WARD’S NATURAL SCIENCE BULLETIN. 
9 
It was our intention to have given a cut of the Atlantic Walrus at the time we noted the departure 
of a tine mounted specimen for Melbourne, Australia, but — if the truth must be told — our assistant 
put the cut away so carefully that it could not be found when wanted. In this issue, however, 
we have the pleasure of giving a good illustration of a family of Pacific Walruses ( Odobcmnus 
obesus ) that we have recently mounted for the American Museum of Natural History, Central Park. 
The male was an unusually large specimen, with a fine pair of unbroken tusks, something, accord- 
ing to Mr. Elliott, rather unusual in an adult Walrus. We can not help thinking that Mr. Elliott 
has unconsciously exaggerated the difference in external appearance of the Atlantic and Pacific 
Walruses, for while we have never seen a living specimen of either, we have had several fresh 
skins of each species. These appear alike, with the exception of the whiskers, a difference dwelt 
upon by Mr. Allen. Both seem equally large and equally obese, and both, as they grow old, become 
covered with scars and denuded of hair. With all due respect, we prefer to base the species on 
osteological differences rather than outward form. The largest Walrus measured by Mr. Elliott 
was exactly as long and exactly as much in girth as the specimen of Atlantic Walrus we sent to 
Australia, and this latter, although adult, was not old. This would indicate that the difference 
of the species in size is small if it exists at all. 
NATURE’S SURGERY. 
In view of the care that is taken to reset a 
broken bone or heal a wound when the afflicted 
party belongs to the genus Homo, the amount of 
injury that wild animals can sustain and recover 
seems surprising. Animals,, too, are much more 
liable to accidents than one might at first sup- 
pose, and although man is probably responsible 
for far more suffering than nature causes, yet 
disasters happen in one way or another to many 
beasts and birds. When we see monkeys in 
captivity agilely skipping about their cages, 
springing from branch to branch without once 
missing their hold, it is difficult to imagine them 
catching a tumble. But an examination of nu- 
merous skeletons shows that they do occasionally 
come to grief in a very serious manner, and that 
monkeys no more than men can climb with abso- 
lute immunity from harm. Out of a dozen or so 
of large Neilgherry Langurs, two had broken 
femora, and a specimen of the Proboscis monkey 
must have suffered severely from a similar mis- 
hap, for although the bone had re-united, yet 
exostosis caused by inflammation had set in to 
such an extent that there was a deposit three- 
quarters of an inch thick for two-thirds of the 
length of the bone. Two large Orangs were 
found with the humerus broken, and in one 
individual the injury was of such old standing 
and the union of fracture so perfect that the 
bone by itself would hardly attract attention. 
But when compared with its fellow it proved to 
be 1| inch shorter and revealed the situation of 
the break by its superior thickness and rugosity. 
In all of these cases the injured limb was one 
of those most necessary to the animal’s locomo- 
tion, for the smaller monkeys, which leap from 
tree to tree, had their hind legs broken and the 
large apes, whose bulk forces them to swing care- 
fully from one branch to another, had suffered in 
their fore legs. Hence from the nature of the 
case the repair of the injured member must have 
taken place under many disadvantages ; and yet 
nature unaided performed a much better piece of 
work than did Dr. Livingstone for himself, in 
the African forests, with his knowledge of sur- 
gery. In fact, had the fracture been repaired by 
a surgeon it wmuld have been called a very sue. 
cessful operation. 
Small animals, especially in settled districts, 
are subject to frequent accidents from traps and 
trappers. Among other victims that have come 
under my notice, two, a turtle and a porcupine, 
had one fore leg completely amputated, the for- 
mer below and the latter above the elbow. In 
this last instance the accident must have taken 
place when the animal was quite young, for ex- 
ternally the stump was scarcely discoverable, 
even by touch, while internal examination 
showed that the scapula was considerably atro- 
phied. 
About the only instance of a broken leg among 
birds— aside from gunshot wounds— was in a 
small Blue Heron, in which the metacarpus had 
been fractured diagonally and re-united ; the 
slip] ting by of the two portions shortening the 
leg only about a quarter of an inch. 
