422 DR. J. MURIE ON THE ANATOMY OF THE WALRUS. 
this and hints dropped by travellers and others', that skin-disease affecting the said 
glandular spots is of no uncommon occurrence among these creatures, and is often 
mistaken for healed cutaneous wounds. 
The palmar surface or sole of the manus is not unlike a parlour shovel in figure. 
There is a great callous, roughened, and warty pad at the proximal end or ball of the 
hand; and this, from discoloration incident to use, is of an intense dark brown or almost 
black cclour. From the radial margin, where it is stoutest and roughest, it trends 
towards the base of the fifth digit. Circumscribed digital pads, as in Carnivora, there 
are none; but furrows and ridges traverse obliquely forwards from the pollicial to the 
opposite side. 
Further on I shall have occasion to question the statement that the hind foot of the 
Walrus acts as a sucker to attach itself to the slippery ice. Here, dealing with the fore 
foot, and looking for adaptation to a purpose, we can at least see three apposite subor- 
dinate functions whereby this foot is well suited to the ice-bound regions which the 
Morse inhabits :—First, its great breadth, whereby it may act as a snow-shoe, or on 
uneven ground gain power of purchase by increase of its area. Secondly, its remarkable 
rough and warty palmar surface affords above every thing a stay and firm leverage on 
slippery ground; no stocking or wisp of straw used by man to bind round the foot 
when on smooth ice can equal nature’s provision of coarse tegumentary papille. 
Thirdly, the angle at which the carpo-metacarpal joint is set, and the very odd manner 
of foot-implantation on the ground, namely, semiretroverted, evidently make it an easier 
task to go forwards or upwards on a smooth surface than to retrograde, 
Beneficence and Design are doubtless everywhere scattered broadcast, but who can 
say that those seeming coadaptations are alone what the instrument subserves in the 
great scheme of Creation. Are they indeed after all ends to a purpose? for of species 
of the aquatic Mammalia few or none have ever been studied with any thing like pre- 
cision or care concerning their habits in a state of nature. Much observation is still 
wanting in this field. 
The precise limb-measurements are as undernoted :— 
inches. 
From the shoulder-joint to the extreme end of first digit. . . . . . 23% 
Girth of the limb close to the body, or 9 inches from its distal end . . 173 
Transverse diameter of the swimming-paw at wrist-joint . . . . . . 7% 
Transverse diameter of the swimming-paw at the digits (crossing-nails) . 9 
Thickness of the manus at the wrist-jomt. . . . EI ee 
Length, following curve of anterior border of pectoral cei go Sie oa ciall ae 
Length, following curve of posterior border (7. e. from axilla) . . . . 22% 
Length from elbow-joint to the tip of the fifth digit . . . . . . . 123 
‘ Vide a short paper on the Walrus, by Dr. J. Bernard Gilpin, Proc. and Trans. Nova-Scotian Institute of 
Nat. Science, vol. ii. pt. 3, 1868-69, p. 123. 
