SHAL AND WHALE FISHERY, 1897. 75 
had to look elsewhere for a cargo; and the glowing reports of the 
great abundance of Walruses observed on the shores of Franz 
Josef Land by Mr. Leigh Smith, Dr. Nansen, and Mr. Jackson, 
as might be expected, attracted them in that direction, and they 
took their departure for this new hunting ground on June 25tb. 
The ‘ Balena’ was the first to arrive, sighting Cape Flora after a 
twelve days’ passage, and she made a clean sweep of the coast, 
killing 600 Walruses, and leaving little or nothing for those 
which followed, the ‘Active’ only securing seventy and the 
‘Diana’ eighty-four. Great was their disappointment, as they 
expected to find something approaching the numbers seen by 
Mr. Lamont on the Thousand Islands in 1852, where a herd of 
three or four thousand was seen, and nine hundred killed by two 
small sloops, a sight which will probably never again be witnessed. 
T'o add to the disappointment, almost all those met with were 
females and young, and a few young bulls; it was evidently the 
nursery of the species. Where the old bulls were was not dis- 
covered, but the females and their young were exterminated. In 
the Greenland Seas the Walrus has already become a rare 
animal, in Davis Strait it is rapidly becoming scarce, and the 
enormous numbers which formerly inhabited Behring’s Strait 
are subject to such exhaustive demands that they cannot long 
survive.. When we take into consideration the ease with which 
these animals can be approached, and their slow rate of repro- 
duction, it is safe to predict that the time is not far distant 
when the species will become totally extinct. It is curious how 
a new industry may affect the very existence of an old species. 
- Iam told that the greater activity in the search for Walruses is 
due to the sudden demand which has arisen for their hides, 
which are extensively used by the makers of bicycles for forming 
buffers; their value has greatly increased in consequence, and 
good thick bull-hides weighing 350 lb. and upwards sell for as 
much as ls. 6d. per lb. The hides brought home this year 
from Franz Josef Land being those of females and young 
animals, therefore thin and of light weight, did not realize any- 
thing like this price, some being worth as little as 23d. per lb. 
The tusks, I am told, realize about 2s. 6d. per lb., and the oil 
£18 per ton. 
In marked contrast to the Greenland fishery, that of Davis 
