12 EDWARD A. WILSON. 



again. You are not a yard from him, and you may shout to him to wake. He 

 takes no notice whatever, so you shout again. He hears you, and, opening his 

 bloodshot eyes upon you, stares in amazement without making an effort to 

 move (see figs. 8 and 9, p. 12 ; also fig. 21, p. 24). He is probably upon his back, 

 but that does not prevent the emptying of his bladder, which, as a rule, is his 

 first move, indicative, perhaps, of some slight uneasiness of mind. This increases 

 as he begins to realise you are something not quite usual, and he slowly rolls over 

 away from your direction, and then stops again to stare and very likely to make a little 

 piping trill in his throat with his mouth shut. It sounds like the tinkling of water in 

 a stone cistern, and you see the movements in his throat.* He is inclined to go to sleep 

 again and forget about you. His large hazel brown eyes no longer show the blood-red 

 canthus as they did before, when you first surprised him, and you walk round to his 

 tail. He objects to this, as a rule, and attempts at once to avoid you by rolling over 

 sideways or slinging his hind quarters round and away from your proximity, his main 

 endeavour being to keep you broadside on. If you insist and manage to touch one of 

 his hind flippers with your foot, he is at once really frightened. He may then either 

 immediately rear half up off the ice at you and bellow with an open mouth, or else he 

 will rapidly roll and shuffle away from you and make off as hard as he can lope for the 

 nearest hole. In so doing he will constantly look round first on one side and then the 

 other to sec whether you are following, or else he will make off clumsily with his head 

 held high up in the air, with both eyes widely open, watching you the while along 

 his back, and in this position he forms a very quaint and characteristic picture. 

 Many a time did we wonder at the complete ignorance of danger exhibited by 

 this seal, so wholly different to the suspicious character of its kindred in the North. 



Their rookeries were a constant source of interest to us and an ample food supply, 

 from which we drew largely for our needs. The meat was coarse in fibre and very 

 dark, but by no means rank, and although the blubber was uneatable the flesh was our 

 greatest stand-by, not only as a preventive of scurvy but a certain cure for the disease. 



Judging- from our experience in passing first through the pack ice north of Ross 

 Sea, and then along the coast of South Victoria Land, Weddell's Seal is to be found 

 only within sight of land or of land ice. We saw no example of it in the pack ice, and 

 in this respect confirmed the late Mr. Hanson's observations on the ' Southern Cross ' 

 Expedition. There can be no doubt now that Weddell's Seal is definitely a coastal 

 species, which never wanders farther from land than it can help, though occasion- 

 ally it is carried by drifting ice to various distant islands, and even across large 

 stretches of sea and open ocean to lands where it can only be considered an accidental 

 visitor. For example, it has been reported from Juan Fernandez, Kerguelen and 

 Heard Islands, and even from New Zealand, where a specimen was stranded on the 



* Weddell's Seal when quite young gives a " baah " like a sheep. This becomes a roar as the seal grows 

 older, but other and more musical notes are common, such as a moan beginning with a high pitched note and 

 ending with a low one, often like an ice moan ; or a series of plaintive piping notes may be produced, ending on the 

 call note of a bullfinch, or changing to a long shrill whistle which terminates with a grunt or a snort or a gurgle. 



