MAMMALIA — MORSE. 211 



whole body is clothed with a short hair ; the toes, and the hands, or feet, 

 are covered with a membrane, and terminated by short and sharp pointed 

 claws. On each side of the mouth are large bristles in the form of 

 Avhiskers: its tongue is hollowed, the concha of the ears are Avanting, &c. ; 

 so that, excepting the two great tusks, and the cutting teeth, which it is 

 deficient in above and below, the walrus in every other particular perfectly 

 resembles the seal : it is only much larger and stronger, being commonly 

 from twelve to sixteen feet in length, and eight or nine in circumference, 

 and sometimes reaching eighteen feet in length, with a proportionable 

 girth ; whereas the largest seals are no more than seven or eight feet. The 

 walrus, also, is generally seen to frequent the same places as the seals 

 are kno-wn to reside in, and are almost always found together. They have 

 the same habitudes in every respect, excepting that there are fewer varie- 

 ties of the morse than of the seal : they likewise are more attached to one 

 particular climate, and are rarely found except in the northern seas. 



" There was formerly," says Zordrager, " great plenty of morses and 

 seals in the bays of Horisont and Klock, but at present there are very few. 

 Both these animals quit the water in the summer, and resort to the neigh- 

 boring plains, where there are flocks of them from eighty to two hundred, 

 particularly morses, which will remain there several days together, till 

 hunger obliges them to return to the sea. This animal externally resem- 

 bles the seal, but it is stronger and much larger : like that, it has five toes 

 to each paw, but its claws are shorter, and its head thicker and rounder; 

 its skin is thick, wrinkled, and covered with very short hair of different 

 colors ; its upper jaw is armed with two teeth about half an ell or an ell 

 in length ; these tusks, which are hollow at the root, become larger as the 

 animal grows older. Some of them are found to have but one, the other 

 being torn out in fighting, or perhaps fallen out through age. This ivory 

 generally brings a greater price than that of the elephant, as it is of a more 

 compact and harder substance. The mouth of this animal is like that of 

 the ox, and furnished with hairs which are hollov.', pointed, and about the 

 thickness of a straw. Above the mouth are two nostrils, through vv'hich 

 the animal spouts the water like a whale. There are a great number of 

 morses towards Spitzbergen, and the profit that is derived from their teeth 

 and fat fully repays the trouble of taking them, for tlie oil is almost as much 

 valued as that produced from the whale. When the hunter is near one of 

 these animals in the water, or on the ice, he darts a very strong harpoon at 

 it, which, though made expressly for the purpose, often slips over its hard 

 and thick skin ; but if it has penetrated into it, they haul the animal 

 towards the boat, and kill it with a sharp and strong lance. The morse is 

 generally heavier than the ox, and as difficult to pursue as the whale, the 

 skin of which is more easily pierced. For this reason, they always endea- 

 vor to wound it in the most tender part, and aim at its eyes : the animal, 

 obliged by this motion to turn its head, exposes its breast to the hunter. 



