Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/107

Rh had to look elsewhere for a cargo; and the glowing reports of the great abundance of Walruses observed on the shores of Franz Josef Land by Mr. Leigh Smith, Dr. Nansen, and Mr. Jackson, as might be expected, attracted them in that direction, and they took their departure for this new hunting ground on June 25tb. The 'Balæna' was the first to arrive, sighting Cape Flora after a twelve days' passage, and she made a clean sweep of the coast, killing 600 Walruses, and leaving little or nothing for those which followed, the 'Active' only securing seventy and the 'Diana' eighty-four. Great was their disappointment, as they expected to find something approaching the numbers seen by Mr. Lamont on the Thousand Islands in 1852, where a herd of three or four thousand was seen, and nine hundred killed by two small sloops, a sight which will probably never again be witnessed. To add to the disappointment, almost all those met with were females and young, and a few young bulls; it was evidently the nursery of the species. Where the old bulls were was not discovered, but the females and their young were exterminated. In the Greenland Seas the Walrus has already become a rare animal, in Davis Strait it is rapidly becoming scarce, and the enormous numbers which formerly inhabited Behring's Strait are subject to such exhaustive demands that they cannot long survive. When we take into consideration the ease with which these animals can be approached, and their slow rate of reproduction, it is safe to predict that the time is not far distant when the species will become totally extinct. It is curious how a new industry may affect the very existence of an old species. I am told that the greater activity in the search for Walruses is due to the sudden demand which has arisen for their hides, which are extensively used by the makers of bicycles for forming buffers; their value has greatly increased in consequence, and good thick bull-hides weighing 350 lb. and upwards sell for as much as Is. 6d. per lb. The hides brought home this year from Franz Josef Land being those of females and young animals, therefore thin and of light weight, did not realize anything like this price, some being worth as little as 2½d. per lb. The tusks, I am told, realize about 2s. 6d. per lb., and the oil £18 per ton.

In marked contrast to the Greenland fishery, that of Davis