WEDDELL'S SEAL. 19 



absolutely callous both to the struggles and the bleating cries of her young, with 

 which we were struggling in our efforts to attach a label to its tail. In the absence 

 of the mother the young one would occasionally make its way to a neighbouring seal, 

 and, if she happened to have a young one too, one might be misled into thinking that 

 she had given birth to the two herself. Quite probably this happens sometimes, but 

 we were never quite sure of such a case. 



At the end of a month, when the young one has moulted its woolly coat and 

 has donned its richly marked coat of hair, it is taught by the mother to enter and 

 leave the water, she the while giving her assistance by pushing from behind ; soon, no 

 doubt, the young seal begins to supply itself to some extent with food. Even after 

 it has learned to enter the water, however, it can often be seen to take milk from its 

 mother, but on December 23rd the stomach of one that was killed contained only 

 fish and isopods. Lactation, therefore, cannot long continue, and probably as a rule 

 the young one becomes wholly independent within six weeks of its birth 01 a week 

 or two after entering the water. 



At the end of its first year the young seal is still easily recognisable as a 

 yearling by its small size. Thus at the end of its first winter it reached about 

 two- thirds of the size of the normal adult, and measured between 6 and 7 feet 

 from nose to tail. During the following winter, however, the discrepancy ends, and 

 before two years of its life are out the Weddell's Seal arrives at adolescence. Whether 

 it then breeds or not it is impossible to say ; but, judging from the damaged condition 

 in which one finds many adult males, and even very old ones, from the severe fights 

 which take place in the third week of October and in November and December, I 

 am inclined to think that few males can breed until at least their third or fourth 

 years. The gestation period in the female is as nearly as possible eleven months. 

 One may find during the above-mentioned months old males in secluded spots 

 literally covered with open wounds from head to tail. All these wounds are short 

 and comparatively shallow, and most abundant about the head, neck, and genital 

 orifice. The last appears to be the main object of attack in all their battles, and in 

 the majority of cases the region is in a terribly torn condition (see Skins No. 3 and 

 No. 48 in the ' Discovery ' Collection). Neither do the wounds heal with any great 

 rapidity, suppurating sores remaining often for many months. But the wounds 

 received and given by the males in their contests during the rutting season must not be 

 confounded with the far more serious wounds found on males and females alike, though 

 very rarely in Weddell's Seal, as the result of attacks made on them by the Killer Whale. 



The seal's teeth produce multitudinous wounds, it is true, but none are more 

 than a few inches in length and these seldom deeper than the skin ; the Killer's teeth, 

 on the contrary, produce the most serious rents, often from 12 to 20 inches in length, 

 limited in number, from two to six in parallel rows about two inches and a half apart 

 from one another ; these will often be deeply cut through skin and blubber right into 

 the very flesh, and mainly upon the ventral surface. 



