THE ARCTIC WALRUS. 171 



remain for many days, when the weather is fair, 

 without food ; but on the first appearance of rain 

 they immediately retreat to the water with great 

 precipitation. Very soon after their arrival they 

 bring forth their young. The inhabitants suffer 

 them to come on shore, and amuse themselves for 

 a considerable time, till they acquire some degree of 

 boldness ; for, at first landing, they are so exceed- 

 ingly timid as to suffer no one to approach them. 

 In a few weeks they assemble in great numbers ; 

 formerly, when undisturbed by the Americans, 

 to the amount of 7 or 8090. — At a proper time, the 

 fishermen, talv.ing advantage of a sea wind to pre- 

 vent the animals from smelling them, and with the 

 assistance of dogs, endeavour in the night to se- 

 parate those that are farthest advanced from those 

 next the water, driving them different ways. This 

 they call making a cut, and it is generally esteemed 

 a very dangerous process, since it is impossible to 

 drive them in any particular direction, and often 

 difficult to avoid them. The darkness of the niglit, 

 however, deprives them of every direction to tiie 

 water, so that they stray about, and are killed bv 

 the men at leisure, those nearest the shore becom- 

 ing the first victims. In this manner fifteen or six- 

 teen hundred have been killed at one cut. — They 

 are then skinned, and the coat of fat that always 

 surrounds them is taken off, and dissolved into 01). 

 The skin is cut into slices of two or three inches 

 wide, and exported to America for carriage-traces, 

 and to England for glue *. 



* Shulcllium, iu Phil. Tran, vol. (5J. p. 249*. 



