kerguelen's land. 20 



o 



The muscles also are redder than in other seals, more like beef, 

 or muscles of land animals generally, not black, and the meat 

 was found very good to eat by some of our crew. Mr. Brown 

 (loc. cit.) speaks of a green slime found by him in the stomachs 

 of the northern Bladder-nose (the northern representative of the 

 Sea-Elephant). He ascribes it to seaweed adhering to Mollusca 

 (Mya truncata) eaten by the seal. It is, however, probably only 

 bile pigment. Peron found cuttle-fish beaks and Eucus in the 

 Sea-Elephants' stomachs. The walrus, like the Bladder-nose, 

 feeds on Mollusca. In a walrus, dissected by the second German 

 North Polar Expedition, the bodies of from 500 to 600 {My a 

 truncata) were found in the stomach, with only one single 

 small piece of shell, the animal evidently rejecting the shells 

 with great care. Stones are found in all seals' stomachs, 

 apparently just as in those of penguins. 



There seems little fear of the Sea-Elephant dying out, not- 

 withstanding that everyone that can be got at is killed and 

 boiled down by the sealers. I saw myself, at Kerguelen's Land, 

 eighteen Elephants, and one at Marion Island. On the weather- 

 side of the island is a beach, where are thousands of Sea-Elephants. 

 These can be got at from land, but shallow water and a heavy 

 surf prevents the approach of a boat. Hence, if the animals be 

 killed and their blubber boiled down, the casks cannot be got off 

 to a ship, nor can they be transported over land. 



The beach is called Bonfire Beach, because some English 

 sealers made a lot of oil here, headed it up in casks, and then 

 found they could make no use of it. So they piled the casks 

 up and set fire to them, in the hopes of driving some of the 

 Elephants to more convenient quarters. The numbers of seals 

 at Kerguelen in ancient times must have been enormous. Their 

 vast old empty rookeries are still marked by trough-like hollows 

 in the ground, where the seals used to lie. 



We rolled the dead Sea-Elephant down to the water, and got 

 him afloat with some difficulty, then towed the three animals oft 

 to the ship with great labour, by rowing against the wind, 

 through the thick beds of kelp {Macrocystis jpirifera). Whilst 

 we were at work on the beach, crowds of birds began to assemble, 

 especially the Giant Petrel or "Breakbones" {Ossifraga gigantea), 



