APPENDIX II 



ON THE WHALES, SEALS, AND BIRDS OF ROSS 

 SEA AND SOUTH VICTORIA LAND 



By Edward A. Wilson, M.B., F.Z.S., Zoologist on the 

 National Antarctic Expedition 



There are no land mammals, properly so called, within the 

 Antarctic Circle. There are no South Polar bears ; there are no 

 Antarctic foxes ; there are no large mammals of any sort or kind 

 save whales, which live entirely in the water, and seals, which 

 spend more than half their time there. 



Geology has not disclosed to us any lost Antarctic mammalian 

 fauna, although it has suggested to us the possibility that at one 

 time there was a climate, and perhaps a vegetation, that might 

 have suited it. There are deep and difficult questions upon which 

 it appears right to hold whatever theory best suits our immediate 

 requirements, as to the various connections and communications, 

 whether of land or ice, which have or have not existed between all 

 or any of the Southern Hemisphere land masses and the Antarctic 

 continent. There is every probability that in some bygone age the 

 Antarctic land mass acted as a bridge between some of the 

 Southern continents, but whatever it may have done of service in 

 the distribution of types for them, it has apparently done little or 

 nothing for itself. Separated now by some hundreds of miles of 

 very stormy ocean from the nearest habitable lands, with currents 

 of wind and water all setting in precisely the wrong direction, it 

 maintains an almost perfect barrenness. 



The Antarctic continent now boasts of a vegetation which 

 includes a few low forms of moss and lichen, and a terrestrial 

 fauna which consists of one minute and primitive form of wingless 

 insect. Of the whales and seals and birds, the last-named alone 



