EARLESS SEALS. 



i47 



indeed ; and it appears that the chief reason that the American naturalists have 

 for regarding them as distinct species is their isolated habitats. It may be that 

 the area between these two habitats was once occupied by these seals, but the 

 suggestion that the Californian race took origin from a few individuals that 

 succeeded in crossing the tropical zone appears the more probable view, as it 

 seems difficult to believe that the same species should inhabit both the Antarctic 

 Ocean and the Equatorial seas. In any case, the Californian elephant-seal, whatever 

 its origin, and whether it be a distinct species or only a local race of its Antarctic 

 cousin, is, from a distributional point of view, of considerable interest, and its 

 extermination, which, if not actually accomplished, must be imminent, cannot fail 

 to be a source of regret. 



In the southern seas the elephant-seals have long since been 

 practically exterminated from the Falkland Islands ; and at the 

 time of the visit of the Challenger Moseley states that, while elephant-seals had 

 completely disappeared from Tristan da Cunha, they were still to be met with 

 in Marian Island, were comparatively numerous in Kerguelen Land, and on 

 the neighbouring Heard Island occurred in thousands. After mentioning an 

 encounter with a male on Kerguelen Island, when the animal assumed a 

 threatening attitude, and raised its tail nearly to the level of its head, as 

 depicted in Anson's voyage, Professor Moseley goes on to state that, on the more 

 exposed side of Heard Island, " there is an extensive beach, called Long Beach. 

 This is covered over with thousands of sea-elephants in the breeding-season, but it 

 is only accessible by land, and then only by crossing two glaciers. No boat can 

 live to land on this shore, consequently men are stationed on the beach, and live 

 there in huts ; and their duty is constantly to drive the sea-elephants from this 

 beach into the sea, which they do with whips made of the hide of the seals 

 themselves. The beasts thus ousted swim off, and often ' haul up,' as the term 

 is, upon the accessible beaches elsewhere. In very stormy weather, when they are 

 driven into the sea, they are forced to betake themselves to the sheltered side of 

 the island. Two or three old males, termed ' beach - masters,' hold a beach to 

 themselves and cover it with cows, but allow no other males to haul up. The 

 males fight furiously, and one man told me that he had seen an old male take up 

 a younger one in his teeth and throw him over, lifting him in the air. The males 

 show fight when whipped, and are with great difficulty driven into the sea. They 

 are sometimes treated with horrible barbarity. The females give birth to their 

 young soon after their arrival. The new-born young are almost black, unlike the 

 adults, which are of a light slate-brown. They are suckled by the female for some 

 time, and then left to themselves lying on the beach, where they seem to grow fat 

 without further feeding. They are always allowed by the sealers thus to lie, in 

 order to make more oil. This account was corroborated by all the sealers I met 

 with. I do not understand it. Probably the cows visit their offspring unobserved 

 from time to time. Peron says that both parent elephant-seals stay with the 

 young without feeding at all, until the young 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. 

 Goodridge gives a somewhat different account, namely, that after the females 



