376 



DISCOVERY REPORTS 



miles to the north of the group. By the middle of October 1819, however, when Smith 



made his first landing/ the whole of the northern side of the group seems to have been 



clear of ice and "seals and sea-otters abounded, as also an animal differing from the 



sea-otter".^ Nevertheless it is probably only in exceptional years that the northern coasts 



are clear as early as the first part of October, while the Bransfield Strait and the southern 



coasts are rarely if ever clear until the end of October. In view of the ice conditions, 



therefore, it is apparent that the breeding of elephant seal on the South Shetlands must, 



if it happened at all, have taken place at least a month later than it does on South Georgia 



to-day. 



Weddell Seal (Leptonychotes weddelli, Less.) 



At the time of the destruction of the fur and elephant seal on the South Shetlands the 

 Weddell seal, or sea-leopard of the early sealers, also seems to have been freely taken. 

 Although it is but little mentioned in the records of that period there can be little doubt 

 that in the eagerness of the hunt for oil and skins it perished in large numbers wherever 

 it was encountered, both on the South Shetlands and farther afield. " On Palmer's 

 Land ", writes Fanning,^ " and the south part of Sandwich Land, they are found herded 

 together in rookeries of many hundreds, and furnish oil, as the elephant, in proportion 

 to their size." On the South Orkneys at this time it was not found in very large numbers, 

 Powell, Palmer and Weddell between them taking only about three dozen in all ; but in 

 1874 a fairly large number appears to have been killed by Dallmann at the south-western 

 corner of Coronation Island and on either side of Lewthwaite Strait at its southern end. 

 In 1892 some were seen by Larsen on the north coast of Laurie Island. In more recent 

 times the Weddell seal has been recorded as of common occurrence, especially by the 

 Scottish expedition* who found it established in considerable numbers in the neighbour- 

 hood of their winter quarters in Scotia Bay. 



During January 1933 approximately 370 Weddell seals were seen on various parts of 

 the South Orkneys. The majority were congregated in a large rookery, about 250 strong, 

 on a stretch of rotten fast ice at the head of Falkland Harbour, the remainder, 120 in all, 



1 Miers, J., 1820, loc. cit., pp. 371, 372. 



2 There are of course no sea-otters in the Antarctic. Miers' "sea-otters" were probably fur seals, while 

 his "animal differing from the sea-otter" might have been the elephant seal. His statement, however, is 

 rather vague. 



3 Fanning, E., 1834, loc. cit., p. 351. 



* The Voyage of the 'Scotia', pp. 129, 227, 340. 



