242 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



Started independent feeding and the sand would therefore be quite useless to it. The 

 function of the sand and shingle is presumably to triturate the food, which must be 

 swallowed whole, as the teeth are only adapted for seizing and not for masticating. 



First return to Sea. When the seal are in the rookeries they do not feed. During 

 the breeding season the cows and bulls fast for two months, and then, when the harems 

 break up, they go to sea in December and return to land in January and Februarj^ to 

 change their coats. They stop ashore for another six weeks to two months and then 

 return to the water and do not haul out again until the next breeding season. It must 

 not be supposed, however, that all the seal arrive and depart with any regularity. After 

 the first haul out in the spring they all return to the water for a period after breeding, 

 but the times vary individually. There are always adult seal of both sexes to be seen 

 on the beaches right through the summer in addition to the young ones, though the 

 above dates are correct for the majority. The bulls remain ashore later than the cows: 

 by the first week in April very few cows are left, though there are plenty of bulls until 

 the end of the month. The cows, however, haul out earlier than the bulls, arriving in 

 January and early February, whilst the bulls do not come ashore till the latter part of 

 February and the beginning of March. 



Annual Moult. The moult occurs after the breeding season and after the seal have 

 been to sea for a period. The actual time of the moult varies individually, but it is 

 earlier with the cows and yearlings than with the bulls. With the former it starts about 

 halfway through January and is in full swing during February. With the bulls it starts 

 in February and lasts to the end of March. The process from the commencement of 

 the shedding until the new coat is complete lasts from a month to five or six weeks. 

 The hair comes off in patches, first on the back and shoulders, last on the belly, face 

 and flippers. The patches peel off in sheets, the hair being held together by a layer of 

 the epidermis which is shed, taking the hair with it (Plate XXIII, figs i, 2). The hair 

 projects about a quarter of an inch on the outside, and about one-eighth of an inch 

 on the inside of this layer of epidermis when shed. In the cows and yearlings and the 

 smaller bulls the new hair, soft, short and closely adpressed to the skin, is exposed 

 when the old coat is shed, but in the older bulls the patches left where the old hair 

 comes off are at first quite naked (Plate XXIII, fig. 2), and the new hair does not start 

 sprouting for a week or ten days. During the shedding of the coat the seal get very 

 out of condition and the thickness of the blubber is much diminished. In some cases 

 also, the gums become congested and bleed at this season. 



When they are shedding their coats the seal like to lie in wallows, which they make 

 by lying and rolling in the pools of water amongst the clumps of tussac grass. They 

 quickly produce a swampy quagmire, and as many as thirty or forty are sometimes to 

 be seen lying closely packed together in these mud baths. The cows and bulls tend to 

 keep apart at this time, each wallow being usually, though not invariably, packed with 

 seal of the same sex. The writer has seen these wallows so deep in mud that only the 

 heads of the seal were above the surface, and actually came across one instance in 

 which the seal was completely immersed and was breathing through a hole about 



