Heads and tales

by Unknown

"These changes seem connected with a great development of the wild habits, and attachment to, and knowledge of, the localities where they have first seen the light. As the barbata is until this period in reality a land animal, the chief difficulty we have to surmount with it is in the quality of the milk to be given it. The vitulina is essentially an inhabitant of the water from its birth, yet the care of the mother is perhaps for weeks necessary to judge how long and how often it should be on land, and this we can hardly expect to imitate. In the young of this species a few days old, which we have tried to rear, a want of knowledge of this kind of management may have led to failure. I have not attempted to rear them at a greater age.

"The Greenland seal is, I have been informed, occasionally kept for a month or two on board the whalers, and thrives sufficiently well on the flesh of sea-birds. This species appears to bring forth in January, and therefore it is subjected to captivity.

"I know but comparatively little of its capability of being easily tamed; but this quality, of itself, is no evidence of superior intelligence.

"Might it not be easy to induce Greenland shipmasters to bring some of these animals to England, where they would be accessible to the observation of zoologists.

"One mode of attempting to tame them might be to take half-grown animals in a net, or surprise them on land, and then keep them in salt-water ponds in a semi-domestic state: if any of them were pregnant when caught, or could be got to breed, the main difficulty would be overcome."

Long as these extracts are, they possess great interest as being derived from observations on living animals made by one who was a friend of the Duke of Wellington, and was always welcomed by him. His northern Island of Unst is a fine field for studying marine animals. The sweeping currents of the Arctic oceans bring creatures to the quiet voes and sounds. Shetland in spring, summer, and autumn is a favoured locality for the naturalist and painter.

The Walrus.

There was some likelihood, a few years ago, that a most attractive animal would be added to the collection of the Zoological Society. But, unfortunately for the public gratification, as well as the remuneration of the spirited captain who brought the creature, it reached the gardens in a dying state, and only survived a few days. But it is not the first of its family which has travelled so far to the southward. Nearly 250 years ago a specimen was brought alive by some of the Arctic adventurers, and excited no little surprise, as old Purchas tells us. It was in the year 1608, when "the king and many honourable personages beheld it with admiration, for the strangeness of the same, the like whereof had never before beene seene alive in England. Not long after it fell sicke and died. As the beast in shape is very strange, so is it of strange docilitie, and apt to be taught, as by good experience we often proved."

The figure which accompanies this paper was drawn from our late lamented visitor by Mr Wolf, who sketched it before its removal to the Zoological Gardens. Captain Henry caught it during a whaling expedition, and sent it to London. Though quite young, it was nearly four feet in length; and when the person who used to feed it came into the room, it would give him an affectionate greeting, in a voice somewhat resembling the cry of a calf, but considerably louder. It walked about, but, owing to its weakness, soon grew tired, and lay down. Unlike the seals, to which it is closely allied, the walrus has considerable power with its limbs when out of the water, and can support its bulky body quite clear of the ground. Its mode of progression, however, is awkward when compared with ordinary quadrupeds; its hind-limbs shuffling along, as if inclosed in a sack. In some future season, when a lively specimen reaches the Gardens, and is accommodated with an extensive tank of water, there is no reason why the walrus should not thrive as well as the seal, or his close, though not kind, neighbour of the North, the Polar bear.