Although the staple food of the walrus consists of mollusca, it also preys, to some extent, upon the seal. I remember that, on opening the stomach of the first walrus I shot, we found it full of long strips of the skin of a seal, apparently _Phoca hispida_, with the blubber still attached.[1] As the death of this walrus was fairly typical of the manner in which they are now captured, I will try to describe it; but it would be better perhaps to first sketch the boats and implements which are used in walrus hunting.
The boats, called ‘fangstbaade,’ are strongly, yet lightly, built of three-quarter-inch Norwegian ‘furru.’ They are carvel built and bow shaped at both ends; the stem and stern posts are made thick and strong in order to resist the blows of the ice, and the bow sheathed with zinc plates to prevent excessive chafing. They are most commonly 20 ft. or 21 ft. in length, and have their greatest beam, viz. 5 ft., one-third of their length from the bow. It is most important that they should be easy and quick in turning, and this quality is obtained by depressing the keel in the middle. They are painted red inside and white outside, so that they may not be conspicuous amongst ice, but the hunters stultify this idea to some extent by dressing themselves in dark colours. Inside the bow there are small racks guarded by painted canvas flaps, in which the harpoon-heads are fitted, usually three on either side of the boat. The harpoon, the point and edges of which are ground and whetted to a razor-like sharpness, is a simple but very effective weapon. When thrust into a walrus or seal, a large outer barb ‘takes up’ a loop of the tough hide, whilst a small inner fish-hook barb prevents it from becoming disengaged, so that when once properly harpooned, it is very seldom, if ever, that an animal escapes through the harpoon ‘drawing.’ The harpoon-shafts, which lie along the thwarts, are made of white pine poles, 12 ft. in length and from 1 in. to 1½ in. in diameter, tapered at one end to fit the socket of the harpoon-head, in which the shaft is set fast when required by striking its butt against one of the ribs of the boat, or a small block fixed in the after end on the starboard side. The harpoon is used almost entirely as a thrusting weapon, but a _good_ man can set one fast by _casting_ if the occasion demands it, up to a distance of 20 ft. The harpoon line, which is ‘grummeted’ round the shank of the head, consists of sixteen fathoms of two-inch tarred rope, very carefully made of the finest hemp, ‘soft laid’; each line is neatly coiled in a separate box placed beneath the forward thwart. When a walrus is ‘fast,’ it is most important that the line should not slip aft--if allowed to do so it would probably capsize the boat--and to help to prevent this, deep retaining notches are cut in two pieces of hardwood fixed one on each side of the stempost, the top of which is also channelled.