ELEPHANT SEAL: MOULTING; ENEMIES 243 



9 in. deep that its breath kept open in the thick sticky mud. They still lie in the wallows 

 and on the beaches after the moult is complete and are often to be seen bathing in the 

 shallow water near the shore. 



Final return to Sea. There is no definite time for all the elephant seal to return 

 to the sea. The cows and young ones start leaving in March and are all gone by the 

 middle of April, while the bulls follow them later, so that the beaches are practically 

 deserted by May. Occasional seal, especially pups of the preceding season, haul out 

 during the winter, but they do not stop ashore long. Whether the majority stay near 

 the land during the winter or migrate far it is impossible to state. Occasionally adults 

 are seen at sea in the neighbourhood of the island in the winter, but not nearly so 

 frequently as in the summer. The National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904 found 

 one at Cape Royds on the Antarctic continent in Lat. 77° 40' S., more than a thousand 

 miles from the nearest place where they are known to breed, and one was killed on 

 the coast of South Africa during the visit of the ' Discovery ' there in 1926. It is evident, 

 therefore, that they can travel long distances at sea. 



Mortality and Natural Enemies. The mortality of seals ashore is low. No fatal 

 epidemics, such as the Uncinaria disease which afflicts the breeding rookeries of the 

 northern fur seal, occur. A few dead pups are to be seen in most large rookeries; they 

 are usually very young ones killed by being rolled on by one of the cows lying alongside 

 the mother, or by the bull. Occasionally the very young pups die of starvation in the 

 large rookeries, through wandering away from their mothers, for they are singularly 

 unintelligent in finding their way back to them from even a short distance, and the 

 cows are equally inefl^ective in finding their pups. The pups often lie so long in one 

 spot that the heat of their bodies melts away the snow to such an extent that they sink 

 down below the general level of the rookery (Plate XXIV, fig. i). It sometimes happens 

 when the season is late, so that the snow lies deep well into the spring, that they sink 

 so far down that they cannot get out again to reach their mothers and are thus lost. 

 It is extremely seldom that adult seals are found dead ashore. Several decomposed 

 carcasses were observed, but only once was a fresh one seen, when circumstances did 

 not allow of an examination as to the cause of death. No signs of disease were seen 

 amongst them : two were seen with tumours in the blubber formed from old wounds ; 

 as stated above, their wounds often suppurate badly. No external skin parasites were 

 found. The Killer Whale is the only natural enemy of the elephant seal of which the 

 writer is aware. One of the gunners at Leith Harbour Whaling Station shot a killer 

 whale off South Georgia in November 1926, and when it was struck by the harpoon 

 it vomited up the heart, liver and a piece of blubber, about 4 ft. by 2 ft. in size, of an 

 elephant seal. This gunner also told the writer he had previously seen killers attack 

 elephant seal and cut them in two at one bite. 



Branding Experiments. Some hundreds of pups have been branded yearly from 

 1921 to 1925, by the Magistrate's staff, but very few have been seen again. The island 

 is divided into four divisions for purposes of administrating the sealing licences, and 

 the brand used on the seal shows the division, and the year in which they are marked. 



