File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17972042058).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo13amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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From the middle of the sixteenth century until the middle of the nineteenth, the walrus has figured in many fantastic ways of which this armor-wrapped creature with swinish head is a typical example The walruses constitute one of the three families of aquatic carnivorous mam- mals, the pinnipeds or fin- footed animals, the other two families being the common seals and the eared seals. The wal- ruses are similar in limb structure to the eared seals, that is the fur seals and sea lions, but have much thicker bodies and are very different in the form of the skull modi- fied to afford support for the upper canine teeth, which as enormously developed tusks, form the most striking feature of these ponderous beasts. Unlike fur seals, sea lions and the true seals, the walruses are at present restricted to coasts and islands situated north of the Arctic circle; in fact they never ranged very far southward. About the middle of the six- teenth century the Atlantic walrus was found as far south as Nova Scotia, but during the last half of the eighteenth century they were practically exterminated from the various islands to which they resorted in great numbers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and from Sable Island off the southern coast of Nova Scotia where thousands were killed annually for their oil, hides and tusks. For the last hundred years only stragglers have been seen as far south as the Labrador coast. On the other side of the Atlantic the walrus in early times ranged south as far as the coast of Scotland and the Hebrides, but apparently not in large numbers, their main resort being the islands north of Norway especially Bear Island, Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, where the same war of extermi- nation has been carried on for more than three centuries till now only a few are left of the former great herds. Fossil remains of the Atlantic walrus have been found on the coasts of New Jersey, Virginia and South Carolina, showing that in glacial times it must have ranged much farther south than the points where it was found by the earhT ex- The first truthful figure of walrus, by Gerard, 1613. plorers of North America and the only one for the next 250 years'until iu 1853 a ** " living walrus was brought to London and the truth of Remains of walruses, or the Gerard picture was proved

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