July 2, 1898.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
8 
1 
THE PACIFIC WALRUS. 
Mounted under direction of William Palmer for the U. S. National Museum. 
ally ebbing out of us, we begin to realize ourselves how 
precious it is. And so it has come to this pass that time 
and circumstances have made us not only conservative 
lovers of nature, but truly Thoreau-bred, and we have 
other use and value for game than to chase, kill, and 
eat it. Thoreau, like Audubon, loved to take these 
gentle creatures to his heart; to note their habits and ex- 
pressions; and to observe my companion how nearly re- 
lated we are in the divine economy. And Emerson has 
quaintly said: 
"Not unrelated, imalh'ed, 
But to each thought and thing allied, 
In perfect nature's every part, 
Rooted in the mighty heart." 
Sometimes I bring to my invalid friend my fly book, 
and we look over the varied patterns. They are not 
remarkable, but are mindful. He says that there is no 
trout region in all the wilds of America to compare with 
that which lies within comparatively easy reach of us in 
the Sapphire country of North Carolina. There are 
beauteous lakes there in the heart of the Blue Ridge, 
with crags like walls abutting upon their shores, where 
eagles nest; and streams that are broken by riffs and 
pools, in which great 21b. trout hide; and waterfalls hun- 
dreds of feet high, which leap sheer precipices, or tumble 
m foaming cascades over gradient ledges; and at the foot 
of every one of them speckled trout disport! Mr. Geo. F. 
Weston, of the Biltmore estate, confirms this statement, 
and so do all gentlemen of veracity who know. 
For years this angler's elysium has been isolated and 
kept intact by distance and inaccessibility, and even now 
it is a twenty-seven-mile drive from the nearest railway 
terminus, at Brevard. This month, however, a capacious 
up-to-date hotel has been opened to the public, and 
sportsmen are invited to come. Every modern con- 
venience is supplied, and the livery equipment is as good 
as the best, so that the visitor can accomplish the long 
drive over a road which is incomparable in this moun- 
tain region. 
I was on my way myself to this delightful Sapphire 
country, the brighest of all rural- gems, when I had to 
sidetrack here at the Asheville Sanitarium on Oakland 
Heights, in behalf of an invalid wife, who could no 
further go. I atn thankful to be here; but, spero meliora, 
I long to be beyond and taste of the living waters. 
Should my experiences be gratifying, of which there can 
be no doubt, I may perhaps write up some sylvan 
notes for your ad captandum. For the present, however, 
this poor sample must suffice. 
My friend aforesaid has read the Forest and Stream 
from its inception, and joins me in congratulations 
upon the completion of its useful and captivating quarter 
of a century, as will also scores of veterans who have 
hung up their rods and guns, as well as others who are 
closely following them on the down grade. May the 
spirit of sport and fraternity attend their declining steps, 
while your journal goes marching on for good. 
The Walrus. 
(Concluded from j>age 511.) 
One method of hunting the walrus is practiced by the 
Siberian Eskimos and by them alone as follows: After 
tire passage of the ice floes, females with their voung are 
often seen making their way along the coast toward 
Behring Strait and the ice fields of the Arctic Ocean. 
At such times the Avatchful Eskimos man their oomiaks 
and lie off some prominent headland where the walrus 
are likely to pass, and as the young do not like to stay 
under water very long the coming to the surface of the 
pup gives the hunters a good idea of the position of the 
young from time to time, and chase is given at once. 
The oomiaks are about 30ft. long, propelled by 
eight men; there are three seats or thwarts across the 
body of the canoe, each occupied by two men; a single 
seat in the stern and one in the bow occupied by the 
harpooner. The one in the stern steers the oomiak and 
gives all orders, which are implicitly obeyed. There are 
usually six pokes or floats; these last are made of the 
skins of seal taken off whole, then turned the flesh side 
out, and all the blubber scraped off, and all the natural 
vents of the body tied up and the skin blown up until 
all the stretch is gotten out, and then dried. It is then 
turned hair side out and all the holes stopped up, and in 
one opening is put an ivory stud with a small hole 
drilled through to blow up the poke. These are used to 
attach to the line when a walrus is harpooned and keep 
him from getting away, for he is unable to draw this 
float beneath the water. This leaves the hunter at liberty 
to attack another if chance offers. 
