262 CAMPBELL ISLAND 



January is the season at which they go ashore for moulting. As in other 

 seals the hair comes off in large strips with a thin layer of top skin, in a 

 manner unique among mammals. It takes from three to six weeks to get 

 rid of the old hair and for a new fur to form, and throughout this period 

 the animals are sluggish and inactive, and do not eat. The most typical 

 and peculiar grounds on Campbell Island are among the vegetation, up to 

 a score of metres from the shore. To meet elephant seals here is surprising 

 and rather startling. It is for all the world like the wallo wing-ground of 

 pigs. With a score of big animals congregated in such a spot the grass 

 may be worn and yellow as in a scorched field. Soon their heavy bodies, 

 which may weigh a couple of tons, will form deep holes in the soft, peaty 

 soil and they will lie in hollows like bath-tubs, wallows as they are called. 

 In their more pronounced form these are simply peat trenches, which 

 owing the daily rain quickly become filled with water, the peat and the 

 excrement of the animals producing a glorious slush. They are having a 

 mud bath, which will doubtless be balm to a peeling and itching skin. 

 These deep ditches are not without danger, as the clumsy creatures may 

 have difficulty in getting out of them again. In most of these wallows 

 are the numerous remains of skeletons, of animals which have evidently 

 dug their own graves. 



Often, however, the elephant seals will lie among the tussocks, which 

 may be the height of a man, and then it is impossible to estimate their 

 numbers. I remember my first walk through such a camouflaged wallow- 

 ing-ground. I was trying to find my way through some close tussocks 

 when, with a sudden roar, a strange colossus of an animal rose up several 

 metres in front of me, and from large, pink jaws with yellow stumps 

 of teeth flung a "stink bomb" at me. Rather startled, I stepped aside, 

 to be seized by a strange feeHng as the ground beneath me began to 

 move, slowly rotating as though there was an earthquake. I had stepped 

 into a trench containing a group of sleeping animals. Retreating a few 

 more steps, I stood on the narrow grass verge between two deep trenches. 

 I quietly sat down to look at the animals as they slumbered around me, 

 torpid like immense slugs. There was something suspicious about one of 

 the ditches, the surface seeming to rise and fall slowly, as though Mother 

 Earth were gently breathing. And there, two metres ahead, I saw bubbles 

 issuing from the broad nostrils of a small trunk, and, just behind it, a 

 large, coal-black, shining eye — the rest was mud. Even down there were 

 animals. 



For the rest, all is peace and quiet, though a strong stench pervades 

 the place and there is an incredible number of large flies. So long as the 



