18 EDWARD A. WILSON. 



curly, indeed, that iu a hair of 1 • 7 cm. in length there are no less than eight or ten 

 curves or bends. It is worn for the first fortnight, though at the end of this period it 

 has a less woolly appearance and the hair seems shorter. There is also a suggestion 

 of light spots on the sides and darker marks and splashes beneath as in the adult 

 animal. The change iu the character of the coat is due more to the fact of the 

 animal's rapid growth at this time (from 57 inches at birth to 72 inches at the end 

 of a fortnight), than to any actual change in the woolly covering itself ; though it is 

 possible that some of the curly hairs begin to drop out earlier than the straight. At 

 the end of a fortnight, however, a regular moult begins {see fig. 19, p. 22), and observing 

 as strict an order as in the adult, the wool is first shed from the head and flippers, both 

 fore and hind simultaneously ; then running along the mid-line of the back it spreads 

 down the sides and eventually clears the chest and belly. This process occupies a 

 fortnight, so that by the end of the first month of its life the young seal has shed 

 the coat it was born in, and has assumed a very rich and handsomely marked coat 

 of thick, straight, and short hair, thus becoming ^u exact copy in miniature of the 

 most handsomely marked adults, while measuring between 6 and 7 feet from nose to 

 tail instead of about 9 feet {si'i' fig. 20, p. 24). 



Up to this stage the infant has been wholly dependent upon its mother for susten- 

 ance, and the mother leaving her ofl^spring on the ice has regularly entered the water to 

 supply herself with food. The young seal thus left to itself either sleeps in the sun or 

 crawls under the shelter of a neighbouring hummock. Many of them at this stage 

 succumb to the cold, and it is by no means an uncommon thing to find them dead a 

 day or two after their birth. Their eyes are open at birth, and the involution of the 

 umbilical cord takes several days. The young seal is found at times with the cord 

 intact, attached to the expelled placenta. Presumably the cord is bitten through by 

 the mother, though we did not see this done. The placenta with its membranes is soon 

 demolished by the Skua gulls, which attend in numbers, but it did not appear to strike 

 them that the young seals would form an easy prey. In no case did we see even a 

 dead young seal attacked. Probably the skin proves a difficulty, though the blubber 

 beneath when exposed by ourselves in a skinned seal was very rapidly stripped by these 

 birds. Occasionally we would skin a seal and leave it on the floe to be flenced by Skuas ; 

 and though it was never completely cleaned, the total weight of the skin, which might 

 have to be dragged for some miles upon a sledge to reach the ship, was much reduced. 



Weddell's Seal suckles her young, and in no case did we see more than one 

 young one born to any seal, upon the ice. Lying upon her side she exposes two 

 nipples in the abdominal region (see Seals, Plate I.), which, though hardly visible when 

 not in use, are erectile organs which become prominent when the young is sucking. The 

 milk is white and creamy and the glands flat and extensive beneath the skin, showing 

 no prominence from without. Not more than two glands and two nipples are developed. 



The mother seemed to be much attached to her infant, and in some cases 

 would attack us viciously if we attempted to interfere with it. In others she was 



