VOYAGE TO SYDNEY. 265 



that when the native vegetation was cleared away from under 

 gum-trees they ceased to thrive, and in time perished. I was 

 shown a number of gum-trees, not far from the city, scattered 

 over some public land, covered with only short turf, which 

 seemed to be mostly in a dying condition. 



April 2nd, i§?4. — On the voyage to Sydney, two Fur Seals 

 were seen about the ship. They were of a smaller species than 

 that occurring at Kerguelen's Land. They swam alongside with 

 remarkable ease and rapidity, having in the water just the 

 appearance of porpoises. The hind limbs were stretched out 

 straight behind, as the animals swam, and the motion mostly 

 maintained by rapid strokes of the fore limbs. The tail, how- 

 ever, i.e., the fin-like expanse formed by the closely applied and 

 outstretched flat hind nippers, was used with an undulating 

 movement, just as is the tail fin in porpoises. 



The seals swam with ease and rapidity from the stern to the 

 bows of the vessel, though it was going 4^ knots at the time, 

 thus going 9 knots at least. In fact they swam with all the 

 ease of a porpoise, and as once or twice they threw their heads 

 and backs out of the water in a forward leap, I should certainly 

 have mistaken them for these animals, had I not seen them 

 almost at rest several times, and with their heads well out of 

 water. 



I never before realized the close connection between the seals 

 and whales, and how easily a whale might be developed out 

 of a seal. The far seal is one which on land still bends its hind 

 limbs forwards, as do land mammals. The seals without exter- 

 nal ears, like the sea elephants, carry them habitually stretched 

 out behind, as this one does in swimming. Little modification 

 would be necessary in order to turn the otherwise useless hind 

 limbs of the earless seals into the whale's broad tail fin, which 

 probably represents the remains of the seal's webbed hind 

 flippers. We afterwards, in the Straits of Magellan, became 

 familiar with the motions of Fur Seals in the water, and frequently 

 saw them there in shoals, progressing through the water by a 

 series of leaps exactly like porpoises or Kock-hopper penguins. 



A bird followed the ship in some numbers, which is appa- 

 rently intermediate in its habits between the gulls and terns, a 



