344 WONDERS OF ANTARCTIC WORLD 



Although a great continent exists at the South Pole, there are no land mam- 

 mals, properly so-called. There are no South Polar bears, there are no Ant- 

 arctic foxes, there are no large mammals of any kind save whales, which live 

 entirely in the water, and seals, which spend more than half their time there. 



To make up for these deficiencies the seals are the largest found anywhere, 

 and the birds are most extraordinary. All the animals — whales, seals, birds 

 and fish — are very different from those found in the Arctic circle or other parts 

 of the world. 



The Antarctic continent has a vegetation that consists almost entirely of 

 moss and lichen and the land animal life, properly so-called, seems to be limited 

 to a primitive form of wingless insect. The birds live to some extent on land, 

 making their nests in the moraines and rocky cliffs of the shores, but they find 

 their food entirely in the ocean. 



Seals and whales are extremely abundant in Antarctic waters. Seven dif- 

 ferent species of whales and dolphins have been found in Ross Sea, a great 

 body of water running into the Antarctic continent. In this sea five different 

 kinds of seals were found and twelve different species of bird. 



The most remarkable whales of the Antarctic seas are the terrible killers or 

 Orca whales, which scour the seas and the pack-ice in hundreds to the terror of 

 seals and penguins. The killer whale is one of the most ferocious animals in 

 existence and is far more savage and destructive than tiger or shark. Naturally 

 the few men who reach the Antarctic circle rarely indulge in ocean bathing 

 there, but if they did they would run a terrible danger from the killer whales. 



The killer is a powerful piebald whale some twenty feet in length. It hunts 

 in large packs of a score or many score. No sooner does the ice break up than 

 the killers appear in the newly formed leads of water, and the penguins show 

 that they appreciate the fact by their unwillingness to leave the melting ice floes. 

 ■ From the middle of September to the end of March these whales swarm in 

 McMurdo Strait, and the scars they leave on the seals, more particularly on 

 the crab eating seal of the pack ice, afford abundant testimony to their vicious 

 habits. Not one in five of the pack ice seals is free from the marks of the 

 killer's teeth, and even the sea leopard, which is the most powerful seal of the 

 Antarctic Ocean, has been found with fearful lacerations. Only the Weddell 

 seal is more or less secure because it avoids the open sea. 



Beak whales are also seen in schools from time to time, and Lieutenant 

 Shackleton saw a whole school of ten "breeching" in McMurdo's Strait. 

 Every now and then one would leap clean out of the water and fall back with a 

 resounding smash. 



