430 MR. R. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. [Juiie 25, 



adrift its stomach was invariably found crammed full of the krang or 

 flesh of that Cetacean. As for its not being able to hold the slippery- 

 cuirass of a fish, I fear the distinguished author of ' The British 

 Mammalia' is in error. The Narwhal, which is even less fitted 

 in its want of dentition for an ichthyophagous existence, lives almost 

 entirely upon platichthyoid fishes and Cephalopoda. Finally the 

 experimentum crucis has been performed, in the fact that fish have 

 been taken out of its stomach ; and a most trustworthy man, the 

 captain of a Norwegian sealer, has assured me (without possessing 

 any theory on the subject) that he has seen one rise out of the water 

 with a fish in its mouth*. In its stomach I have often seen small 

 stones or gravel ; and round its atluk considerable quantities are 

 always seen : this is a habit which it possesses in common with 

 Phoea barbata and even Beluga catodon. These stones may be 

 taken in accidentally, but still they may serve some purpose in its 

 digestive economy. 



Next to man, its chief enemy is the Polar Bear. The Eskimo used 

 to tell many tales of their battles ; and though I have never been 

 fortunate enough to see any of these scenes, yet I have heard the 

 whalers give most circumstantial accounts of the Walrus drowning 

 the Bear, &c. These accounts may be taken merely for what they are 

 worth ; but still this shows that they are not wholly confined to 

 Eskimo fable, and ought therefore not to be hastily thrown aside. 

 There is no doubt, however, that the Bear and the Walrus are (like 

 all the Pinnipedia) but indifferent friends. Another pest I believe 

 I discovered upon this animal for the first time, in 1861, in the 

 shape of two undescribed species of Hcematopinus, one invariably 

 infesting the base of the mystachial bristles, and the other its body. 

 I also found the Seals of Davis's Strait much troubled with another 

 species {Hcemafopinus phocce, Lucas) f. I have seen the Walrus 

 awuking loudly on the ice, tumbling about, and rushing back from the 

 water to the ice, and from the ice to the water, and then swimming 

 off to another piece, and repeating the same operation as if in pain. 

 A few hours afterwards I saw a flock of Saxicola cenanthe (it was on 

 a land-floe, close to the Fru Islands) alight on the spot. On going 

 over, I found the ice speckled with one of these species of Hcemato- 

 pinus, on which the birds had been feeding ; and the unfortunate 

 Walrus seems to have been in the throes of clearing itself of these 

 troublesome friends, after the approved fashion. Subsequently I 

 have seen these and other small birds alight on the back of the 

 Walrus to peck at these insects, just as crows may be seen sitting 

 on the backs of cattle in our fields. Its tusks it ajjparently uses 

 to dig up the molluscous food on which it chiefly subsists ; and I 

 have seen it also use them to drag up its huge body on to the 

 ice. In moving on shore it aids its clumsy progression by their 

 means. 



* The young specimen which died this spring in the Society's Gardens was 

 in a very poor condition, and afforded but an indifferent notion of the liou-like 

 Awuk which destroyed our boat in Scott's Inlet. 



t Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin. 1863. 



