736 THE CARNIVORES 



feet the claws are wanting, and their first and fifth toes are longer in proportion 

 to the others than is the case with the crested seal. 



The elephant-seal is the largest of all the pinnipeds, not even excluding the 

 walrus, adult males attaining a length of from fifteen to sixteen feet to the end of 

 the body, or, reckoning from the tip of the trunk to the extremities of the out- 

 stretched flippers, a length of twenty or twenty-two feet. When in good condition 

 the girth of an old male will be as much as fifteen or sixteen feet, while the yield 

 of oil from such an animal will reach 210 gallons. The females are much smaller, 

 not exceeding nine or ten feet in total length. The general color of the coarse and 

 short fur is gray, with a more or less marked blackish or olive tinge, darker on the 

 upper than on the under parts. 



The typical elephant-seal formerly inhabited many of the islands in 

 the South Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, as well as those in the 

 Antartic Sea; some of its favorite haunts being Juan Fernandez, the Falkland is- 

 lands, Kergueleu Land, New Georgia, the South Shetlands, and Tristan da Cunha. 

 In such places, during the earlier portions of this century and in the preceding one, 

 these animals were met with in enormous herds, as described in the accounts of the 

 voyages of Cook, Peron, and Anson. Northward the elephant-seal reaches Pata- 

 gonia, and extends some distance up the western coast of South America, but how 

 far does not seem to be clearly ascertained, although it certainly stops short of the 

 tropic of Capricorn. When, however, we have crossed the Equator and reached 

 some distance north of the tropic of Cancer, elephant-seals are, or were, once more 

 met with between latitude 25 and 35 on the coast of California. The difference 

 between the Antartic and California elephant-seals is very slight indeed; and it ap- 

 pears 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 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 practi- 

 cally exterminated from the Falkland islands; and, at the time of the 

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

 appeared from Tristan da Cunha, they were still to be met with in Marian island, 

 were comparatively numerous in Kerguelen Land, and on the neighboring Heard' s 

 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's island, " there is an ex- 

 tensive 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 



