154 PHOCA VITULINA. 



nnlike a hippopotamus * ; but lie dives in the 

 manner of a whale, turning up first his back, 

 in a sort of fat brown hemisphere, and then 

 giving a final flourish with his hind-flippers as 

 he disappears. 



It is almost impossible to shoot a walrus 

 (with any gun), in any of those positions, ex- 

 cept, as I have stated, at the moment when he is 

 beginning to dive, and exposes the back of his 

 head ; but when they are alarmed or excited 

 by a boat, they sometimes rear their whole 

 heads and necks above water, and give a fair 

 opportunity for a quick shot. 



The great Arctic seal dives in exactly the 

 same manner as the w^alrus, — I mean by 

 making a semi-revolution, whale-fashion, as 

 he goes down ; but, singularly enough, the 

 small seal of Spitzbergen (Plioca Vitulina), 

 called by the hunters the " Stein-Cobbe," 

 from his habit of occasionally lying on the 



* The Kaffirs in some parts of tropical South Africa have 

 a mode of hunting the hippopotamus with harpoons, very 

 much in the same way as the walrus -hunting is now con- 

 ducted : and this practice in Africa is evidently of vast 

 antiquity, as on the walls of the tombs in the bowels of the 

 silent limestone hills of the Thebaid, I have seen drawings 

 descriptive of hunting the hippopotamus with harpoon and 

 line, as practised by the ancient Egyptians thousands of 

 years ago. 



