The Arctic Walrus forms the nearest approach to the seals in the scale of creation, and is likewise better adapted for a marine life than for existence on dry land. But he is completely without fore-teeth, and his grinders have a broad furrowed crown, like those of the herbivorous animals. This difference of dentition points to a different food, and while the phocæ are such voracious fish-eaters that Sir James Ross found no less than twenty-eight pounds of undigested fish in the stomach of a southern seal, the walrus principally lives on sea-weeds and molluscs. The Arctic walrus or sea-horse (_Trichechus rosmarus_) is one of the largest mammals known, as he sometimes grows to the length of eighteen feet, and so thick as to measure twelve feet about the middle of the body. His form is very clumsy, having a small head, a strong elongated neck, a thick body, and short legs, the hind feet uniting to a broad fin. With such a form, no one can wonder at the clumsiness of its movements on land. Admiral Beechey describes the gallop of a sea-horse as probably the most awkward motion exhibited by the animal tribe, for, like a large caterpillar, the unwieldly creature alternately lowers and raises its head, in order to facilitate the bringing up of the hinder parts of the body;--no easy task, when we consider the immense weight of the animal, and the great disproportion between the length of its body and its legs. The upper lip, which is very thick, and indented or cleft into two large rounded lobes, furnished with thick yellow bristles, contributes also but little to its external beauty. From under this formidable-looking inflation protrude two large and long tusks, growing, like those of the elephant, from the upper jaw, but bent downwards, not outward and upwards, as is the case with the latter. Their uses are also very different, for while the elephant employs his tusks in digging up roots, the walrus raises by their assistance his unwieldy body upon the ice-blocks and precipitous shores, where he loves to bask in the sun. Both animals use them, moreover, as formidable weapons, the former against the bounding tiger, the latter against the hungry ice-bear or the voracious shark.