walpurgite (wolperjit)

A hydrated arsenate of uranium and bismuth, occurring in thin scale-like crystals of a yellow color. It is found with other uranium minerals at Neustädtel in Saxony. Also walpurgine. walrus (wol'rus), n. [= D. walrus = G. wal ro , Sw. hvalro = Dan. hvalros, lit. 'whale horse,' equiv. to Icel. hro - hvalr = AS. hors hwæl, lit. horse-whale,' a name prob. alluding to the noise made by the animal, somewhat resembling a neigh, whalel and horse. Cf. whale fish and narwhal. ] Any member of the family Trichechidæ (or Ros maridæ); a very large pinniped carnivorous mammal, related to the seals, having in the male enormous canine teeth protruding like tusks from the upper jaw. The common walrus, T. = Sw. Dan. hvalfisk : see IMG:content-2036.jpg:[ocr errors] rosmarus, the morse, sea-horse, sea-ox, or sea-cow, attains a total length of 10 to 12 feet in the full-grown male; individuals are reported to exceed 14 feet; a more nearly average length is 8 to 10 feet, with a girth of about as much. A weight of 2,500 to 3,000 pounds is acquired by old bulls, with a yield of 500 pounds of blubber. The whole length of the canines is about 2 feet, when they are full-grown, with a projection of 15 inches or more. These teeth used in digging for the clams which form the principal food of the animal, and in climbing over uneven surfaces of rock or ice. A walrus 12 feet long has the fore flippers 2 feet long by about 1 foot broad; the flukes each about this length, but 24 feet in extreme breadth when pre ed out flat. The mammæ of the female are two pairs, respectively abdominal and inguinal. Young and middle-aged individuals of both sexes are covered with a short coarse hair of a yellowish-brown color, deepening into dark reddish-brown on the belly and at the bases of the limbs. Old animals, especially the bulls, become almost naked, and the skin grows heavily wrinkled and plaited, especially on the fore quarters. In the glacial period the walrus ranged in North America southward on the Atlantic coast to South Carolina. There is no evidence of its existence in New England since about 1550; from this date to 1600 it lived south to Nova Scotia. It now inhabits some parts of Labrador, shores of Hudson's Bay, Green land, and arctic regions as far north as Eskimos live or explorers have gone. It has been found in Scotland of late years, and on or off the arctic coasts of Europe and Asia, especially in Spitz bergen and Nova Zembla. It is readily captured, and the systematic destruction to which it has long been subjected has materially diminished its numbers in many different places. The blubber yields a valuable oil; from the hide a very tough and durable leather is made; and the tusks yield a superior ivory. The walrus of the North Pacific is now generally thought to be specifically distinct, and is known as T. or R. obes us, and IMG:content-2037.png:[blocks in formation] waltz entomologist.) A curious genus of moths, of the family Tineidæ, having the fore wings with large thick tufts of scales, and the sub median and internal nervures obsolete. Only one species, W. a morph ell a, is known. Its larva makes a gall on the stems of the false indigo, Amorpha fruticosa, and the IMG:content-2038.png:[graphic] C False Indigo Gall-moth (Walshia a morph ell a). a, moth; b, larva; c, gall; d, section of same. (Cro and line show natural sizes of a and b and d, natural size.) moth has also been reared from similar galls at the base of the stem of one of the so-called loco-weeds or crazyweeds of the western United States.