Their

nels are very careful to awake them when any danger is near. voices are very shrill, and of various tones; sometimes grunting like hogs, and sometimes neighing like horses. The males often fight with each other, when they wound one another desperately with their teeth. The flesh of these animals is not disagreeable to eat, particularly the tongue, which is as good as that of the ox. They are very easily killed, as they cannot defend themselves, nor fly from their enemies; they are so exceedingly heavy, that they move with great difficulty, and turn themselves about with still greater. Those that hunt them have only to guard against their teeth, which are very strong, and which they make use of with powerful effect on those who approach within their reach.

THE males of this species are, in general, about eight feet long, but the females are much smaller. Their bodies are very thick, and the color of the hair is commonly black, but that of the old ones is tipped with gray. The females are of an ash colored hue. The nose projects like that of a pug dog, and the eyes are large and prominent. Their voice varies on different occasions; thus, when sporting on their native rocks, they low like a cow; when engaged in battle, they growl hideously; after a defeat or receiving a wound, they mew like a cat; and the note of triumph after a

victory somewhat resembles the chirping of a cricket. These animals are chiefly found on the islands in the vicinity of Kamtschatka, from June to September; after which they remove, some to the Asiatic, and some to the American coast. On Behring's Island they are so numerous as almost to cover the whole shore; but it is a singular fact, that they only frequent that part of it which lies towards Kamtschatka.

Ursine seals live in families, each male being surrounded by from eight to fifty females, whom he watches with the most vigilant jealousy, and treats in the most tyrannical manner. They are of an irritable disposition, and have frequent battles. So tenacious are they of life, that they will live a fortnight after receiving wounds which would be speedily mortal to other animals.

THE name of sea cow, or sea horse, by which the walrus is most generally known, has been very wrongly applied; since the animal which it denotes has not the least resemblance to the land animals of that name: the denomination of sea elephant, which others have given it, is much better imagined, as it is founded on a singular and very apparent character. The walrus, like the elephant, has two large ivory tusks, weighing from ten to thirty pounds each, which shoot from the upper jaw; its head also is formed, or rather deformed, like that of the elephant, and would entirely resemble it in that part if it had a trunk; but the walrus is deprived of that instrument, which serves the elephant in the place of an arm and hand, and has real arms to make use of. These members, like those of the seal, are shut up within the skin, so that nothing appears outwardly but its hands and feet its body is long and tapering, thickest towards the neck: the

1 Trichecus rosmarus, GMEL. The genus Trichecus has two upper and no lower incisors; two upper and no lower canines; ten upper and ten lower molars; incisors small, deciduous; superior canines or tusks large, longer than the head, compressed laterally; molars cylindrical, crown truncated obliquely; body elongated; head round; muzzle large; no external ears; tail very short; fore feet like fins, with five toes; hind feet horizontal; toes enveloped in the skin.

whole body is clothed with a short hair; the toes, and the hands, or feet, are covered with a membrane, and terminated by short and sharp pointed claws. On each side of the mouth are large bristles in the form of whiskers: its tongue is hollowed, the concha of the ears are wanting, &c.; so that, excepting the two great tusks, and the cutting teeth, which it is deficient in above and below, the walrus in every other particular perfectly resembles the seal: it is only much larger and stronger, being commonly from twelve to sixteen feet in length, and eight or nine in circumference, and sometimes reaching eighteen feet in length, with a proportionable girth; whereas the largest seals are no more than seven or eight feet. The walrus, also, is generally seen to frequent the same places as the seals are known to reside in, and are almost always found together. They have the same habitudes in every respect, excepting that there are fewer varieties of the morse than of the seal: they likewise are more attached to one particular climate, and are rarely found except in the northern seas.

"There was formerly," says Zordrager, "great plenty of morses and seals in the bays of Horisont and Klock, but at present there are very few. Both these animals quit the water in the summer, and resort to the neighboring plains, where there are flocks of them from eighty to two hundred, particularly morses, which will remain there several days together, till hunger obliges them to return to the sea. This animal externally resembles the seal, but it is stronger and much larger: like that, it has five toes to each paw, but its claws are shorter, and its head thicker and rounder; its skin is thick, wrinkled, and covered with very short hair of different colors; its upper jaw is armed with two teeth about half an ell or an ell in length; these tusks, which are hollow at the root, become larger as the animal grows older. Some of them are found to have but one, the other being torn out in fighting, or perhaps fallen out through age. This ivory generally brings a greater price than that of the elephant, as it is of a more compact and harder substance. The mouth of this animal is like that of the ox, and furnished with hairs which are hollow, pointed, and about the thickness of a straw. Above the mouth are two nostrils, through which the animal spouts the water like a whale. There are a great number of morses towards Spitzbergen, and the profit that is derived from their teeth and fat fully repays the trouble of taking them, for the oil is almost as much valued as that produced from the whale. When the hunter is near one of these animals in the water, or on the ice, he darts a very strong harpoon at it, which, though made expressly for the purpose, often slips over its hard and thick skin; but if it has penetrated into it, they haul the animal towards the boat, and kill it with a sharp and strong lance. The morse is generally heavier than the ox, and as difficult to pursue as the whale, the skin of which is more easily pierced. For this reason, they always endeavor to wound it in the most tender part, and aim at its eyes: the animal, obliged by this motion to turn its head, exposes its breast to the hunter,

