extremely difficult it is to shoot an old bull walrus clean dead. The front or sides of his head may be knocked all to pieces with bullets, and the animal yet have sufficient strength and sense left to enable him to swim and dive out of reach. If he is lying on his side, with his back turned to his assailant (as in the upper figure), it is easy enough, as the brain is then quite exposed, and the crown of the head is easily penetrated; but one rarely gets the walrus in that position, and when it so happens it is generally better policy to harpoon him without shooting. By firing at an old bull directly facing you, it is almost impossible to kill him, but if half front to you, a shot just above the eye may prove fatal. If sideways, he can only be killed by aiming about six inches behind the eye, and about one-fourth of the apparent depth of his head from the top; but the eye, of course, cannot be seen unless the animal is very close to you, and the difficulty is enormously increased by the back of the head being so imbedded in fat as to appear as if it were part of the neck. This will be understood by a reference to the plate. If you hit him much below that spot, you strike the jaw-joint, which is about the strongest part of the whole cranium. A leaden bullet striking there, or on the front of the head, is flattened like a piece of putty, without doing much injury to the walrus; and even hardened bullets, propelled by six drachms of powder, were sometimes broken into little pieces against the rocky crania of these animals.

Where to shoot a walrus

What becomes of the walrus in the winter it is hard to say, but I have heard them blowing in an open pool of water among the ice on the north coast of Spitzbergen in the month of December. In the spring, however, when the ice begins to break up, they collect in herds on their feeding grounds around the coasts, where they may be found diving for shellfish, or basking and sleeping, singly or in ‘heaps’ of two or three (often five or six) together. They seem to prefer to lie on small cakes of flat bay ice; a single walrus will often take his siesta on a cake only just large enough to float him, and it is among such ice therefore, rather than among rough old pack and glacier blocks, that they should be sought, although I have seen them lying on heavy old water-worn ice, four and five feet above the water. In this case, however, they had no choice. Later in the year, in August and during the autumn, particularly in open years, they collect in some bay (formerly they were found in herds thousands strong), and lie in a lethargic state on the shore. I suppose that this is their breeding season, as the young are cast in April and May, and even in June. In former years, the walrus hunters, if they had experienced a bad season, would hang around the coasts as long as they dared, visiting the various places which were known to be favourite spots for the walrus to ‘go ashore,’ and if they found one occupied, a few hours’ work would compensate them for the bad luck of the whole season.

Massing their forces—if, as customary, several sloops were sailing in company—the hunters attacked the walrus with the lance, and, killing those nearest the water first, formed a rampart behind which the rest of the herd were more or less at their mercy, which quality indeed they did not appear to possess; for, fired by excitement and greed, they would slay and slay, until there were far more of the poor beasts lying dead than they could ever hope to make use of. The remnant of the herd would escape, never to return; they would seek each year some spot further towards the north, and therefore more difficult of access to their enemies. Although, doubtless, the walrus still go ashore late in the autumn, they probably choose some of the islands in the Hinlopen Straits, or the coasts of North East Land and Franz Joseph Land, where the hunters cannot approach them, or would not dare to if they could, at that season of the year; and thus it is rare to hear of a herd being found ashore at the present day. This opportunity of having an inaccessible breeding ground will save the walrus from the fate which has overtaken the American bison, of being almost wiped from the face of the earth; and the species will therefore probably continue to exist in large numbers in the far north, after its scarcity in the more accessible waters has caused the professional walrus hunter to abandon his calling. The most likely localities for walrus around Spitzbergen at present are the coast of North East Land, Cape Leigh Smith (Storö), Rekis-öerne, Hopenöerne on the east coast, and the Hinlopen Straits.

Although the staple food of the walrus consists of mollusca, it also preys, to some extent, upon the seal. I remember that, on opening the stomach of the first walrus I shot, we found it full of long strips of the skin of a seal, apparently Phoca hispida, with the blubber still attached.[1] As the death of this walrus was fairly typical of the manner in which they are now captured, I will try to describe it; but it would be better perhaps to first sketch the boats and implements which are used in walrus hunting.

The boats, called ‘fangstbaade,’ are strongly, yet lightly, built of three-quarter-inch Norwegian ‘furru.’ They are carvel built and bow shaped at both ends; the stem and stern posts are made thick and strong in order to resist the blows of the ice, and the bow sheathed with zinc plates to prevent excessive chafing. They are most commonly 20 ft. or 21 ft. in length, and have their greatest beam, viz. 5 ft., one-third of their length from the bow. It is most important that they should be easy and quick in turning, and this quality is obtained by depressing the keel in the middle. They are painted red inside and white outside, so that they may not be conspicuous amongst ice, but the hunters stultify this idea to some extent by dressing themselves in dark colours. Inside the bow there are small racks guarded by painted canvas flaps, in which the harpoon-heads are fitted, usually three on either side of the boat. The harpoon, the point and edges of which are ground and whetted to a razor-like sharpness, is a simple but very effective weapon. When thrust into a walrus or seal, a large outer barb ‘takes up’ a loop of the tough hide, whilst a small inner fish-hook barb prevents it from becoming disengaged, so that when once properly harpooned, it is very seldom, if ever, that an animal escapes through the harpoon ‘drawing.’ The harpoon-shafts, which lie along the thwarts, are made of white pine poles, 12 ft. in length and from 1 in. to 1½ in. in diameter, tapered at one end to fit the socket of the harpoon-head, in which the shaft is set fast when required by striking its butt against one of the ribs of the boat, or a small block fixed in the after end on the starboard side. The harpoon is used almost entirely as a thrusting weapon, but a good man can set one fast by casting if the occasion demands it, up to a distance of 20 ft. The harpoon line, which is ‘grummeted’ round the shank of the head, consists of sixteen fathoms of two-inch tarred rope, very carefully made of the finest hemp, ‘soft laid’; each line is neatly coiled in a separate box placed beneath the forward thwart. When a walrus is ‘fast,’ it is most important that the line should not slip aft—if allowed to do so it would probably capsize the boat—and to help to prevent this, deep