A GIANT AMONG SEALS 231 



The generic title Macrorhinns refers to the most dis- 

 tinctive feature of the species, the pecuHar trunk-Hke form 

 of the muzzle of the old males. Not only do the male 

 and female elephant-seal differ in regard to the form of 

 the muzzle (the trunk being undeveloped in the last-named 

 sex), but there is also a vast inferiority in the size of the 

 latter as compared with the former. So marked, indeed, 

 is this discrepancy, that an early observer is stated in 

 WeddelFs " Voyage " to have mistaken the two sexes for 

 mother and young. 



From the testimony of old "beach-combers" and others 

 who have hunted them in their native haunts, it seems 

 evident that the dimensions now attained by sea-elephants 

 fall far short of those reached in the old days, when they 

 abounded on the islands of the South Seas, and were 

 permitted to grow to their full size. In the majority of 

 text-books twenty feet is given as the length of the species ; 

 but it is definitely known that specimens at the present 

 day frequently reach or exceed this length, and as none 

 of these (as exemplified by the condition of the bones in 

 the British Museum and other skeletons received of late 

 years in England) appear to be fully adult, it seems well- 

 nigh certain that old bulls must have grown to much 

 greater size. Probably twenty-five feet would not be an 

 undue estimate for the length of an adult male, and it is 

 far from improbable that close upon thirty feet may have 

 been reached in some cases. 



Among the favourite haunts of the elephant-seal were 

 the islands of the Crozet group, Kerguelen, and St. Paul, 

 in the Indian Ocean, as well as Heard Island. In the 

 South Atlantic these monsters formerly abounded on 

 Tristan-da-Cunha, and nearer the American coast they are 

 again met with farther south on the Falklands, South 



