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



during the day basking in the sun, lazily tossing its flippers in the 

 air, and appeared perfectly at home and not at all inclined to change 

 its condition. One day the captain tried it in the water for the first 

 time ; but it was quite awkward and got under the floe, whence it 

 was unable to extricate itself, until, guided by its piteous "awuking," 

 its master went out on the ice and called it by name, when it imme- 

 diately came out from under the ice and was, to its great joy, safely 

 assisted on board again, apparently heartily sick of its mother 

 element. After surviving for more than three months, it died, just 

 before the vessel left for England. As I was not near at the time, 

 I was unable to make a dissection in order to learn the cause of 

 death. 



Regarding the debated subject of the attitude of the "Walrus * I 

 am not in a position to say more than my own notes taken at the 

 time will allow of; I saw none last summer, and I am afraid to 

 trust to a treacherous memory on such a matter. The entries 

 in my diary, however, are explicit enough on the point so far as 

 relates to this young individual ; and I presume that its habits are 

 to be taken as a criterion of those of the old one. When asleep in 

 the upturned cask which served it for a kennel, it lay with both 

 fore and hind flippers extended. When wallcing it moved like any 

 other quadruped, but with its hind flippers heel first, the fore 

 fljippers moving in the ordinary way, toes first. I am aware that 

 this is in contradiction to the observations of an eminent zoologist ; 

 I, however, merely copy what was expressly noted down at the 

 time. It ought also to be mentioned that, in the excellent figures 

 of the Walrus taken by the artist of the Swedish Expedition to 

 Spitzbergenf, under the direction of such well-informed natural- 

 ists as Torell, Malmgren, Smitt, Goes, Blomstrand, &c., the fore 

 flippers are represented as rather doubled back, and the hind flip- 

 pers extended. 



Geographical distributimi. — The Walrus is an animal essentially 

 of the coast, and not of the high seas. Whenever it is found at any 

 distance from land it is almost always on shoals, where it can obtain 

 the Mollusca which form the bulk of its food. The Seal-hunters never 

 see it, nor is it found among the flocks of Seals on the Spitzbergen 

 and Jan Mayen pack-ice. It is found all along the circumpolar 

 shores of Asia, America, and Europe, sometimes extending into the 

 subpolar, and even stragglers find their way into the temperate 

 regions of America, Asia, and Europe. It is not unlikely that it may 

 even be found in the Antarctic regions. On the north-west coast of 

 America I have known it to come as far south as 50° N. lat. The 

 Indians along the shores of Alaska (lately Russian America) carve 

 the teeth into many fanciful ornaments :J;; but we should be liable to 



* Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853, p. 112. 



t Lib. cit., facing p. 169 (chromolithograph), and head p. 308, both drawn by 

 Herr von Yhlen. 



X My friend Mr. A. G. Dallas, late Governor-General of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company's Territories, has a bust of himself beautifully carved out of a Walrus- 

 tooth, by a Tsimpshean Indian at Fort Simpson, B.C. 



