A454 THE ELEPHANT SEAL CHAP. 
have long roots. The nose of the male has a dilatable proboscis. 
The southern Elephant Seal is J/ leoninus, and reaches a 
length of some 20 feet. It occurs on the shores of Kerguelen 
and some other more or less remote islands.- Its habits have 
been studied and described by several observers, beginning with 
Anson in the last century. The late Professor Moseley gave a good 
account of this marine monster in his book on the voyage of 
the “Challenger.” When the animal is enraged, the end of the 
snout is dilated; but when this happens there is no long and 
hanging proboscis such as has sometimes been described. The 
inflation affects the skin on the top of the snout, which thus rises 
rather upwards during inflation. The inflated region, according 
to Mr. Vallentin, quoted by Mr. J. T. Cunningham, is about 
1 foot long in an individual of 17 feet. It has been stated that 
this proboscis 1s a temporary structure, only appearing in the 
breeding season; but recent observations have shown that this 
statement is inaccurate; it persists all the year round. The 
males fight greatly during the breeding season, and produce a 
roar which has been compared to the “noise made by a man 
when garghne.” The females and the young males bellow like a 
bull. The males fight of course with their teeth, literally falling 
upon one another with their whole weight. Mr. Cunningham 
thinks that the use of the proboscis is to protect the nose from 
injury; or that it may be merely the result of “emotional 
excitement.” In any case the Bladder-nosed Seal, Cystophora, is 
undoubtedly protected from injury by the possession of a corre- 
sponding hood. The nose is the most vulnerable place, and the 
existence of this hood would stave off the effects of a blow in 
that region. Moseley, however, has said of Macrorhinus that it 
cannot be stunned by blows on the nose as other Seals can; but 
he attributes this, not to the dilated snout, but to the bony 
erest on the skull, and to the strength of the bones about the 
nose. This Seal crawls with difficulty on the land, and as the 
animals move “the vast body trembles like a great bag of jelly, 
owing to the mass of blubber by. which the whole animal is 
invested, and which is as thick as it is in a whale.”’ When 
lying on the shore, these animals scrape sand and throw it 
over themselves, apparently to prevent themselves from being 
1 Cunningham, ‘‘Sexual Dimorphism in the Animal Kingdom,” London, 1900 ; 
see also Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1881, p. 145. 
