598 CARNIVORA 
A full-grown male Walrus measures from 10 to 11 feet from the 
nose to the end of the very short tail, and is a heavy, bulky animal, 
especially thick about the shoulders. The soles of both fore and 
hind feet are bare, rough, and warty. The surface of the skin 
generally is covered with short, adpressed hair of a light, yellowish- 
brown colour, which, on the under parts of the body and base of 
the flippers, passes into dark reddish-brown or chestnut. In old 
animals the hair becomes more scanty, sometimes almost entirely 
disappearing, and the skin shows ample evidence of the rough life 
and pugnacious habits of the animal in the innumerable scars with 
which it is usually covered. Itis everywhere more or less wrinkled, 
Fic. 274.—The Walrus (Lrichechus rosmarus). 
but especially over the shoulders, where it is thrown into deep and 
heavy folds. 
The tusks are formidable weapons of defence, but their principal 
use seems to be scraping and digging among the sand and shingle 
for the molluscs and crustaceans on which the Walrus feeds. They 
are said also to aid in climbing up the slippery rocks and ledges of 
ice on which so much of the animal's life is passed. Although this 
function of the tusks is affirmed by numerous authors, some of 
whom appear to have had opportunities of actual observation, it is 
explicitly denied by Malmeren. 
Walruses are more or less gregarious in their habits, being met 
with generally in companies or herds of various sizes. They are 
only found near the coast or on large masses of floating ice, and 
rarely far out in the open sea ; and, though often moving from one 
part of their feeding ground to another, they have no regular 
seasonal migrations. Their young are born between the months of 
