LIFE AT STELLINGEN 243 
myself fortunate in that I have received during recent years 
several separate consignments of the creatures. Of course, 
it is only possible to capture them alive when they are quite 
young. I understand that mine were secured by surprising 
them on the ice and seizing them after their parents had been 
slain. 
The first two walruses which I received both died within 
a few weeks; two others which I had later on lived for 
nearly two years. They are very sensitive, and require 
careful looking after, being especially liable to catch cold. 
The last of these first four walruses caught a cold when 
winter was coming on, but we succeeded in curing the 
animal by the agency of a steam bath. It lived till it was 
about three years old, and, when it died, it weighed fully 
8 cwt. I believe that a walrus is full-grown at about ten 
years of age, and it then weighs about a ton and a quarter. 
I need hardly say that such large animals. require a prodigi- 
ous quantity of food. To the first two which I had, in spite 
of their youth, I gave over 20 lbs. a day. Cod, halibut, and 
various kinds of fish were the staple food. I cut it up into 
small pieces, and took out the bone, so that the animals 
could easily consume the pieces in the water. The second 
-two walruses that I received used to devour between them 
no less than 180 lbs. of fish daily, though they were at that 
time not three years old. From this it may easily be inferred 
how great must be the appetite of a full-grown walrus and 
how prodigious the quantity of food which he has to catch. 
It was only after much trouble and many disappointments 
that I succeeded, in October, 1907, in obtaining more walruses 
for my garden. In that month, however, I secured three 
individuals which had been captured in the Kara Straits near 
~Waigatz Island, and were sent me by Dr. Breitfuss, the 
leader of a scientific expedition to those parts. Their captor 
fed them exclusively on the blubber of the common seal, and 
when they first arrived at Stellingen the same diet was con- 
tinued. But, after a time, all the available blubber came to 
16 * 
