342 



THE SEA-HORSE. 



attacks made by sea-horses upon boats 

 and their crews, with the timid and rapid 

 dispersion which always attended the ap- 

 pearance of his boat among a swimming 

 herd. Under no provocation whatever 

 could either males or females be persuaded 

 to show fight. 



Occasionally, if you are coasting in 

 Behring Sea, running along before a light 

 breeze, your vessel will silently glide upon a 

 small band of walrus sound asleep in the 

 water; and, unless the sail flaps or the keel 

 strikes a sleeper's form, you will pass on and 

 leave them entirely unconscious of their 

 dreaded visitor. They sleep grotesquely 

 enough at sea, just like so many water- 

 logged sticks, one end down and the other 

 up. Nothing but the muzzle, with a few 

 inches of the gleaming white tusks, appears 

 to mark the position of a sleeping morse ; its 

 huge body rests vertically extended to a 

 depth of twelve or thirteen feet below the 

 surface of the rippling wavelets. You arouse 

 a sleeper, and, with one short snort of sur- 

 prise, it instantly tips itself back into a hor- 

 izontal position and swims off, steering with 

 its hind flippers; if not badly frightened it 

 will re-appear, head and shoulders, after a 



lapse of ten or fifteen minutes, to resurvey 

 and grunt its amazement ; but if thoroughly 

 alarmed, it disappears entirely. 



Much amusing speculation has been in- 

 dulged in by various writers as to what par- 

 ticular animal gave rise in olden time to the 

 weird idea of the merman and mermaid : 

 some authorities, and one of them encyclo- 

 pedic, declare it is the " human expression " 

 of the rosmarus ! Evidently that man has 

 never seen the beast, for no matter how 

 harshly he may feel toward mankind, he 

 never for a moment would make this charge, 

 could he only see his type ; however, several 

 species of the common hair seals ( Phoca 

 vitidiua J and the dugong, as they rise from 

 the water, have a decided suggestion in 

 their eyes of the famous girl-fish, and these 

 are probably the source of the suggestion. 

 No amount of imagination can invest the 

 uncouth head of the sea-horse with this 

 pleasant fancy, for when the gristled muzzle 

 of a walrus rises above the sea an observer 

 cannot see the creature's eyes ; those small, 

 skin-colored organs are wholly undistinguish- 

 able at the distance one is compelled to 

 keep by reason of the excessive tUnidity of 

 the snorting pachyderm. ^^^f g^ 



ARCTIC FOG-HORNS. 