Broken ribs, as may be supposed, are of fre- 
quent occurrence and are found not only among 
land animals but among cetaceans, whom one 
would naturally suppose to be removed from the 
danger of such accidents. A specimen of Hy- 
peroodon twenty-two feet in length bore evidence 
that two of its ribs had been broken, and that, 
too, after the animal had arrived at maturity. I 
have seen both Moose and Elk with ribs broken 
and perfectly reunited, and an Echidna had 
completely recovered from a fracture of no less 
than six ribs. One might imagine that snakes, 
with their many slender ribs, would be particu- 
larly liable to injury, but such does not seem to 
be the case, although I have met with One which 
had sustained a dislocation of the vertebral 
column without apparently more serious results 
than a permanent crook in the back. Turtle, to 
whom a broken rib must be a rather serious af- 
fair, are not infrequently found with sadly dis- 
torted carapaces, showing that, like Lady Jane, 
they must have been “crushed ” at some time. I 
recall one specimen of Malacodemys palustris . 
which seemed to have been run over by a wagon 
when young and had four ribs and three vertebrae 
broken, and yet had recovered completely from 
these injuries. Such recoveries as this recall 
Magendie’s remark, that in recovery from sick- 
ness “ Nature does much, good nursing much, 
doctors devilish little.” To have a tail inter- 
rupted that should have been continued, is a 
comparatively harmless accident and one that 
not infrequently happens, although sometimes 
the results are peculiar. Gunther figures a Pike 
very much abbreviated and very odd looking, 
and a Mud Turtle, brought to us last summer, 
had a tail terminated by a ball nearly an inch in 
diameter. I am tempted to introduce here the 
story of the Elephant Rats, from Algeria, wdiich 
resembled the ordinary rat except that its nose 
terminated in a proboscis nearly an inch in 
length. The species proved to be the creation of 
some enterprising French Zouaves, who whiled 
away their time by grafting the tail of one rat 
into the nose of another, and when they had 
united, cut off any required length of proboscis. 
Turning from one end to the other, I have 
noted two cases in which an animal’s jaw had 
been broken, one an Indian Wild Hog ( Sas cris- 
tatus) and the other a small Deer. In the first 
case the union of the fractured parts was com- 
plete, while in the second instance the broken 
edges were still separated, although exostosis had 
increased that portion of the jaw to four times 
its original size. Not only do Orangs break their 
legs, but it would seem that they occasionally 
break their heads also, since among various 
specimens examined, there was one showing an 
ugly looking dent in the skull, which must have 
been caused by some fracture healed long ago 
without trepanning. All of the above-noted 
cases were apparently caused by accidents with 
which man had nothing to do, except possibly in 
the case of the three-legged Porcupine, but the 
few succeeding examples illustrate recoveries 
from gunshot wounds : One interesting specimen 
was an Orang with a bullet imbedded in its jaw 
and almost completely hidden beneath newdy 
formed bone. A Mountain Sheep exhibited a 
somewhat similar case, having the ball firmly 
fastened in its tarsus. A more peculiar example 
was related to me by a friend, who extracted 
from the humerus of a bird a shot which had 
pierced one side and lodged in the air cavity of 
the bone. Afterwards the hole had completely 
closed, and the in jury would have escaped notice 
had not attention been called to it by the rattling 
of the bone. The scapula of an Elk, bearing a 
partially closed perforation, bore witness to the 
fact that its owner had escaped death once, only 
to fall under a second and much later shot. Last 
of all I will mention the skull of an Elephant 
which had been pierced through and through by 
a ball, without dealh having ensued ; but this is 
not so remarkable as it might at first seem, since 
the course of the ball was through the air cells 
above the brain cavity, and the wound probably 
caused nothing more than a severe headache. 
Theconclusion drawn from these varied instances 
is, to let well enough alone and in case of injury 
merely to see that nature is not too much impeded 
fly art. Frederic A. Lucas. 
We sold to Dr. Leidy, last summer, for his 
Philadelphia collection, a lower jaw of a Boar 
whose canines (tusks) had grown uninterruptedly 
until they had described an entire circle, com- 
pletely crossing both rami of the jaw, and tearing 
away, with great disturbance to the alveoles, two 
of the molars on each side. We are now shipping 
to Mr. J. Z. Davis, of San Francisco, an immense 
stuffed Hog— 9 feet long and 4 feet high — 
whose tusks have undergone the same monstrous 
growth, causing the death of the animal. 
