82 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 
There is a second possibility, however, which ought not 
to be reckoned out of count, that some of the visits, such as 
those to western Ireland and England and to the Hebrides, 
are due, not to the Arctic circulation, but to the influence 
of the warm North Atlantic drift (“Gulf Stream”), which 
may have caught up in the open Atlantic Walrus waifs 
from the shores of Greenland. As a rule such a mode of 
approach would point to a longer route from the breeding- 
grounds, and one traversing a much more extensive warm 
area. 
A last point of interest with regard to the location of 
Scottish Walruses is worthy of note—their viability when 
they have reached a friendly shore after long wandering in 
the open sea. Some apparently rest in one locality for long 
periods, such as the Skerries individual of 1920, which for 
three and a half months seems never to have left the 
immediate neighbourhood in which it was first seen. This 
individual appeared in a year notable for a great influx 
into the North Sea of sharks, salpae, and other organisms 
from the Atlantic Ocean. Other individuals, however, have 
been observed to make considerable migrations. That seen 
in 1877 close to Stein, 18 miles north of Portree in Skye, 
afterwards appeared off the coast of Sleat, and is supposed 
later to have been noticed off the Isle of Eigg; so that in 
its coastal wanderings it must have covered some 65 or 70 
miles. Again, the Orkney individual of 1825, first seen in 
the Pentland Firth, followed a boat almost to the harbour of 
Stromness, and then having travelled westwards to Hoymouth, 
“made its appearance at different places along the islands, 
to the great alarm of the fishermen. ... Having at last 
come down through the Westray Firth, it was discovered 
lying on the rocks of the island of Eday”—some 60 miles 
from the region of its first appearance. Such wanderers 
appear to hug the coast in their movements, but the fact 
that they are capable of so great migrations in short 
space of time gives warning that too much stress should 
not be placed on the locality of their first recorded 
appearance. 
