THE OCEAN MAMMALS 363 
seas it would seem they are getting scarcer, and the huge 
herds once so common are now seldom seen, The ex- 
tinction of the walrus in Hudson Bay will mean death to 
many of the only class of human beings able to flourish 
in that environment. Nevertheless, the increasingly fatal 
weapons of modern civilization are being directed against 
the walrus for the paltry return they give the white man 
or for ‘‘ pure sport.” 
Surely the time has come to extend some protection to 
the northern people by preserving almost their sole food- 
supply. Professor Henry Elhot describes the absolute 
destitution of two villages of three hundred Eskimo, whom 
he knew personally and regarded as a superior race of 
Eskimo; their starvation, in this case, resulted from the 
fact that a special movement of the ice that year deprived 
them of walrus. A. P. Low records the death of every 
single soul in a Hudson Bay community from starvation 
because the whalers had supplied modern weapons to neigh- 
bouring Eskimo, who were then employed in destroying the 
only walrus (for export of the skins) available to the fated 
settlement. Were it in my power, I would most certainly 
close for “civilized” walrus hunting all the water to the 
west of Labrador and Baffin’s Bay, and thus prevent the 
intentional or the unintentional robbing of another people’s 
means of existence. 
After all, the walrus catch is of no great value to the 
white man. The dense skin from a half inch to three inches 
in thickness is useful only for a few special purposes. The 
ivory of the tusks keeps its colour well, but is very faulty, 
and not large enough for the manufacture of billiard balls. 
It is of comparatively little value. I once bought from a 
