474 ANNUAL, KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. 



is essentiall}^ the same as that of West Antarctide. According to 

 observations by the Southern Gross expedition, it includes few bi- 

 polar species, except among the crustaceans. Finally, certain littoral 

 sj^ecies of fishes (Nothotenidse) and other marine animals, resem- 

 bling the survivors of the Tertiary age found along the shores of 

 South America and southern Australia, support the hypothesis of a 

 former connection between the polar lands and those continents. 

 This question, however, is still uncertain, as we have seen. Whalers 

 and seal hunters were the pioneers who opened the route for the 

 scientific expeditions toward the South Pole, and the present-day 

 continuance of these enterprises serves as good evidence of the 

 abundance of large animals in these southern seas. One of the latest 

 and most daring of polar game hunters, Larsen, who served as cap- 

 tain of the Antarctic, has gone with the definite object of establish- 

 ing an oil station in the antarctic islands beloAV South America." Any 

 present and future discoveries in this direction will no doubt bene- 

 fit primarily the Australian and Argentine interests, whose business 

 headquarters are in the vicinity. There is especially to be noticed, 

 in partial justification of this suggestion, the support granted by 

 the Argentine Government to all subpolar expeditions bound for 

 West Antarctide, a sujiport always as valuable as it is willing. But 

 let us remember that material interest in expeditions of such profit 

 to science is never to be discredited. 



The " whale " proper has not been observed in antarctic seas, but 

 the Megaptera (jubartes) and the Baleinoptera (rorquals) are of 

 frequent occurrence. Seals of rich fur are abundant on the ice bank, 

 living in small groups or families on the surface. During winter, 

 however, they spend part of their time under the ice in localities 

 where the sea water is less cold and where food is plentiful, their 

 communication with the outside world being merely by means of 

 holes which they purposely keep open. The largest of these animals, 

 the sea elephant, sometimes 6 meters long, and the sea leopard, noted 

 in all the localities visited, but really of rare occurrence, also belong 

 to the subantarctic fauna, and are found, for instance, at South 

 Georgia. Three varieties are peculiar to the south polar region. 

 The Weddell seal {Leptonychotes IF.), with its iron-gray spotted 

 skin, a great fish eater, and the " crab-eater " {Leptodon carctnopha- 

 gus), which lives on varieties of shrimps of the genus Euphausias, 

 very numerous in many localities, are the most connnon species. 

 The Ross seal {OmmatopTioca Ros€i) is the species that has been 

 found farthest south.'' 



Among the birds, some of very high flight, the petrels and the 

 albatross, belong to the subantarctic fauna. All the sjoecies show 



" A precedent followed by M. Ralier du Baty, member of the Frangais cyew. 

 ^ See Scott's account, Vol. II, Appendix. 



