BOOKS.

SEASONS WITH THE SEA-HORSES.

Max is a pursuing and destroying animal. In all ages of the world he has distinguished himself by the amount of game that be has run down or rode down, that he has slaughtered with javelins, trapped in pits, slain with arrows, shot with muskets, or otherwise secured. Mier- ever there is anything to catch there is pretty nearly always a man to catch it ; and if there be not one close at hand, there very soon will be. There is a rapture in adventure, a delight in danger, a pleasure in acquisition, a satisfaction in killing anything with your own gun, or getting anything off your own hook, which redouble the locomotive powers, and give men a proud consciousness of their superior dignity. In the old days this war with the noble savages of forest and jungle had something heroic in it ; and the praise ofsbeing a mighty hunter before the Lord, if literally understood, is a line tribute of poetic commendation in which even Nimrod himself might exult. Civilization diminishes and even destroys the oppor- tunities for practising this kind of heroism. In Europe, and in -Eng- land especially, the dastardly battue is a favourite resource of the degenerate sons of the old wolf-slaying, boar-spearing Celts and Normans. This kind of killing made easy, however, does not always satisfy the more adventurous of our English sportsmen. Hence, in late days, we have heard of a famous crusade against. the lion in Africa, while a raid on the sea-horse, in the north of Europe, just now provokes the enterprise, taxes the powers, and stimulates the ingenuity of the sporting manhood of England.

Foremost among the occupants of this new bunting-ground is Mr. James Lamont, a gentleman who appears to have been very nearly everywhere ; that is, everywhere where a gentleman ought to have been. He has not only employed his old battered opera-glass, he tells us, in its legitimate occupation of gazing at the collective love- liness of London, Paris, Florence, Naples, and New York; he has not only seen with it great races at Epsom, great reviews in the Champ-de-Mars, great bull-fights in the amphitheatre at Seville ; he has not only used it to stalk red deers in the Highlands, and scaly crocodiles on the sand-banks of the Nile, to read hieroglyphics on the temples of Thebes and Karnak, to peer through loopholes at the batteries of the Redan and the Malakoff, to gaze over the splendid cane-fields of the West Indies from the mountain peaks of Trinidad and Martinique, over Cairo from the tops of the Pyramids, over the holy city of Jerusalem from the top of Mount Calvary—but he has taken the measure of a Polar bear with it, and explored through its lens the geological, zoological, and botanical characteristics of the frozen North.

Mr. Lamont made his first trip to Spitzbergen in 1858; and, not- withstanding his cool reception,lie was so delighted with the promise of physical and intellectual recreation, that he soon made up his mind to have another trip to the region of the bear and walrus. Before he set out he was requested by the Liberal party of a Scottish county to become a candidate in the approaching election. "The result, by, a very narrow majority, proved unfortunate for—the walruses ; and the liberated patriot, accompanied by his friend Lord David Kennedy, a renowned Indian sportsman, got on board a clumsy little tub of a sloop, the Anna Louisa, about thirty tons British measurement, sailed from Leith Roads on the 6th June, 1859, and after being nearly run down by a tug-steamer during a dense fog off Aberdeen, and beating through the middle of the Orkney Islands on the 9th and 11th, with a heav.y sea and the wind desperately ahead, ran up the noble Vamsen Fiord on the 16th, and finally reached Hammerfest on the 23rd.

Walrus-hunting with all its wild excitement soon began. Mr. Lament's animated narrative tells us how the boat, propelled by five pairs of oars, flies through the water, while a hundred walruses roar, bellow, blow, snort, splash, and "make an acre of the sea all in a foam before and around her ;" it describes the harpooner standing with one foot on the thwart, and the other on the front locker, with the line coiled and the long weapon balanced for a dart ; it pictures first, a hundred grisly beads and long gleaming white tusks appearing momentarily above the waves, to get a mouthful of fresh air, then a hundred brown hemispherical backs, then "a hundred pair of hind- flippers flourishing, and then they are all down." The walrus, sea-horse, or morse, is an inoffensive beast, if let alone; but hunted, it becomes infuriated and dangerous. It staves in boats with its tusks, or charges and upsets them. A poor fellow, the har- pooner of a boat thus capsized, was selected by one of these enraged beasts out of the number of those precipitated into the water, and nearly torn into halves with its tusks. In hunting the walrus, the calf should always, if possible, be struck first, for the old sea-horses have a "curious clannish practice" of coming to assist a young one in distress, and its little plaintive grunting cry brings the whole herd round the boat in a few seconds, rearing up breast high, with fright- ful menace of deadly aggression. Let us now say a word of the general equipment, implements, and tackle of walrus-hunting, gathering our information from the vigorous, dashing, and business-like narrative of Mr. Lamont. A good walrus- boat for five men should be twenty-one feet long by five feet beam, having her main breadth about one-third from the bow. She should always be carvel-built, because this description of boat is less liable to damage from the ice and the tusks of the walruses. Each man rows with a pair of oars hung in grummets to stout single thole- pins; the steersman rowing with his face to the bow, and the liar-

