THE ARCTIC WALRUS. 173 



foggy weather, they gave us notice of the vicinity 

 of the ice before we could see it. We never found 

 the whole herd asleep, some being always upon the 

 watch. These, on the approach of the boat, would 

 wake those next to theai ; and the alarm bemg thus 

 gradually communicated, the whole herd would be 

 awake presently. Bat tliey were seldom in a hurry 

 to get away, till after they had been once fired at. 

 They then would tumble over one another into the 

 sea in the utmost confusion. And if we did not, at 

 the first discharge, kill those we fired at, we gene- 

 rally loiit them, though mortally wounded. They 

 did not appear to us to be that dangerous animal 

 which some authors have described ; not even when 

 attacked. They are rather more so in appearance 

 than in reality. Vast numbers of them would follow 

 and come close up to the boats ; but the flash of a 

 musket in the pan, or even the bare pointing one at 

 ihem, would send them down in an instant. The 

 female will defend the young to the very last, and 

 at the expence of her own life, whether in the water, 

 or upon the ice. Nor will the young one quit the 

 dam, though she be dead; so that if one is killed, 

 the other is certain prey. The dam, vv'hen in the 

 water, holds the young one between her fore-fins *.' 

 The Greenlandeers, v^hen they find a herd of 

 them upon the ice, approach in their boats, and 

 fiing their harpoons as the alarmed animals are 

 tumbling themselves along the steeps of the ice into 

 the sea. They seize these opportunities of killing 



* Cook's last Vovag,e, iii. 42, 43. 