When all his implements are in place and the wal- 
rus are seen, they paddle directly for the spot where the 
walrus disappeared; and knowing the course taken, the 
hunters urge the oomiak forward. The man in the bow 
has an instrument for slapping the water. It is made of 
whalebone, about 6ft. long and 3^in. wide, ^in. thick, 
with one end cut away to form a good hand hold. With this; 
he continually slaps the water as the canoe is paddled swift- 
ly along. The sharp report made by this instrument 
when skillfully struck flat on the surface confuses the 
walrus, and they lose their wits and come tS the sur- 
face in helpless terror. When this occurs the canoes 
come up and the men throw their spears with the floats 
attached. Then the animal is killed with a lance and 
cut up and placed in the canoe and taken to land. A 
medium sized walrus will load an ordinary oomiak, for 
everything is saved except the blood. The intestines are 
freed of their contents and saved, and when washed out 
and inflated and dried they make the very best water- 
proof clothing; also when the grain is broken the women 
make very pretty overcoats to wear in winter. The ma- 
terial is quite white and very thin and light, and they 
ornament the seams with colored feathers and bits of 
woolen thread. Being very soft and pliable it makes a 
very desirable garment to wear over the winter garments 
of fur to keep the drifting snow from blowing into the 
fur. For waterproof the intestines, after being dried, are 
given a coat of oil and dried again. These strips are- 
sewed together round and round, the arms are put to- 
gether the same way, and notwithstanding the many 
seams are quite waterproof, and the numerous uses to 
which the walrus is put is a very interesting and instruc- 
tive study. 
The migration of the walrus southward does not be- 
gin until the formation of the new ice gives warning of 
the closing of the Arctic Sea. 
I have been informed by reliable natives that the wal- 
rus sometimes wintered in the vicinity of Point Barrow, 
but only a few individuals. These made their home be- 
neath the ice exactly as the seal does by keeping open a 
small hole through the ice to furnish a constant supply of 
fresh air. These breathing places, called alooes by the 
Eskimos, are formed as follows: When the ice is thin, 
say an inch or two thick, the walrus comes up beneath 
and raises a hummock with its strong head, and there 
will be cracks through which -they can readily breathe. 
The warm breath soon enlarges this opening; the frost 
formed from the breath obliterates the traces of frac- 
ture and soon the drifting snows make the surface even 
and the walrus comes and goes, and none but the dwel- 
lers beneath the ice can see his movements. The ice 
tmckens rapidly in the intense cold, and when the walrus 
comes up into his allooe to breath he picks away the ice 
with his strong tusks, constantly enlarging it until its 
dimensions are satisfactory. No doubt this process has 
to be gone over many times during the winter and per- 
haps a little every day. As the ice grows thicker it 
floats higher and higher, making the dome of his winter 
home more and more roomy; and as the greater part of 
his time must be spent in the allooe, it must be a 
lonely existence to pass the winter beneath the ice for a 
creature so fond of the society of his kind as is the 
walrus. It seems to me they would never voluntarily 
make their home beneath the ice in this region, but it 
must be because they have been caught by the heavy ice 
crowding upon the land and their escape to the south has 
been cut off in the same way the unfortunate whalemen 
were in 1897 at Point Barrow. 
I was told by Mung-ie-ah-loo, a bright and reliable 
jEskimo, that the walrus caught the little common seal 
and ate them; at first I was rather incredulous about 
lEhe matter, and told him it was impossible for a walrus 
to seize a seal in its mouth, which does not project be- 
yond the two tusks, and both jaws are back of the line 
an inch or more. But he explained that the walrus 
kills the seal with the tusks and then tears it to pieces 
in the same manner, and when a strip is torn off they 
get the end in their mouth and in that way devour it. 