who immediately strikes very forcibly in that part, and draws the lance out again as quick as possible, for fear it should seize the lance with its teeth, and wound those that attack it. Formerly, before these animals were so greatly persecuted, they advanced so far on shore, that when it was high water, they were at a great distance from the sea; and at low water, being at a still greater, the hunters easily approached them and killed great num. bers. The hunters, in order to cut off their retreat to the sea, and after they had killed several, made a kind of barrier of their dead bodies, and in this manner often killed three or four hundred in a season. The prodigious quantity of bones spread over the shores, sufficiently proves how numerous these animals were in former times. When they are wounded, they become extremely furious, often biting the lances in pieces with their teeth, or tearing them out of the hands of their enemies; and when at last they are strongly engaged, they put their head betwixt their paws, or fins, and in this manner roll into the sea. When there is a great number together, they are so bold as to attack the boats that pursue them, bite them with their teeth, and exert all their strength to overturn them."

Captain Cook saw a herd of them floating on an ice island off the northern coasts of the American continent. "They lie," says he, "in herds of many hundreds, upon the ice, huddling over one another like swine; and roar or bray so loud, that in the night, or in foggy weather, they gave us notice of the vicinity of the ice before we could see it. We never found the whole herd asleep, some being always on the watch. These, at the approach of the boat, would wake those next to them; and the alarm being thus gradually communicated, the whole herd would be awaked. But they were seldom in a hurry to get away, till after they had been once fired at. They then would tumble over one another into the sea, in the utmost confusion. And if we did not, on the first discharge, kill those we fired at, we generally lost them, though mortally wounded. Vast numbers of these animals would follow and come close up to the boats; but the flash of a musket in the pan, or even the pointing of a musket at them, would send them down in an instant. The female walrus will defend her offspring to the very last, and at the expense of her own life, whether in the water or upon the ice. Nor will the young one quit the dam, though she be dead; so that, if one be killed, the other is a certain prey."

We find the walrus can live, at least for some time, in a temperate climate. We do not know how long it goes with young, but if we judge by the time of its growth and size, we must suppose it to be upwards of nine months. It cannot continue in the water for a long time together, and is obliged to go on shore to suckle its young, and for other occasions. When they meet with a steep shore, or pieces of ice to climb up, they make use of their tusks to hold by, and their feet to drag along the heavy mass of their body. They are said to feed upon the shell-fish which are at the bottom of the sea, and to grub them up with their strong tusks. Others

say, that they live on the broad leaves of a certain vegetable which grows in the sea, and that they eat neither flesh nor fish. But I imagine all these opinions have but a weak foundation; and there is reason to think, that the walrus, like the seal, lives on prey, especially herrings and other fish; for it does not eat at all when upon land, and it is chiefly hunger which obliges it to return to the sea.

The fat of the walrus furnishes from one to two barrels of oil; and the skin is capable of being manufactured into a strong and elastic leather.

ANIMALS of this order have teeth different in the different genera. The young are brought forth prematurely, often into a pouch formed by a fold of the skin of the abdomen of the females, inclosing the mamma; marsupial bones in both sexes; thumb of the hind feet sometimes wanting, sometimes very distinct, without nail, opposable to the other toes.

THE VIRGINIAN OPOSSUM.1

THE opossum is found in Brazil, Guiana, Mexico, Florida, Virginia, and other temperate regions of this continent. The female has under the belly a large cavity, where she receives and suckles her young; she produces often, and a great number of young each time, most authors say, four or five, others six or seven.

1 Didelphis Virginiana, PENN. The genus Didelphis has ten upper and eight lower incisors; two upper and two lower canines; twelve or fourteen upper and fourteen lower molars. Two superior intermediate incisors larger than the others; lower incisors equal; canines strong, compressed molars, the three first in the upper jaw triangular; the others crowned with points; head long and conical; muzzle pointed, mouth much cleft; ears large, rounded and almost naked; five toes on all the feet; nails long and bent; hind feet plantigrade with the thumbs opposable, but destitute of nails; tail long, scaly, mostly deprived of hair.