THE WALRUS: HABITS AND DISTRIBUTION. 35 



teenth century by the King of France, and whose ephemeral city of New Rochelle has passed 

 away, leaving no sign. The murdered Sea-horses have left a more enduring monument than their 

 murderers. At the present time its distribution in the Western Atlantic seems to be limited on 

 tlje south by the parallel of latitude 65°, and on the west along the arctic coast by the ninety- 

 seventh meridian of longitude. It inhabits the shore of Hudson's Bay, Davis's Strait, and Green- 

 land, ranging north to Repulse Bay and Prince Regent Inlet. In the Old World it is found only 

 about the islands and in the icy seas of Eastern Europe and the neighboring waters of Western 

 Asia. It has rarely been met with to the eastward of the Jenisei (longitude 82° E.), and has not 

 been seen eastward of the one hundred and thirtieth meridian. As lately as 1857 a straggler was 

 seen at Orkney and another in Nor' Isles. The distribution of this species has been thus carefully 

 noted because its destruction has been participated iu, and the time of its extermination doubtless 

 to some extent hastened, by the efforts of American whalemen. 



The Walrus is the Morse or Sea-horse of ancient writers, many quaint extracts from whom, with 

 reproductions of their figures, are given by Mr. Allen. 



Distribution op the Pacific Walkiis. — While the Atlantic Walrus has been familiar to 

 our race since A. D. 871, when the Norman explorer Othere brought tusks of the "Horsewhale" 

 from the Arctic Sea to King Alfred of England, that of the Pacific was not discovered until 1648, 

 when the Cossack adventurer Staduchin found its tusks on the arctic coast of Eastern Asia; nor 

 was it fairly known until the time of Steller, Cook, Kotzebue, and Pallas, in the latter half of the 

 eighteenth century. Its range is comparatively narrow, being confined on the one hand to a com- 

 paratively small stretch of the northern and eastern coasts of Asia, and to a still smaller portion of 

 tlie opposite American coast. To the westward the Walrus appears not to have been traced beyond 

 Cape Schelatskoi (157° 30' east longitude), and to have occurred in large herds only as far west as 

 Koljutschin Island (150° east longitude). On the eastern coast of Asia, as early as 1742, none had 

 been seen south of latitude 60°, and of course their southern range in that direction is now still 

 more limited. In the Arctic Sea, north of Bering Strait, they have been met with as far north 

 as ships have penetrated, their westward range being limited only by the unbroken ice sheet. On 

 the American coast they have been traced eastward only as far as Point Barrow. They were 

 formerly abundant about the islands in Bering Sea, but there is no evidence that they ever ranged 

 as far south as the outermost islands in the Aleutian chain. On the mainland they were found by 

 Cook, at Bristol Bay, latitude 58° 42', where now, according to Elliott, they are more numerous 

 than at any point south of the Arctic Circle. Their immense destruction, chiefly by American 

 whalers, renders it probable that before long they will be entirely exterminated in the territory of 

 the United States. 



Size. — The length of a full-grown male Atlantic Walrus is given by Dr. Gilpin at twelve feet 

 three inches, its weight being estimated at 2,250 pounds, while Elliott gives the length of a 

 similar Alaska specimen at twelve to thirteen feet, its girth ten to fourteen feet, and its weight 

 2,000 pounds, the skin alone "weighing from 250 to 400, the head from 60 to 80 pounds. 



Habits. — The Walruses are at all times more or less gregarious, occurring generally in large 

 or small companies, according to their abundance. Like the Seals, they are restricted in their 

 wanderings to the neighborhood of shores or large masses of floating ice, being rarely seen far out 

 in the open sea. Although moving from one portion of their feeding ground to another, they are 

 said to be in no sense a migrating animal. They delight in huddling together on the ice floes, or on 

 shore, to which places they resort to bask in the sun, pressing one against another like so many 

 swine. They are also said to repair in large herds to favorable shores or islands, usually in May 

 and June, to give birth to their young, at which times they sometimes remain constantly on land 