The following summer, when the walrus were passing, 
he brought me the stomach of one in which were the 
remains of a partly digested seal, which had been torn 
and eaten just as he described the process. 
The migration of the walrus southward does not begin 
until the new ice begins to form, and gives warning 
of the closing of the sea, and whale ships seldom see 
them in the vicinity of Bering Straits on their way out 
at the close of the whaling season, about Oct. 1. 
I doubt if the walrus ever voluntarily remain north 
of Bering Straits, but if some straggling individuals get 
belated and find their southern journey arrested by 
strong, heavy ice, they may elect to remain and make 
their home beneath the floe, as the seals of the region 
always do. In the five years I spent at Point Barrow 
not a single walrus was taken or reported to have been 
seen in winter. 
One reason for the migration of these animals to the 
north and their keeping among the ice floes is to pro- 
tect their young from the orca, which attacks and de- 
stroys the young of all the cetaceans, and the walrus 
recognize the safety to be found among the ice fields, 
upon which they can readily climb and be entirely safe 
from the attack of the orca. "The orca dislikes to go 
among the ice because of its dorsal fin, which would be 
likely to come in contact with the ice when near the 
surface. 
Soon after the walrus leave the Arctic Ocean the 
Bering Sea in its northern part becomes filled with ice, 
and the walrus herds keep on the southern verge and 
drift southward on both shores of the sea. They are 
seldom seen in winter because of the boisterous weather 
encountered in these high northern latitudes; in winter 
no commerce is carried on north of the Alutian Islands; 
no port stands with open arms to receive the storm- 
tossed mariner; the seal of the ice king is placed on land 
and sea. 
The females on the return journey to the south are 
joined by the males on the southern part of the ice, and 
there the winter is passed drifting to and fro with the 
ever-moving ice. Whether they pass much time on the 
ice during the intense cold of winter is unknown, but 
I have no doubt they could endure the cold with their 
thick skin and heavy coating of blubber. However 
that may be, the water is not much colder in winter than 
in summer, since among the ice at that time the tempera- 
ture is always over the freezing point. The animals 
in the far north keep in good condition in winter, and 
the polar bear does not hesitate to plunge into the 
water to secure the coveted seal, and his coat of wet fur 
cannot compare with the warm coat of blubber on the 
walrus. From this I am inclined to believe that they 
pass a large part of their time on the ice in winter as 
well as in summer. 
Their desire to sleep on a solid foundation seems ir- 
resistible at times, although they can sleep in water, 
and do when no other convenient resting place is at 
hand. Their position when asleep in the water is with 
the head and the back flippers hanging down and only 
a small portion of the side of the animal rounded up 
above the level of the water. I have seen the very old 
males sleep in an entirely different position. These 
old fellows have the ability to take a perpendicular at- 
titude, with the loose, flabby folds of the skin spread out 
around them like an umbrella, and with the neck drawn 
down and just the top of the head and tusks showing 
above the wrinkled, hairless body of the strange looking 
mass floating on the sea. In the first-named position 
the walrus are compelled to raise their head every ten 
or fifteen minutes to breathe, but in the latter the' nos- 
trils are at all times above water and continuous sleep 
is at their command. 
It is a common impression that every creature has 
its foes ''besides the great destroyer man," yet it seems 
to me the walrus has great immunity from foes. His 
home among the ice floes makes a safe retreat from the 
orca, and only the very young could be eaten by them, 
for I do not think an orca could tear the skin of a six 
months' old walrus, because of the thickness and 
strength of their skin even at this tender age. 
It has always been my opinion that any animal that 
can eat a walrus must carry a sharp knife to cut him 
up with first, and even the Eskimo in the stone age must 
have had a hard task to carve the tough covering with 
implements of stone, slate, etc. 
The polar bear, though large and Strong, would get 
