A GIANT AMONG SEALS 229 



Elephant-seals frequent the shores of many of the 

 islands of the South Seas, where they spend a long time 

 on land during the breeding season, and also occurred 

 formerly on the Pacific Coast of North America from Cape 

 Lazaro to Point Reyes, California, where they are now 

 practically extinct. As these Californian elephant-seals 

 were completely isolated from those inhabiting the South 

 Sea Islands, they are regarded by American naturalists as 

 constituting a species by themselves ; but since their 

 distinction from the typical southern form is but slight, it 

 seems preferable to look upon them in the light of an 

 isolated local race. These seals never appear to wander 

 south to the Antarctic pack-ice. 



Our first definite, if not actual, knowledge of the elephant- 

 seal seems to have been derived from a specimen brought 

 to England by Lord Anson in 1744 from the island of 

 Juan Fernandez, and the figure and account given in the 

 " Voyage Round the World " of that great commander, 

 where the species is called " sea-lyon." Lord Anson 

 seems to have obtained a male and female specimen 

 (" lyon " and " lyoness " he calls them), the former ot 

 which was stuffed and exhibited in the British Museum. 

 What its dimensions were is now unknown — a somewhat 

 unfortunate matter, since it was probably a full-grown 

 adult male of larger size than any, or the majority, of 

 those to be met with at the present day. After being 

 exposed in the Museum galleries for considerably more 

 than half a century, probably without any protection 

 from dust and the still more mischievous hands of 

 visitors (who then, as now, doubtless displayed an irre- 

 sistible impulse to handle every accessible object), the 

 specimen must certainly have shown marked signs of 

 wear and tear. Anyway, if we may judge by the fact 



