1912] Townsend: Northern Elephant Seal. 165 



Most of the attitudes here described are well shown in the 

 accompanying photographs, but it must be confessed that we 

 could not have secured all of our pictures without getting the 

 animals thoroughly aroused. In some cases I focused my 

 camera on the head of an elephant seal at a distance of eight or 

 ten feet and then had a sailor kick the animal violently in the ribs, 

 one of them became thoroughly angered only after a sailor had 

 jumped upon his back. When moving of its own accord the ele- 

 phant seal arches the body in a way suggestive of the motion of 

 the inch-worm, drawing the hind quarters well forward with the 

 belly lifted from the ground, and then shifting the forequarters 

 with the front flippers braced outward. 



Fighting. 



The large males that accompanied the nursing females were 

 frequently engaged in fights with unattached males. There had 

 evidently been considerable fighting as their necks were more or 

 less raw and in some cases had festering sores. In comparison 

 with them the necks of the younger males were smooth and with- 

 out tooth-marks. In fighting, the large males crawl slowly and 

 laboriously within striking distance, and then rearing on the 

 front flippers and drawing the heavy pendant proboscis into 

 wrinkled folds well up on top of the snout, strike at each other's 

 necks with their large canines. The fighting was accompanied 

 with more or less noise and snorting, but we heard none of the 

 extremely loud bellowing described by writers as characteristic 

 of the Antarctic species of elephant seal. 



The skin of the under surface of the neck and fore part of 

 the breast is greatly thickened, it is practically hairless and years 

 of fighting has given it an exceedingly rough and calloused sur- 

 face. This shield, as it may be called, is the part of the animal 

 most exposed to attack when fighting, it extends from the throat 

 just below the base of the jaws, down to the level of the flippers 

 and rather more than half way back on each side of the neck and 

 breast. Although ugly wounds are inflicted by the large canines, 

 the heavy skin in no case seemed to be broken through. While 

 the animal takes good care of its head and proboscis, the cal- 

 loused breast shield is freely exposed to the enemy. 



