ARCTIC V/ALRUS* 
forty-five minutes, the crew of an English 
vessel. fell in with a prodigious number of these 
creatures, all lying near each other ; that, out 
of more than a thousand, of which this troop 
consisted, the sailors killed only fifteen, but 
found as many teeth as filled a hogshead ; that, 
on the 1 3th of July, they killed a hundred 
more, of which they carried off only the 
teeth: and that, in 1706, another EngUsh 
crew killed seven or eight hundred in six hours ; 
in 1708, more than nine hundred in seven 
hours ; in 1710, eight hundred in a few days; 
and that a single man slew forty with a spear." 
According to Zorgdrager, who is said by 
BufFon to speak of this animal with greater 
intelligence than any other author, when a 
W alrus is met with on the ice, or in the wa- 
ter, a strong harpoon is darted at him, which 
not unfrequently slips on the thick hard skin : 
but, on the animal's being pierced, it is dragged 
with a cable towards the helm of the boat, 
where it is slain with a long spear made for 
the purpose, and afterwards brought to the 
nearest shore, or a flat board of ice. It is, 
generally, heavier than an Ox; and the fishers 
begin with taking off the skin. They then, 
with a hatchet, separate the two tusks from 
the 
