THE PROBOSCIS-SEAL, OR SEA-ELEPHANT. 149 



where these mammalia congregate in greatest number, has 

 received the name of ' Bay of Elephants.' This latter de- 

 signation, which is evidently deduced from the gigantic pro- 

 portions of the animal, the rudeness of its outlines, and above 

 all, from the kind of trunk in which its snout terminates, would 

 be rather appropriate, if it had not already been applied to the 

 walrus, which itself borrowed the term from the singular 

 tusks, analogous to those of the elephant, which project from 

 the upper jaw. 



u As none of these several denominations, therefore, can be 

 appropriately applied to this species, we propose to call it the 

 Proboscidean Seal, (Phoca proboscidea,) which brings to mind 

 the character which distinguishes it from all the other species 

 hitherto known. 



" It is characterized by its enormous proportions, being 

 commonly twenty, five-and-twenty, or even thirty feet in length, 

 and from fifteen to eighteen feet in circumference ; its colour 

 is greyish, or blueish grey, rarely of a dark brown; it has 

 no external ears ; the two inferior laniaries are long, strong, 

 curved and projecting ; the whiskers are formed of very stiff 

 and long bristles twisted like a screw ; similar bristles pro- 

 ject above either eye, and represent the eyebrows. The eyes 

 are very large and prominent. The fore-feet or paddles large 

 and vigorous, presenting at their extremity, near the posterior 

 margin, five small black claws. The tail is very short, almost 

 concealed between two flattened horizontal flippers, dilated at 

 their extremity. But the most prominent character is the 

 prolongation of the muzzle, or rather of the nostrils. When 

 the animal is at rest these nostrils, being relaxed and pendant, 

 give its face a broader aspect; but whenever they are raised by 

 a strong respiratory effort, or when the animals are engaged 

 in attack or defence, they become elongated, forming a tube 

 of about a foot in length ; and not only is the shape of the 

 head rendered very different by this action, but the tone of the 

 voice is considerably modified. The females are strangers to 

 this organization ; they even have the upper lip slightly fis- 

 sured at the margin. In both sexes the hair is extremely 

 close- set, but is of too inferior a character to be put to the 

 same use as the finer fur of other antarctic species of seal. 



" Inhabiting exclusively the antarctic regions, the proboscis- 

 seal delights more particularly in the desert isles, and seems 

 to show an exclusive preference to some of them. Thus among 

 the numerous islands of Bass's Straits, these seals only 

 dwell in great numbers, on Hunter* s 9 King's and JVeiv Year's 

 Islands. One scarcely finds an individual on the Two Sisters; 

 they seem to be complete strangers to the Island Maria ; on 



