372 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



During the two years that followed the discovery of the group fur seals would 

 appear to have been exceptionally scarce, judging from the records of Powell, Palmer 

 and Weddell, who between them seem to have examined most of the localities where the 

 species might be expected to congregate. Yet in the fifty and odd years that elapsed be- 

 tween the departure of Weddell and the arrival of Dallmann the seal would appear to 

 have established a slight footing in various parts of the group, evidently in the very 

 localities, Sandefjord Bay and Lewthwaite Strait, that we know to have been examined 

 without success by Powell and Palmer. Dallmann does not state precisely where his 

 boats landed, but as nearly as we can judge his best hauls, amounting to 145 skins in all, 

 were obtained somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sandefjord Bay. A proportion of 

 these skins may, however, have been obtained on the south coast of Coronation Island, 

 slightly to the eastward of Return Point, and had there been a fur seal rookery there in 

 December 1821 Powell may have missed it, because he did not examine this locality 

 closely although he saw it in the distance from Return Point. 



Although Dallmann appears to have slaughtered every fur seal he could lay hands on 

 and is the last to record its presence on the South Orkneys, it is by no means certain 

 that it was he who exterminated the species there. His search covered only a small part 

 of the group and it is thought that one or other of the many localities which he did not 

 visit may have been frequented by fur seals after his departure. On this assumption the 

 final extermination must have been the work of others who have left no record of their 

 handiwork. It may have happened, as already suggested (pp. 317, 319), during the 

 secondary revival of sealing at the South Shetlands which came to an end about 1891 , or 

 even later at the hands of Canadian sealers in the closing years of last century. 



It is difiicult to account for the scarcity of the fur seal on these islands, for as a breed- 

 ing ground they would appear to offer just as many attractions as the South Shetlands. 

 In their climate and geographical position the South Orkneys and the South Shetlands 

 are strictly comparable and like the latter the South Orkneys possess a number of sites 

 where the seal might readily have hauled out. The best of these are to be found on 

 Signy Island, where, it is interesting to note, more elephant seal are found to-day than 

 anjrwhere else in the group. Elsewhere, to mention a few of the more likely sites, there 

 is suitable ground on Michelsen Island, Fredriksen Island, the Beach at Scotia Bay, and 

 also in the neighbourhood of Sandefjord Bay and near Cape Hansen in Normanna 

 Strait. The South Orkneys differ from the South Shetlands, however, in one important 

 respect: they are surrounded by pack-ice for a longer period every year. Throughout 

 November, with rare exceptions, often until late December and sometimes even until 

 well into January, the coasts of the South Orkneys are heavily blocked by ice, while at 

 the South Shetlands they are generally quite clear by the middle of November at least, 

 and occasionally before. Weddell, ^ describing the periodic intercourse that the South 

 Shetland fur seal used to have with the land, states that " The males of the largest size 

 go on shore about the middle of November, to wait the arrival of the females, which 

 of necessity must soon follow, for the purpose of bringing forth their young. These, 



^ Weddell, J., 1825, loc. at., supra, p. 138. 



