228 A NATURALIST ON THE " CHALLENGER. ' 



huts ; and their duty is constantly to drive the Elephants from 

 this "beach into the sea, which they do with whips made of the 

 hide of the Elephants themselves. The beasts thus ousted swim 

 off, and often " haul up," as the term is, upon the accessible 

 beaches elsewhere, and there they are killed and their blubber 

 is taken to be boiled down. 



In very stormy weather, when they are driven into the sea, 

 they are forced to betake themselves to the sheltered side of 

 the island ; hence the men find that stormy weather pays them 

 best. Two or three old males, termed " beach-masters," hold a 

 beach to themselves and cover it with cows, but allow no other 

 males to haul up. The males fight furiously, and one man told 

 me that he had seen an old male take up a younger one in his 

 teeth and throw him over, lifting^ him in the air. The males 

 show fight when whipped, and are with great difficulty driven 

 into the sea. They are sometimes treated with horrible brutality. 

 The females give birth to their young soon after their arrival. 

 The new-born young are almost black, unlike the adults, which 

 are of a light slate brown, and the young of the northern 

 Bladdernose, which are white. They are suckled by the female 

 for some time, and then left to themselves lying on the beach, 

 where they seem to grow fat without further feeding. They 

 are always allowed by the sealers thus to lie, in order to make 

 more oil. 



This account was corroborated by all the sealers I met with. 

 I do not understand it ; probably the cows visit their young 

 from time to time unobserved. I believe similar stories are 

 told of the fattening on nothing of the young of northern seals. 

 Peron says that both parent Elephant seals stay with the 

 young without feeding at all, until the young are six or seven 

 weeks old, and that then the old ones conduct the young to the 

 water and keep them carefully in their company. The rapid 

 increase in weight is in accordance with Peron's account. 



Charles Goodrid^e gives a somewhat different account, 

 namely, that after the females leave the young, the old males and 

 young proceed inland, as far as two miles sometimes, and stop 

 without food for more than a month, and during this time lose 

 fat. The male elephants come on shore on the Crozets for the 



