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Show 432 MR. R. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. [June 25, during the day basking in the sun, lazily tossing its flippers in the air, and appeared perfectly at home and not at all inclined to change its condition. One day the captain tried it in the water for the first time; but it was quite awkward and got under the floe, whence it was unable to extricate itself, until, guided by its piteous "awuking," its master went out on the ice and called it by name, when it immediately came out from under the ice and was, to its great joy, safely assisted on board again, apparently heartily sick of its mother element. After surviving for more than three months, it died, just before the vessel left for England. As I was not near at the time, I was unable to make a dissection in order to learn the cause of death. Regarding the debated subject of the attitude of the Walrus * I am not in a position to say more than m y own notes taken at the time will allow of; I saw none last summer, and I am afraid to trust to a treacherous memory on such a matter. The entries in m y diary, however, are explicit enough on the point so far as relates to this young individual; and I presume that its habits are to be taken as a criterion of those of the old one. When asleep in the upturned cask which served it for a kennel, it lay with both fore and hind flippers extended. When walking it moved like any other quadruped, but with its hind flippers heel first, the fore flippers moving in the ordinary way, toes first. I am aware that this is in contradiction to the observations of an eminent zoologist; I, however, merely copy what was expressly noted down at the time. It ought also to be mentioned that, in the excellent figures of the Walrus taken by the artist of the Swedish Expedition to Spitzbergenf, under the direction of such well-informed naturalists as Torell, Malmgren, Smitt, Goes, Blomstrand, &c, the fore flippers are represented as rather doubled back, and the hind flippers extended. Geographical distribution.-The Walrus is an animal essentially of the coast, and not of the high seas. Whenever it is found at any distance from land it is almost always on shoals, where it can obtain the Mollusca which form the bulk of its food. The Seal-hunters never see it, nor is it found among the flocks of Seals on the Spitzbergen and Jan Mayen pack-ice. It is found all along the circumpolar shores of Asia, America, and Europe, sometimes extending into the subpolar, and even stragglers find their way into the temperate regions of America, Asia, and Europe. It is not unlikely that it may even be found in the Antarctic regions. On the north-west coast of America I have known it to come as far south as 50° N. lat. The Indians along the shores of Alaska (lately Russian America) carve the teeth into many fanciful ornaments"];; but we should be liable to * Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853, p. 112. t Lib. cit., facing p. 169 (chromolithograph), and head p. 308, both drawn by Herr von Yhlen. % M y friend Mr. A. G. Dallas, late Governor-General of the Hudson's Bay Company's Territories, has a bust of himself beautifully carved out of a Walrus-tooth, by a Tsimpshean Indian at Fort Simpson, B.C. |