WONDERS OF ANTARCTIC WORLD 345 



The most remarkable animals of the Antarctic region are the seals. There 

 are five Antarctic seals, the crabeating or white seal, the Ross seal, the Wed- 

 dell seal, the sea leopard and the sea elephant. Of these the first three are 

 found only within the Antarctic Circle, while the others wander considerable 

 distances away. Seals do not usually travel long distances by sea, but the sea 

 elephant seems to be an exception, as it is found from the Antarctic Circle to 

 the coast of South America. The sea elephant must be an enormous creature. 

 Only one specimen has been found in recent polar expeditions, and he was a 

 young male eleven feet in length, with a girth of no less than eight feet under 

 the fare flippers. 



The sea leopard is smaller than the sea elephant, but much more ferocious. 

 It runs to twelve feet in length and has a girth beneath the flippers of six feet. 

 Its head is large in proportion to its body, and it has a terrible array of sharp 

 teeth. It is very long and snake-like, and moves like lightning through the 

 water, where its diet includes not only fish and emperor penguins, but some- 

 times other seals. It has ten three-pronged canine teeth, made for tearing flesh 

 to pieces. The sea leopard has only one enemy to fear in the Antarctic seas, 

 and that is the killer whale. 



The crabeater seal lives entirely upon a shrimp-like crustacean, which it col- 

 lects in large numbers in mud and gravel by groping along the bottom of shal- 

 low seas. 



The Ross seal has the astonishing power of withdrawing its head within 

 the blubber-laden skin of the neck till its face is almost lost. The teeth of these 

 seals are extremely interesting to naturalists, for the after canine teeth are in 

 the process of disappearing, showing that the conditions of life in the Antarctic 

 regions have greatly changed since earlier ages. The front teeth also have 

 been developed into curved hooks for dealing with such slippery prey as jelly 

 fish and squids, which apparently form their food. 



Among the many Antarctic birds is the giant petrel, which lives on carrion 

 refuse about the penguin rookeries. It is often to be seen squatted in the ice- 

 floes, gorged by a full meal of blubber from a dead seal, and finding itself pur- 

 sued it will deliberately disgorge before it attempts to fly, knowing from ex- 

 perience that even a lengthy run will not enable it to rise unless it empties ita 

 stomach first. 



The penguins, huge birds with tiny wings useless for flying purposes, are 

 peculiar to the Antarctic regions. They always stand upright, and with great 

 white bodies and black heads, they look like very fat colored men wearing white 



