414 
MORTONS JOURNEY. 
movement drives it into the ice: to this he secures 
his line, pressing it down close to the ice-surface with 
his feet. 
Now comes the struggle. The hole is dashed in mad 
commotion with the struggles of the wounded beast; 
the line is drawn tight at one moment, the next re¬ 
laxed : the hunter has not left his station. There is a 
crash of the ice; and rearing up through it are two 
walruses, not many yards from where he stands. One 
of them, the male, is excited and seemingly terrified: 
the other, the female, collected and vengeful. Down 
they go again, after one grim survey of the field; and 
on the instant Myouk has changed his position, carry¬ 
ing his coil with him and fixing it anew. 
He has hardly fixed it before the pair have again 
risen, breaking up an area of ten feet diameter about 
the very spot he left. As they sink once more he 
again changes his place. And so the conflict goes on 
between address and force, till the victim, half ex¬ 
hausted, receives a second wound, and is played like a 
trout by the angler’s reel. 
The instinct of attack which characterizes the walrus 
is interesting to the naturalist, as it is characteristic 
also of the land animals, the pachyderms, with which 
he is classed. When wounded, he rises high out of the 
water, plunges heavily against the ice, and strives to 
raise himself with his fore-flippers upon its surface. 
As it breaks under his weight, his countenance assumes 
a still more vindictive expression, his bark changes to 