* gamma with the Sea-Horses; or, t3porthag Adventures in the Northern Sea,. By James Lamont, Eaq., F.G.S. Hurst and Bkekett.

pooner always taking the bow oars. Then there must be five enor- mous lances, with shafts nine feet long, to lie on the thwarts, with the blades protected in a box ; two axes for decapitating the dead walrus, five or six sharp knives for stripping the skin and blubber off the animal, an ice-anchor, a compass, a telescope, rifle, ammunition, certain provisions, and various implements and utensils. These are

the absolute necessaries. One luxury is allowed—a bag of mackintosh cloth lined with fur, to crawl into in severe weather. We under-

stand Mr. Lamont to have had two walrus-boats built in Hammer- fest, and to have engaged two skilful harpooners and a crew, natives of the North, English sailors being of little or no use in the walrus- boat service. The walrus is sometimes killed with the harpoon, sometimes with the lance, and sometimes with the rifle. The rifles Mr. Lamont and his friend used were elliptical four-barreled Lan- casters, of 40-gauge ; with a charge of five drachms of powder and a bullet hardened by an admixture of tin, they generally succeeded in smashing the walruses' skulls. Our adventurers had capital sport, killing in Spitzbergen, in the summer of the year 1859, 46 walruses, 88 seals, 8 polar bears, 1 white whale, and 61 reindeer; total, 204 head.

Spitzbergen, if we except the settlement of Sme.erenberg, or Blubbers Town, has never been inhabited. Discovered in 1596 by William Bare,ntz, a Dutchman, it became in the early part of the seventeenth century the seat of the most flourishing whale-fishery that ever existed. Permanent colonization was contemplated, and merchants offered rewards to their crews to make the perilous attempt to support human life there during the winter, but none could be prevailed on to make the hazardous experiment. At length, "an English company hit upon the ingenious and economical idea of try- ing it upon some criminals who were under sentence of death in London; but so terrified were they at the cheerless prospects which awaited them, that when the fleet was about to depart, after convey- ing them to this region of north-east winds and early snows, they entreated the captain to take them back to London, and let them be

hanged, in pursuance of their original sentence." A similarly ax- favourable favourable of the Spitzbergen climate seems to have been

entertained by at least one of Mr. Lamont's crew. One day some of the sailors were heard discussing the respective merits of hot and cold countries, and in answer to the remark that although "neither ram nor tobacco grew in Spitzbergen, still the continual 'blow out' of fat reindeer might be considered a point in its favour, the dissen- tient replied, Well, Bob, all I can say is, that I would a deuced sight rather go to the West Indies and be hanged there, than die a natural death in this here — country.'" . Hard and dangerous as is the life of the Spitzbergen walrus-hunters, the hides, the ivory, and the oil are a rich material compensation for the privations and perils which these reckless and energetic adventurers have to encounter. Under the inducements offered by the merchants of Tromsoe and Hammerfest, the best seamen and boldest spirits of the north of Norway, "true descendants and suc- cessors of the gallant Vikings and Berserkiirs," are generally found in the Spitzbergen sealers.

Besides his vivid account of the sports of the North, his descrip- tions of scenery, and record of grave or amusing incidents, Mr. La- mont gives us occasional notices of men and manners, or jots down facts of natural history that came under his own observation. Thus, the clannish practice among the walruses of coming to assist a calf in distress already mentioned, received actual illustration before his

own eyes. It is said that this practice arises from the habit of com- bination to resist the attacks of the Polar bear. If tempted by • banger and opportunity, Brain is so ill-advised as to snap a calf, the whole herd seize him, drag him under water, and tear him to pieces

with their long sharp tusks. The first bear Mr. Lamont secured

was found bird's-nesting, in a low, black, rocky island ; multitudes of gulls, fulmars, eider-ducks, and alcas being "in a state of great per- turbation at Bruin's oological researches." I strange prejudice pre- vails among the people in most parts of Norway.. They never allude to a bear by his name, bat adopt some appropriate eupheticism, as,

"old Eric,' or "the party in the brown jacket," or "the old gentle- man in the fur cloak," on the same principle, we suppose, on which .our ancestors avoided directly speaking of the fairies, or on which the old Greeks called the Furies Eumenides, or well-meaning 'persons.

