52 EDWARD A. AVILSON. 



they were to be found in twos and threes asleep amid the clumps of tussac grass 

 [Dactylis), and quite invisible until we came upon them, as much to their surprise 

 as ours. Those that we saw here had come on land to change their winter coats, 

 November being the month when they regularly leave the water for the purpose. 

 After this, it is said, the calves are born, and the mating season begins in February. 

 The males are then very thin by reason of their long abstinence from food during the 

 time they have remained on shore. 



It is said that the Sea Elephant rarely goes far from land, but it is hard to believe 

 that this is the case, since we obtained a half-grown male in South Victoria Land 

 (47° 50' S. lat.), 1,000 miles or more from the nearest spot at which the animal has 

 been known to breed ; and a second example is lately reported to have been seen in 

 the South Orkneys by the Scottish Expedition.* 



The habit they have of suddenly rearing their massive heads, with a loud, 

 inspiratory roar and, in the male, inflated nostrils, showing the while a wide, pink 

 cavern of a mouth and formidable canines, has before now been well described. 



In none of the animals that we saw in the Macquarie Islands did the total length 

 exceed 8 feet. A full-grown female is said to reach a lenoth of 10 feet. AVe met with 

 none of the enormous males whose length has been known to reach as much as 22 feet 

 in all, nor did the proboscis in any of the young males with which we came in contact 

 attract either comment or attention ; indeed, it was hardly noticeable, though a slight 

 suggestion of its presence may be seen in the accompanying photograph, which shows 

 the somewhat pointed shape of the nose of a young male, in which the proboscis 

 is but to a slight degree developed (fig. 30, p. 52). 



We saw, perhaps, a score or more in half a mile of the foreshore, some of which 

 were asleep quite close to the kelp-lined beach, others some distance from it, even 

 up the hillside amid the tussac grass. There were also large rookeries of penguins, 

 both of the King [Aptenodytes longirostris) and of the Royal {Catarrhacies Schlegeli), 

 both of which were breeding at the time. Though in close proximity, these birds 

 and the Sea Elephants showed a total disregard of one another's presence, the latter 

 being found asleep quite near the penguins in the muddiest of pools. 



That the animals will use their jaws in self-defence when startled we proved by 

 presenting a stick to the open mouth that sometimes confronted us in a startling 

 manner as we made our way up some steep and grass-covered bank. The powerful 

 animal would wrench it from our hands with so much vigour that we were careful 

 to avoid a closer contact. Nevertheless, when on shore, their movements are 

 exceedingly clumsy and their progress slow. A rate of a mile an hour would be a 

 generous estimate when the animal is in a hurry to be away. The movement is best 

 described as an ungainly " lope." 



In the water they are at once at home. When brought to bay on land, a thing 

 which is easily accomplished by the simple means of treading on some portion of the 



* K. N. Rudmose Brown, The Soott. Geog. Mag. for April, 1905, p. 207. 



