Next, perhaps, to the sea-elephant in size, comes the great morse, or walrus, of the arctic and antarctic oceans. The principal peculiarity of this huge seal—the sea-horse as it is sometimes called—is the pair of long tusks, reminding one of those of an elephant, which it carries in its upper jaw. The length of these tusks is about a foot, and sometimes they weigh ten pounds apiece. The Esquimaux use them in the making of fish-hooks—for the fish-hooks of all savages are very different-looking articles to our own, and made in a very different way, though the principle is the same. But what does the walrus itself use them for? Wielded by an animal of such vast size and strength, they must, no doubt, be formidable weapons of offence, but they cannot be used to give a direct thrust forward, as the elephant uses his tusks, since they hang down from the jaw instead of projecting horizontally beyond it. Were one male walrus, however, to succeed in rearing his head over the neck or shoulder of another, he could inflict, it is evident, a formidable wound by stabbing downwards with his two curved ivory stilettoes. It would seem, however, that it is mostly as an aid to the procuring of its food that the walrus uses its great tusks. With them it digs and scrapes amongst the sand and shingle on the bottom of the sea, along the coast, thus stirring up various molluscs and crustaceans, on which it principally feeds. In climbing up upon the rocks or slippery shores, too, it finds its tusks useful to hook on with, as has been related by various eye-witnesses and denied by various professors.