198 HEARD ISLAND. 



I do not understand it ; probably the cows visit their young 

 from time to time unobserved. I beh'eve similar stories are 

 told of the fattening on nothing of the young of northern seals. 



Peron says that both parent Elephant seals stay with the 

 young without feeding at all, until they are six or seven weeks 

 old, and that then the old ones conduct the young to the 

 water and keep them carefully in their company. The rapid 

 increase in weight is in accordance with Peron's account. 



Charles Goodridge gives a somewhat different account, 

 namely, that after the females leave the young, the old males 

 and young proceed inland, as far as two miles sometimes, 

 and stop without food for more than a month, and during this 

 time lose fat. The male elephants come on shore on the 

 Crozets for the breeding season at about the middle of August, 

 the females a little later. 



There were said to be forty men in all upon Heard Island. 

 Men occasionally get lost upon the glaciers. Sometimes a 

 man gets desperate from being in so miserable a place, and 

 one of the crew of a whaler that we met at Kerguelen's Land 

 said, after he had had some rum, that occasionally men had to 

 be shot ; a statement which may be true or false, but which 

 expresses at all events the feelings of the men on the matter. 



The men that we saw seemed contented with their lot. 

 The " boss " said, in answer to our inquiries, that he had only 

 one Fur-Seal skin, which he would sell if he was paid for it, 

 but he guessed he'd sell it anyhow when he got back to the 

 States. He had been engaged in sealing about the island 

 since 1854, having landed with the first sealing party which 

 visited the island. For his present engagement his time was 

 up next year, but he guessed he'd stay two years more. He'd 

 make 500 dollars or so before he went home, but would 

 probably spend half of that when he touched at the Cape of 

 Good Hope on the way. 



The men had good clothing, and did not look particularly 

 dirty. They lived in wooden huts, or rather under roofs built 

 over holes in the ground, thus reverting to the condition of 

 the ancient British. Around their huts were oil casks and 

 tanks, and a hand-barrow for wheeling blubber about. There 

 were also casks marked Molasses, Flour, and Coal. 



The men said they Had as much biscuit as they wanted, and 

 also beans and pork, and a little molasses and flour. Their 

 principal food was penguins {Eudyptes chryso/o/'hus), and they 

 used penguin skins with the fat on for fuel. Captain Sir G. S. 

 Nares saw five such skins piled on the fire one after the other 

 in one of the huts. 



The bay in which we anchored was thronged with Cape 



