Importance of Geogra'pMcal Position. 271 



the signals which had first attracted their attention, it now 

 appeared were for no other object than to enable them to feel 

 themselves once more, after such an interval, in the company of 

 their fellowmen. 



Owing to the important situation of St. Paul, midway 

 between the southernmost point of Africa and the Australian 

 continent (from each of which it is about 3150 miles distant), 



carcases exposed to rot on the ground, and these lie heaped together here in such 

 masses that it was difficult to avoid treading on them, when one reached the shore 

 of the island. At every stej) some disgusting spectacle presented itself, while an 

 unutterably nauseous smeU of decaying matter poisoned the surrounding atmosphere. 

 In the summer months the seals flock hither, all at the same period, in herds some- 

 times numbciiug 800 to 1000, of which usually only about one hundred are killed at 

 a time. This is tlie utmost niimber that five men can skin in the course of a single 

 day, it being necessaiy to peg them together on the spot, on accoimt of the drying 

 up of the skin. For want of the requisite vessels only an inconsiderable quantity of 

 the train-oU, which these animals contain, is collected. A portion of the best of the 

 blubber is melted, and serves these people in Ueu of butter. The seal which frequents 

 these islands is the Southern or Falkland seal (Arctocephalus Faldandicus of Gray — 

 Phoca fusilla of Schreber). The female weighs ordinarily from seventy to one 

 himdi-ed and twenty pounds, and is from three to five feet long, the male usually 

 considerably larger. In their natural state these animals are not particularly timid ; 

 sometimes, indeed, they plunge all together into the water when any one approaches 

 them; but quite as often they remain sitting quietly on the rocks, or raise themselves 

 erect with a menacing gi-owl. A sharp blow on the snout with a stick seems sufficient 

 to kill them. Most of those that approach the shore are females, the proportion they 

 bear to the males being about thirty to one. This apparent disproportion between 

 the sexes, according to observation hitherto, is explained as follows : — The Southern 

 seal at certain periods often undertakes distant wanderings from one tract to another ; 

 and certain of these tracts, such as the Cape of Good Hope and the islands of St. 

 Paul and Amsterdam, are only frequented by the females when about to bring forth, 

 and by the yoimger males of the school. In winter the huge snouted seal, or Sea 

 Elephant {Macrorhinus, "long snout," elephantinus of Gray — Phoca leonina of 

 Schreber), which sometimes attains a length of twenty-five or even thirty feet, comes 

 in great nmnbers to these islands, where they herd together like sheep m the natural 

 coves which the coast is broken into, in wliich the males announce the presence 

 of a herd by a vehement growHng, deepening into a loud roar." 