There are many passages on climate, geography, geology, and other cognate subjects in Mr. Lamont's briskly written and racy vo- lume, on which we would willingly comment, but we must limit our-

selves to one or two points only. We have long understood, to use the words of a splendid expositor in science and philosophy, "that the vast tracts of snow which are reddened in a single night owe their colour to the marvellous rapidity in reproduction of a minute plant (Protococcus nivalis)." Mr. Lamonc.however, who is certainly a man with eyes in his head, and the gift to use them, states "that all the red snow which has come under his observation has been simply caused by the colouring matter contained in the droppings of

millions of little ants," and, while allowing that minute reddish

fungi afterwards grow on the droppings, expresses his total disbelief in fungi growing on the snow per se. We neither accept nor reject Mr. Lamont's explanation, but in our zeal for communicating facts observed, or thought -to be observed, we take pleasure in reporting this.

One more report takes us "into the deep waters of controversy. at once," or, rather, takes our author there, for we have no intention

of defending any hypothesis. It is our part to record hypotheses, and to adduce the facts that make for or against them. M.r. Lamont . then, after an attentive study of the Arctic animals, declares himself favourably inclined to "the theory of progressive development, firs:

suggested by the illustrious Lamarck, and since so ably expounded and defended, under somewhat modified forms, by the author of the 'Vestiges of Creation,' and by Mr. Charles Darwin." Accordingly, the more he observes nature, and the more he reflects on the subject, the more he is "convinced that Almighty God always carries out his intentions with regard to the animal creation, not by direct inter- positions' of His will, not by 'special fiats of creation,' but by the slow and gradual agency of natural causes." We wish we could exhibit theargument which Mr. Lamont employs, to show that the

i Polar bear s only a variety of the bears inhabiting Northern Europe, Asia, and America; or the evidence which he contends we have to superinduce the belief that the great seal or the walrus, or some allied animal, now extinct, has been the progenitor of the whales and other cetaceans. One fact only we will cite in favour of the theory that creation is the result of "slow and gradual causes, and in oppo- sition to that of abrupt, unnatural, and uncalled for interpositions of the Divine will." In a district of South Africa, not larger than Bri- tain, says Mr. Lamont, "there are well known to exist nearly thirty varieties of antelopes, from the huge eland of 6 feet in height, and 2000 lbs. in weight, to the diminutive bluebuck of 8 lbs. or 9 lbs. weight, and 12 inches high." Now that each and all of these nume- rous varieties or species of antelopes were originally brought into being separately and distinctly, as we see them now, Mr. Lamont refuses to believe. He refuses to believe that one variety was specially created for this petty locality, and another for that; that there was a special interposition of Providence to create a variety about the outskirts of the desert, which should only drink water once in three or more days, and other varieties which should be abso- lute non-drinkers.

Our author, it should perhaps be said, expresses himself inter- rogatively, while we have taken the liberty, without, as we conceive, altering his meaning, to translate his questions into affirmation. Modestly disclaiming the title of scientific naturalist, Mr. Lamont knows how to observe, and not only knows how to observe, but has observed. He has seen vast portions of South Africa undergoing a rapid desiccation, a desiccation which he thinks sufficient to account for the various antelope transformations ; he has seen the white bear dive for a short distance like the walrus, that "plain and ax- mistakable link between animals inhabiting the land and the ceta- ceans, or whales," and he conceives the Polar bear to have become a Polar bear by living on seals, and therefore supposes that the seal and the walrus were originatedfirst.

Though acknowledging that he follows Mr. Darwin in these remarks, Mr. Lamont claims for the chapter in which he vindicates the theory of natural selection an independent inspiration, the sub- stance of the chapter having been written in Spitzbergen before the "Origin of Species" was published.

An appendix, containing a list of Fossils, &c., sent to the Geo- logical Society, and an illustrative map of the north of Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Spitzbergen, &c., complete a volume which we have found entertaining, thoughtful, and spirit-stirring. One special merit it has : there is no attempt at rhetoric in it. Mr. Lamont tells his story in a nervous, direct, intelligent, and manly way. We recommend every one to read his Seasons with the &a-horses.