CHAPTER I. 
THE SEA ELEPIIANT. 
Macrorhinus angustieostris, Gill. (Plate xx, fig. 1, 2.) 
Among the varieties of marine mammals which periodically resort to the land, 
no one attains such gigantic proportions as the Sea Elephant. This animal, which 
was sometimes called the Elephant Seal, and known to the old Californians as the 
Me/ante marino, had a geographical distribution from Cape Lazaro, latitude 24° 46' 
north, longitude 112° 20' west, to Point Reyes, latitude 38° north, longitude 
122° 58' west on the coast of California; and, strange as it may appear, we have 
no authentic accounts of this species of amphibious animal being found elsewhere 
in the northern hemisphere. At the south, however, about Patagonia, Tien'a del 
Fuego, and numerous islands in both the Atlantic and Pacific, and the Crozets, 
Kerguelen, and Herd's Islands, in the high latitudes of the Indian Ocean, have 
been points where the Sea Elephants have gathered in almost incredible numbers, 
and where hundreds of thousands of them have been slain by the seamen, pursuing 
their prey in those distant regions. 
The sexes vary much in size, the male being frequently triple the bulk of the 
female ; the oldest of the former will average fourteen to sixteen feet ; the largest 
we have ever seen measured twenty -two feet from tip to tip. The following meas- 
urements (in feet and inches) and notes were taken of two lai'ge females and one 
new-born pup, obtained on the coast of Lower California: 
No. 1. No. 2. 
Length from tip to tip 9 10 
Bound the body behind fore flippers 5 10 5 9 
Length of tail 2 2h 
Breadth of tail at root 2 2J 
Length of posterior flippers 1 7 110 
Expansion of posterior flippers 1 8 1 8 
Length of fore flippers 1 5 1 2 
Width of fore flippers G 6 
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