24 EDWAED A. WILSON. 



not 6 inches above the water-level. Certainly such clumsiness is not quite usual, but 

 one seldom sees less than two or three unfruitful efforts before the ungainly body is 

 sufficiently out of water to hitch itself fairly on to the ice. In this effort the fore limbs 

 are used, but to no great purpose, and the movements are all rather suggestive of those 

 of a man tied up in a sack trying to get out of water on to land. 



The seal swims mainly by the sinuous motion of its body, and in this move- 

 ment the hind flippers are of the greatest service, forming a fish tail in the vertical 

 plane when held, as they usually are, palm to palm, and a powerful horizontal fluke as 

 in a whale, when there is necessity for rising or sinking in the water. The fore flippers 

 are probably of more use in directing the course of the animal than in propelling it, and 

 they must be increased nearer to the size of the sea lion's fins before they can be of 

 very great service for swimming. 



Of the colouring of Leptonychotes something still remains to be said.* The 

 collection at present under consideration contains thirty-five skins, covering all ages 

 and conditions of moult in both sexes. It is natural that in such a series there should 

 be a certain amount of variation. 



"Weddell's Seal is to be found moulting at any time during the summer months, 

 from the third week in November even to the end of March, for an adult seal has been 

 observed just commencing to moult on the 19th of the latter month. 



The order or sequence of parts from which the old hair is shed is much the same 

 for Leptonychotes and Lobodon. Beginning in a line down the centre of the back from 

 head to tail, the moult is almost simultaneous upon the head and upper neck, shoulders, 

 fore and hind flippers. The old hair then begins to fall from all the lower parts- 

 neck, chest and abdomen while the last remnants of the old bleached hair are to be 

 found on the sides of the body. 



The change in colour thus brought about is often most remarkable. The old hair 

 is a pale rusty gray where it once was black or dark gray, and the spots and splashes 

 of white and silver gray, which appear in rich contrast with the black in the new coat, 

 are disclosed by the falling of a rather dirty-looking whitish hair which is hardly 

 whiter than the rusty gray which covered up the black. Yet this seal never looks 

 white in the weathered coat, as does Lobodon ; rather it looks a dingy brown with 

 inconspicuous markings. 



The weathered adult coat prepared to moult at any minute can be well seen in 

 the following skins Nos. 4, 38, 47, 51, and 62 of the ' Discovery ' collection. 



The commencement of the moult is to be seen in skins Nos. 3 and 54 ; while the 

 stage is rather more advanced in Nos. 23, 25, 48, 53, 60, 72, and 74. In Nos. 41, 55, 

 and 73 the moult is almost completed, and quite completed in Nos. 49 and 50. In 

 many of these the contrast between the old bleached and weathered hair, and the rich 

 black and gray and pure silvery white of the new hair is very striking ; markings 



* In the Report on the ' Southern Cross ' collections, the skins of the four species of Antarctic Seals were 

 described, with coloured illustrations, by the Author of this paper. 



