans would be adopted into these families, and receive more charity 

 from their kind than the human race had extended to them. But under the present method of 

 shooting, the whole herd of grown animals is slaughtered, and the little ones remain on the ice 

 hovering around the carcasses of their mothers until death from starvation silences their meanings 

 These animals are very useful to the inhabitants of the Arctic shores, furnishing them with 

 food, dwellings, and boats. Therefore to reduce the numbers of the walrus in a great degree, or 

 to drive them to other regions, would be a sad calamity to those people. 



The most common mode of capture among whalers is as follows: The captain of the vessel, 

 with one or two men, quietly approach the herd in a dingey, or small boat, and when within "0 

 to 50 yards the captain shoots one of the animals in the temple between the eye and the ear, 

 using for the purpose a Sharps' or Henry rifle. If successful in the first shot, he hastens on the 

 ice and slays as many as can be cared for by the vessel's crew. If the animal is not killed it will 

 immediately scramble for the water, followed by the whole herd, and none can be captured. Once 

 among the herd the hunter shoots right and left as rapidly as possible, using a second rifle as soon 

 as the first becomes heated. Walrus go by scent rather than sound, so that if the hunter 

 approaches from leeward it is comparatively easy to get within a lew yards before they are aware 

 of danger. They seem to care little for sound, for they take scarcely any notice of the constant 

 report of the rifle. Some of those caught by whalers are very large; one taken near Point Mul- 

 grave, in the Arctic, weighed 1,854 pounds. 



Oapt. John Heppingstone, of East Wareham, Mass., an old whaleman and walrus hunter, 

 has kindly furnished the following account of the walrus and its capture. 



" Some of the difficulties encountered in the capture of walrus are as follows : Often a pod of 

 walrus will be found on cakes of old and rotten ice, and after shooting a goodly number of them 

 the large quantity of warm blood will melt the ice, causing it to break, with the loss of a part, and 

 many times, the whole of the pod. Another difficulty we have to contend with, and to avoid, 

 if possible, is the wounding of a walrus, as his bellowing will frighten and drive others off. Many 

 times walrus will haul up on cakes of ice, where there is no shelter for the gunner, and in such 

 cases they are shot from the dingey. A school of walrus in the water, bellowing, will keep the pod 

 on the ice restless and make it difficult to shoot them. There is not much danger attending the 

 capture of the walrus. Sometimes the ice breaks from their weight and results in the loss of the 

 dead animals, and perhaps the rifle also, with a cold bath to. the men who may chance to be upon 

 the cake. In working through a school of walrus there is some danger of their coming up under 

 the boat and rolling it over. Such cases have occurred. I have been pulling along in my boat 



