Our hunters moored their skin boat on the ice-cake close to the walrus, crept up behind a hummock right upon him, and Dr. Elting put his bullet into the brain of the beast, which is situated in his neck, and not in what appears to be his head. It was an easy and not very exciting triumph. What possessed this old bull to lie there alone scores of miles from his companions, I do not know. He may have been there two or three weeks on that one ice-cake, as the Eskimos tell us this is sometimes their habit. It was not until August eighteenth that we got sight of our first walrus herd, and then for three days we were right in the midst of them. We had been driven by buffeting winds and threatening ice-packs away from the vicinity of the islands far westward along the Siberian coast and were perhaps thirty or forty miles from land. The cry was raised from the "crow's nest": "Walrus!" The appearance of the herd as we approached it was very unlike anything imagined by those who had not hitherto seen these animals. All sorts of comparisons crowd upon one's imagination when trying to describe them. Some of them look like huge caterpillars and have an exactly similar motion, except that their antennæ are bent downward instead of upward. Sometimes when bunched up they look like immense squirrels. Sometimes when scratching themselves with their flippers they have the languid movements of a fashionable lady fanning herself; and again, when two are sparring at each other, they have the fierce mien of gladiators. But always there is that particularly comical edge about them that impels to irresistible laughter, as when one approaches a cage of monkeys. Their attitudes and motions are so unexpected and ridiculous. I did little hunting myself but went with the other hunters in the _oomiak_ or large skin boat; and I believe I got more enjoyment than any one else of the party; for I was not doing the killing, and was enjoying equally the misses and the hits of the others and, above all, the study of these huge and interesting brutes. Many of my preconceived notions, obtained by reading and by hearsay, were put to flight during those three or four days. Only a few years ago a report to the Smithsonian Institute was published in which it was stated that the walrus were very watchful and wary, and that when reposing on the ice-cake they selected a large bull to climb the highest pinnacle and keep watch for foes, and that when he grew weary of his vigil and wished to sleep he would prod the bull next to him with his tusks and let him take his turn while the former watchman took a nap. It was thus inferred that the walrus scanned the region of ice with eagle eyes and had a system of signalling similar to the organized human gunboats or armies.