The strangest of all the seals is the walrus, whose tusks, representing the canine teeth, are sometimes as much as two feet long.
This animal is found only in the northern parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and is not often seen outside the arctic circle. Formerly it was far more widely distributed, and in the Atlantic was even seen frequently as far south as the Gulf of St. Lawrence; but it has been so persecuted by hunters that it has quite disappeared from many districts where once it was in great numbers.
The walrus is not quite so large as the sea-elephant, nevertheless, it is a very big animal, for a full-grown male will often measure twelve feet in length, and will weigh nearly a ton. It uses its tusks for many different purposes. When it wants to climb upon an ice-floe, for example, it will dig them deeply into the ice, and so obtain purchase while it raises its huge body out of the water. They are very formidable weapons, too, and the animal can strike so quickly with them, both sideways and downward, that it is not at all easy to avoid their stroke. Then they are very useful in obtaining food. If a walrus finds the body of a dead whale, it will cut off huge lumps of the flesh by means of its tusks; and very often it will dig in the sandy mud with them for mussels and cockles. The consequence is that the tusks are frequently broken, while they are nearly always very much worn at the tips.
The name walrus is a corruption of whale-horse. The animal is sometimes known as the sea-horse, and also as the morse.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WHALE TRIBE
The whales are more thoroughly creatures of the water than even the seals, for they never come upon dry land at all, even during the breeding-season. Indeed, if a whale is unfortunate enough to be thrown upon the shore by a great wave, and left stranded, it cannot possibly make its way back into the sea, but is obliged to lie there till it dies.
Yet we must not think that these giant creatures are fishes; for they are as truly mammals as the seals are. Their blood is hot, and is driven through the body by a heart made up of four chambers, instead of only two. They breathe by means of nostrils and lungs, and not by means of gills. And besides that they suckle their young, just as all other mammals do.
Then, once more, if you look at the body of a whale, you will see that its tail is quite different from that of a fish. The tail of a fish is upright, but that of a whale is set crosswise. So that there is only one respect in which whales are really like fishes, and that is the general shape of the body.