CAMPBELL ISLAND 



265 



Moulting elephant seal. 



sea until the breeding season in September — October, though young ani- 

 mals will be found on Campbell Island at all times of the year. 



Only a few sea-lions were seen in Perseverance Harbour. One of them 

 gave fine evidence of the astonishing vitality and mobility of the species. 

 It was extremely aggressive. When we stepped ashore it would come flying 

 through the water in a lightning attack, barking and hobbling over the 

 rocks and stones of the shore until within a couple of metres of us. We could 

 understand why a Danish zoologist, collecting animals on this shore some 

 40 years earlier, had been startled into sacrificing the collected animals 

 and the bucket which held them by throwing them at the head of one 

 such yapping cur. Fur seals were not observed in Perseverance Harbour, 

 but they are found on a number of the coasts. 



As soon as an elephant seal had been shot and flaying had begun, the 

 island's scavengers, the Antarctic great skuas, would be on the spot, 

 tugging at the emptied entrails. Soon we began throwing lumps of blubber 

 to them; larger and larger hunks, and in the end pieces as thick as an 

 arm, were swallowed in the fraction of a minute. It was amazing that 

 such pieces could pass through their throats, and still more astonishing 

 that they could find room for them in their stomachs; but it was not long 

 before they were so fat and bloated that their feathers bristled, and so 

 heavy that they were unable to fly until some ballast had been thrown 

 overboard. The great skua is a typically voracious sea-bird which misses 

 nothing edible, and in fact the inedible seems to go down with the rest. 



Campbell Island is the island par excellence of royal albatrosses. It was 



