428 MR. R. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. [JuilC 25, 



Popular names. — Sea-horse (English sailors) ; Walrus and Morse 

 (Russ., English naturalists and authors) ; Hvalross (Swedish and 

 Danish) ; Havhest (Sea-horse) and Rosmar (Norse) ; Morsk (Lapp) ; 

 Awuk (Greenlanders and Eskimo generally): this word is pronounced 

 dook and (like many savage names of animals) is derived from the 

 peculiar sound it utters, a guttural dook ! dook ! 



General descriptive remarks. — The general form of the Walrus 

 is familiar enough. However, specimens in museums and the mi- 

 serably woebegone cubs which have been already twice brought to 

 this country but poorly represent the Walrus in its native haunts. 

 The skin of the forehead (in stuffed specimens) is generally dried to 

 the skull ; while in the live animal it is full, and the cheeks tumid. 

 The skin of old animals is generally wrinkled and gnarled, I have 

 seen an old Walrus quite spotted with leprous-looking marks con- 

 sisting of irregular tubercular-looking white cartilaginous hairless 

 blotches ; they appeared to be the cicatrices of wounds inflicted at 

 different times by ice, the claws of the Polar Bear, or met with in 

 the wear and tear of the rough-and-tumble life a Sea-horse must 

 lead in N. lat. 74°. The very circumstantial account of the number 

 of mystachial bristles given in some accounts is most erroneous ; 

 they vary in the number of rows and in the number in each row in 

 almost every specimen. They are elevated on a minute tubercle, 

 and the spaces between these bristles are covered with downy whitish 

 hair. I have seen several young AValruses in all stages, from birth 

 until approaching the adult stage, and never yet saw them of a black 

 colour, and should have been inclined to look upon as unfounded the 

 statement that they are so, had it not been for the high authority of 

 its author*. All I saw were of the ordinary brown colour, though, 

 like most animals, they get lighter as they grow old. Neither are 

 the muffle, palm, and soles " hairy when young ;" in one which I 

 examined before it was able to take the water I saw no difference 

 between it and its mother in this respect. The Walrus appears to 

 cast its nails ; for in several which I examined about the same time 

 (viz. in August) most of the nails which had been developed were 

 gone, and young ones beginning to appear. The dentition has been 

 examined by M<^Gillivrayt, Kapp J, Owen §, Peters||, &c. ; so that 

 I need only touch upon that. In an aged male which I examined 

 at Scott's Inlet, Davis's Strait, August 3, 1861, the small fifth molar 

 on the right side of the upper jaw still remained, but loose ; on the 

 other side the corresponding alveolus was not yet absorbed. 



Shaw (Gen. Zool. i. p. 234) has figured two species of this animal, 

 and inferred their existence principally from the differences in the 

 representations given by Johnston and Cook. Curiously enough, 

 Pontopiddan tells us that the Norwegian fishermen in his day had 



* Gray, Cat. Seals and WTiales in Brit. Mus. 2nd ed. p. 36. 

 f Loc. cit. antea. 

 X Bull. Sc. Nat. xvii. p. 280. 

 § Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853, p. 103. 



II Monatsber. der Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin, Dec. 1864, p. 685 ; transl. Annals 

 Nat. Hist. XV. (3rd series) p. 355. 



