1868.] MR. R. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. 4*29 



an idea that there were two species. The whalers declare that the 

 female Walrus is without tusks ; I have certainly seen females 

 without them, but, again, others with both well developed. In this 

 respect it may be similar to the female Narwhal, which has occasion- 

 ally no " horn " developed ; I do not think, however, that there 

 is more than one species of Walrus in the Arctic regions or 

 elsewhere. 



Habits and food. — On the floes, lying over soundings and shoals, 

 the Walruses often accumulate in immense numbers, and lie huddled 

 upon the ice. More frequently, in Davis's Strait and Baffin's Bay, 

 they are found floating about on pieces of drift ice, in small family 

 parties of six or seven ; and I have even seen only one lying asleep 

 on the ice. Whether in large or small parties, one is always on the 

 watch, as was long ago observed by the sagacious Cook : the watch, on 

 the approach of danger, will rouse those next to them ; and the alarm 

 being spread, presently the whole herd will be on the qui vive. When 

 attacked, unlike the other Seals (unless it be the Cystophora), it will 

 not retreat, but boldly meet its enemies. I was one of a party in a 

 boat which harpooned a solitary Walrus asleep on a piece of ice. It 

 immediately dived, but presently arose, and, notwithstanding all our 

 exertions with lance, axe, and rifle, stove in the bows of the boat ; 

 indeed we were only too glad to cut the line adrift and save our- 

 selves on the floe which the Walrus had left, until assistance could 

 reach us. Luckily for us the enraged Morse was magnanimous 

 enough not to attack its chop-fallen enemies, but made off grunting 

 indignantly, with a gun-harpoon and new whale-line dangling from 

 its bleeding flanks. Its atluk or breathing-hole is cleanly finished, 

 like that of the Seals, but in much thicker ice, and the radiating 

 lines of fracture much more marked*. The food of the Walrus 

 has long been a matter of dispute, some writers, such as Schreber, 

 Fischer, and others, going so far as to deny its being carnivorous at 

 all, because Fischer saw in the stomach of one " long branches of 

 seaweed, Fucus digitatus ;" and Mr. Bell seems even to doubt 

 whether the small number of grinding-teeth, and more especially 

 their extreme shortness and rounded form, are not rather calculated 

 to bruise the half-pulpy mass of marine vegetables than to hold and 

 pierce the fish's scaly cuirass. I have generally found in its stomach 

 various species of shelled Mollusca, chiefly Mya truneata, a bivalve 

 very common in the Arctic regions on banks and shoals, and a 

 quantity of green slimy matter which I took to be decomposed Algae 

 which had accidentally found their way into its stomach through 

 being attached to the shells of the Mollusca of which the food of the 

 Walrus chiefly consists. I cannot say that I ever saw any vegetable 

 matter in its stomach which could be decided to have been taken in 

 as food, or which could be distinguished as such. As for its not 

 being carnivorous, if further proof were necessary I have only to add 

 that whenever it was killed near where a Whale's carcass had been let 



* Tliere are many interesting details of the habits of the Walrus in Kane's 

 'Arctic Explorations' and ' First Grinnel Expedition,' in Hayes's 'Boat Journey' 

 and ' Open Polar Sea,' and in Belcher's ' Last of the Arctic Voyages.' 



