The unusually flattened head seems disproportionately small to the great neck and sack-like body, the tusks and moustaches being all in all either in profile or front view. Their movement on land is very awkward and droll. With high-set shoulders and low hind-quarters, and squat limbs to their heavy body, the fore feet are successively thrust flat forwards from the wrist, each followed by a hitch and swing of the hind foot, as from a pivot on the heel, ending in a sudden sort of jerk or check. Thus they straddle in a clumsy, indolent way along the rough ice, in emergency exerting themselves into a kind of hobbling canter. This ungainly creature, though so repellent in features, is in reality quiet and inoffensive, unless attacked or roused in love-time, when woe betide those who measure his strength, especially if he reach his native watery element. They are very gregarious, seldom being met with singly, but often in herds from a dozen to several hundreds, as Captain Cook long ago observed. They crowd up from the water on to the rocks or ice one after the other, grunting and bellowing. The first arrived is no sooner composed in sleeping trim, than a second comes prodding and poking with its blunt tusks, forcing room for itself, while the first is urged farther from the water; the second in turn is similarly treated by the third; and so on, until numbers will lie packed close, heads and tails resting against and on each other, in the most convenient and friendly manner possible. There they sleep and snore to their hearts’ content, but nevertheless, according to Elliott, keep guard in a singular fashion. Some one would seem to disturb another; then this fellow would raise his head listlessly, give a grunt and a poke to his nearest companion, who would rouse up a few minutes, also grunt, and pass the watchword to his neighbour, and so on through the herd, this disturbance always keeping some few on the alert. Danger announced, they scuttle pell-mell and topsy-turvy into the water.