1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



501 



largely of cold water or hot teas, and exercise in 

 the open air to the extent of a gentle perspiration, 

 and keep this up until things are righted ; this 

 suggestion, if practiced, would save myriads of 

 lives every year, both in city and country. 



9. The three best medicines in the world are 

 warmth, abstinence and repose. — Hall's Journal 

 of Health. 



WALKUS HUNTING. 



I never in my life witnessed any thing more 

 interesting and more affecting than the wonderful 

 maternal affection displayed by this poor walrus. 

 After she was fast to the harpoon, and was drag- 

 ging the boat furiously among the icebergs, I was 

 going to shoot her through the head that we might 

 have time to follow the others ; but Christian 

 called to me not to shoot, as she had a "junger" 

 with her. Although I did not understand his ob- 

 ject, I reserved my fire, and upon looking closely 

 at the walrus when she came up to breathe, I then 

 perceived that she held a very young calf under 

 her right arm, and I saw that he wanted to har- 

 poon it ; but whenever he poised the weapon to 

 throw, the old cow seemed to watch the direction 

 of it, and interposed her own body, and she 

 seemed to receive with pleasure several harpoons 

 which were intended for the young one. 



At last a well aimed dart struck the calf, and 

 we then shortened up the lines attached to the 

 cow, and finished her with the lances. Christian 

 now had time and breath to explain to me why 

 he was so anxious to secure the calf, and he pro- 

 ceeded to give me a practical illustration of his 

 meaning by gently "stirring up" the unfortunate 

 junger with the butt end of a harpoon shaft. This 

 caused the poor little animal to emit a peculiar, 

 plaintive, grunting cry, eminently expi-essive of 

 alarm, and of a desire for assistance, and Chris- 

 tian said it would bring all the herd round about 

 tiie boat immediately. Unfortunately, however, 

 we had been so long in getting hold of our poor 

 little decoy duck that the others had all gone out 

 of hearing, and they abandoned their young rela- 

 tive to his fate, which quickly overtook him in 

 the shape of a lance thrust from the remorseless 

 Christian. 



I don't think I shall ever forget the faces of the 

 old walrus and her calf as they looked back at the 

 boat ! The countenance of the young one, so 

 expressive of abject terror, and yet of confidence 

 in its mother's power of protecting it, as it swam 

 along under her wing ; and the old cow's face 

 showing such reckless defiance for all that we 

 could do to herself, and yet such terrible anxiety 

 as to the safety of her calf ! 



The walrus is an inoffensive beast if let alone, 

 but hunting them is far from being child's play, 

 as the following sad story will show : 



About ten days after the exciting chasse which 

 I have just described, the skipper of a small 

 schooner which was in sight came on board to 

 ask us for the loan of a gun, as he had broken 

 all his, and he told us that a boat belonging to a 

 sloop from Tromsoe had been upset two or three 

 days before in our immediate vicinity, and one of 

 the crew killed by a walrus. It seemed that the 

 walrus, a large old bull, charged the boat, and the 

 harpooner, as usual, received him with his lance 

 full in the chest ; but the shaft of the lance broke 



all to shivers, and the walrus, getting inside of 

 it, threw himself on the gunwale of the boat and 

 overset it in an instant. While the men were 

 floundering in the water among their oars and 

 tackle, the infuriated animal rushed in among 

 them, and selecting the unlucky harpooner, who 

 I fancy had fallen next him, he tore him nearly 

 in two halves with his tusks. The rest of the 

 men saved themselves by clambering on to the 

 ice until the other boat came to their assistance. 



Upon another occasion I made the acquaintance 

 of the skipper of a sloop who had been seized 

 by a bereaved cow walrus, and by her dragged 

 twice to the bottom of the sea, but without re- 

 ceiving any injury beyond being nearly drowned, 

 and having a deep scar plowed in each side of his 

 forehead by the tusks of the animal, which he 

 thought did not wish to hurt him, but mistook 

 him for her calf as he floundered in the water. 



Owing to the great coolness and expertness of 

 the men following this pursuit, such mishaps are 

 not of very frequent occurrence, but still a sea- 

 son seldom passes without two or three lives be- 

 ing lost one way or another. 



No one who has not tried it will readily be- 

 lieve how extremely difficult it is to shoot an old 

 bull walrus clean dead. The front or sides of his 

 head may be knocked all to pieces with bullets, 

 and the animal yet have sense and strength suffi- 

 cient left him to enable him to swim and dive 

 out of reach. If he is lying on his side, with his 

 back turned to his assailant, it is easy enough, 

 as the brain is then quite exposed, and the crown 

 of the head is easily penetrated ; but one rarely 

 gets the walrus in that position, and when it so 

 happens, it is generally better policy to harpoon 

 him without shooting. 



By firing at an old bull directly facing you, it 

 is almost impossible to kill him ; but if half front 

 to you, a shot just above the eye may prove fatal. 

 If sideways, he can only be killed by aiming about 

 six inches behind the eye, and about one-fourth 

 of the apparent depth of his head from the top ; 

 but the eye, of course, cannot be seen unless the 

 animal is very close to you, and the difficulty is 

 enormously increased by the back of the head 

 being so imbedded in fat as to appear as if it were 

 part of the neck. — Seasons with the Sea-Horses. 



Intelligence op the Lark. — A pair of larks 

 had built their nest in a grass field, where they 

 hatched a brood of young. Very soon after the 

 young birds were out of their nests, the owner of 

 the field was forced to set the mowers to work, the 

 state of the weather forcing him to cut his grass 

 sooner than usual. As the laborers approached 

 the nest, the parent birds seemed to take alarm, 

 and at last the mother laid herself flat upon the 

 ground, with out-spread wings and tail, while the 

 male bird took one of her young out of the nest, 

 and by dint of pushing and pulling, got it on its 

 mother's back. She then flew away with her young 

 one over the fields, and soon returned for another. 

 This time, the father took its turn to carry one 

 of the offspring, being assisted by its mother in 

 getting it firmly on his back ; and this manner 

 they carried off the whole brood before the mow- 

 ers had reached their nest. — Wood's Natural His^ 

 tory. 



