60 E. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. 



irritated if a newspaper was shaken in its face, when it would 

 run open-mouthed all over the deck after the perpetrator of this 

 literary outrage. When a " fall "* was called it would imme- 

 diately run at a clumsy rate (about one and a half or two miles an 

 hour), first into the surgeon's cabin, then into the captain's (being 

 on a level with the quarterdeck), apparently to see if they were 

 up, and then out again, grunting all about the deck in a most 

 excited manner *' aicuk ! awuk I " When the men were " sally- 

 ing,"! it would imitate the operation, though clumsily, rarely 

 managing to get more than its own length before it required to 

 turn again. It lay during the day basking in the sun, lazily 

 tossing its fli2)pers in the air, and appeared perfectly at home and 

 not at all inclined to change its condition. One day the captain 

 tried it in the water for the first time; but it was quite awkward 

 and got under the floe, whence it was unable to extricate itself, 

 until, guided by its piteous " awuking,'^ its master went out on the 

 ice and called it by name, when it immediately came out from 

 under the ice, and was, to its great joy, safely assisted on board 

 again, apparently heartily sick of its mother element. After 

 surviving for more than three months, it died, just before the 

 vessel left for England. As 1 was not near at the time, I was 

 unable to make a dissection in order to learn the cause of death. 



Regarding the debated subject of the attitude of the Walrus J I 

 am not in a position to say more than my own notes taken at the 

 time will allow of; I saw none last summer, and I am afraid to 

 trust to a treacherous memory on such a matter. The entries in 

 my diary, however, are explicit enough on the point so far as 

 relates to this young individual ; and I presume that its habits are 

 to be taken as a criterion of tho^e of the old one. When asleep 

 in the cask which served it for a kennel, it lay with both 

 fore and hind flippers extended. When walking it moved like 

 any other quadruped, but with its hind flippers heel firsts the fore 

 flippers moving in the ordinary way, toes first. I am aware that 

 this is in contradiction to the observations of an eminent zoologist ; 

 I, however, merely copy what was expressly noted down at the 

 time. It ought also to be mentioned that, in the excellent figures 

 of the Walrus taken by the artist of the Swedish Expedition to 

 Spitzbergen,§ under the direction of such well-informed naturalists 

 as Torell, Malmgren, Smitt, Goes, Blomstrand, &c., the fore 

 flippers are represented as rather doubled back, and the hind 

 flippers extended. 



Geographical Distribution. — The Walrus is an animal essentially 

 of the coast, and not of the high seas. Whenever it is found at 



* When a boat gets " fast " to a Whale, all the rest of the crew run shouting 

 about the decks, as they get the other boats out, " a fall ! a fall !" It is 

 apparently derived from the Dutch word " Val," a Whale. 



f When a ship gets impeded by loose ice gathering around it, the crew 

 rush in a body from side to side so as to loosen it, by swaying the vessel from 

 beam to beam. This is called " sallying the ship." 



X Gray, Prcc. Zool. Soc, 1853, p. 112. 



§ Lib. cit., facing p. 169 (chromo-lithograph), and head, p. 308, both drawn 

 by Herr von Yhlen, 



