The Arctic regions and the northern whale-fishery

by William Scoresby

This kind of dolphin sometimes appears in large herds off the Orkney, Shetland, and Feroe islands. The main body of the herd follows the leading whales, and from this property the animal is called in Shetland the ca’ing whale, and by Dr. Traill the deductor. Many herds of this animal have been driven on shore at different periods, and it is recorded that there were taken in two places in the year 1664 about a thousand; and in modern times extensive slaughters have taken place on the shores of the British and other northern islands.

The Delphinapterus beluga of La Cepède, Delphinus Leucas of Linnæus, Beluga of Pennant, or white whale of the fishers, is the last of the cetacea to which we shall refer. It is not unlike the narwal in its general form, but is thicker about the middle of its body in proportion to its length. Both jaws are furnished with teeth. It has no dorsal fin. The skin is smooth, the colour white. A male animal of this kind was taken in the Frith of Forth in June, 1815. The length was thirteen feet four inches, and the greatest circumference nine feet. The beluga is generally met with in families or herds of five or ten together. They are plentiful in Hudson’s Bay, Davis’s Strait, and on some parts of the northern coasts of Europe and Asia, where they frequent some of the larger rivers. They are taken for the sake of the oil they produce by harpoons or strong nets; in the latter case, the nets are extended across the stream, so as to prevent their escape out of the river, and when thus interrupted in their course to seaward, they are attacked with lances, and great numbers are sometimes killed.

It is now our purpose to give an account of the quadrupeds which inhabit Spitzbergen and the icy seas adjacent.

The connecting link between the mammalia of the land and the water is Trichecus rosmarus, walrus, morse, or sea-horse of the whale-fishers. It corresponds in several of its characters both with the bullock and the whale. It grows to the bulk of an ox. Its canine teeth, two in number, are of the length externally of ten to twenty inches, (some naturalists say three feet,) and extend downward from the upper jaw, and include the point of the lower jaw between them. They are incurvated inward. Their full length when cut out of the skull is commonly fifteen to twenty inches, sometimes almost thirty, and their weight five to ten pounds each or upward. The walrus being a slow clumsy animal on land, its tusk seems necessary for its defence against the bear, and also for enabling it to raise its unwieldy body upon the ice when its access to the shore is prevented.

The walrus is found on the shores of Spitzbergen twelve to fifteen feet in length, and eight to ten feet in circumference. The head is short, small, and flattened in front. The flattened part of the face is set with strong bristles. The nostrils are on the upper part of the snout, through which it blows like a whale. The fore paws, which are a kind of webbed hand, are two-sevenths of the full length of the animal from the snout. They are from two to two and a half feet in length, and being expansive maybe stretched to the breadth of fifteen to eighteen inches. The hind feet, which form a sort of tail fin, extend straight backward. They are not united, but detached from each other. The length of each is about two to two and a half feet; the breadth, when fully extended, two and a half or three feet; the termination of each toe is marked by a small tail.

The skin of the walrus is about an inch thick, and it is covered with a short, yellowish brown coloured hair. The inside of the paws in old animals is defended by a rough, horny kind of casing, a quarter of an inch thick, probably produced by the hardening of the skin in consequence of coarse usage in climbing over ice and rocks.

Beneath the skin is a thin layer of fat. At some seasons the produce is said to be considerable, but I have never met with any that afforded above twenty or thirty gallons of oil. In the stomachs of walruses I have met with shrimps, a kind of craw-fish, and the remains of young seals.

It is not at all improbable that the walrus has afforded foundation for some of the stories of mermaids. I have myself seen a sea-horse in such a position, that it requires little stretch of imagination to mistake it for a human being; so like, indeed, was it, that the surgeon of the ship actually reported to me that he had seen a man with his head just appearing above the surface of the water.

The walrus is a fearless animal. It pays no regard to a boat, excepting as an object of curiosity. It is sometimes taken by a harpoon when in the water. If one attack fails, it often affords an opportunity for repeating it. The capture cannot be always accomplished without danger, for, as they go in herds, an attack made upon one individual draws all its companions to its defence. In such cases they frequently rally round the boat from which the blow was struck, pierce its planks with their tusks, and, though resisted in the most determined manner, sometimes raise themselves upon the gunwale, and threaten to overset it. The best defence against these enraged animals is, in such a crisis, sea-sand, which, being thrown into their eyes, occasions a partial blindness, and obliges them to disperse. When on shore they are best killed with long sharp-pointed knives.

The tusks of the walrus, which are hard, white, and compact ivory, are employed by dentists in the fabrication of false teeth. The skin is used in place of mats for defending the yards and rigging of ships from being chafed by friction against each other. When cut into shreds and plaited into cordage, it answers admirably for wheel-ropes, being stronger and wearing much longer than hemp. In ancient times, most of the ropes of ships, in northern countries at least, would appear to have been made of this substance. When tanned, it is converted into a soft porous leather, above an inch in thickness, but it is by no means so useful or so durable as in its green or raw state.