MAMMALIA—MORSE. 911 
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 
whiskers: its tongue is hollowed, the concha of the ears are wanting, &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 
resembies 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 known 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- 
poring 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 reseim- 
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 
m 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 lke that ot 
the ox, and furnished with hairs which are hollow, pointed, and about the 
thickness of a straw. Above the mouth are two nostrils, through which 
the animal spouts the water like a whale. There are a great number ot 
morses towards Spitzbergen, and the profit that is derived from their teeth 
and fat fully repays the trouble of taking them, for the 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 1s 
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. 
