34° 



THE SEA-HORSE. 



invariably broken off by their owners at the 

 tips or even up as high as the jaw itself; 

 when walrus ivory is perfectly white and 

 free from cracks, it rates as high as the 

 best elephant-teeth ; but most of it has a 

 yellow, porous core, and is badly cracked 

 from the tips to the base. 



The upper lips are thick and gristly, 

 completely overhanging and shadowing the 

 lower ; they are set full of short, stout, gray- 

 ish-white and horn-colored bristles, varying 

 in length from a half to three and four 

 inches; this mustache is decidedly the most 

 sinister and peculiar in the whole animal 

 kingdom. 



A dull, wooden expression is given by the 

 eyes of the walrus. These are small, and 

 protrude from their sockets like those of a 

 lobster ; the iris and pupil form less than one- 



the nostrils of the morse, and instantly the 

 clumsy brute would snort in fright, and push, 

 roll, and slide its huge bulk back into the 

 sheltering sea. Most emphatically does the 

 walrus aver that seeing is not believing, but 

 smelling is ! 



After all, the crowning peculiarity of this 

 creature comes with age. When an Alaskan 

 rosmarus has wintered and summered for 

 eighteen or twenty years in the chilly, deso- 

 late regions of its choice, it becomes bald, 

 I and, more than that, all of its hair, from 

 head to tail, falls out, with the trifling excep- 

 tion of little sparse tufts here and there, 

 rooted in the deep wrinkles and plications 

 j of its hide, giving a raw and naked appear- 

 1 ance to the old veteran. The skin, bare 

 I of hair, is covered with a multitude of un- 

 I wholesome, pustular-looking warts and pim- 



A WALRUS BREEDING-GROUND, BEHRING STRAITS. 



quarter of the exposed surface. The sclerotic 

 bulges out from the lids, which are tinged a 

 cofifee-yellow and brown, with an occasional 

 admixture of white in tiny spots When the 

 walrus is aroused, the eyes are rolled about 

 in every direction, — forward, backward, up, 

 down, and around, — while the head itself 

 seldom turns, the animal only moving it, more 

 or less stiffly, as it rears up. These odd, 

 lobster-like optics, however, render their 

 owners but little service out of water, and per- 

 haps as little in. The natives have repeatedly 

 amused the writer by going up gently to a 

 walrus bull from the leeward, almost to within 

 striking distance, causing that animal to 

 make no other sign than a stupid stare 

 and low grunts of curiosity ; but did the 

 man move a trifle to windward, so that 

 the faintest whiff of his individuality reached 



pies, deeply wrinkled and traversed with a 

 coarse net-work of dark red venous lines, 

 that show out in bold contrast through the 

 thick, yellowish-brown cuticle, which in turn 

 seems to be scaling off in places, as if from 

 leprosy. A herd of these old stagers (they 

 always keep together) strikes the eye of the 



{ observer in a most unpleasant manner. 

 This thick, tough hide of the walrus 

 gives a strong superficial resemblance to the 



I pachydermata ; its weight alone, divested of 

 blubber, is more than three hundred and 

 fifty pounds ! Naturally, its grain is very 

 coarse, especially where it is three inches in 

 depth, as it is found to be over the shoulders 

 and around the neck, and nowhere is the 

 skin of an adult less than half an inch in 

 thickness; when young, however, it is thor- 

 oughly covered with short, moderately fine 



