32 EDWARD A. WILSON. 



of course, merely wanderers. The limits of this seal's normal range are probably as 

 far south as open water can be found, at present as far south as lat. 77 50' in 

 McMurdo Sound, and as far north as the more heavy pack ice has now been known 

 to drift, which may be roughly stated as varying between 58 and 60 S. lat. 



The history of the type specimen of this species has been briefly and clearly 

 stated by Captain Barrett Hamilton in the Report on the ' Southern Cross ' Collections, 

 and to this T have nothing to add. It appears that after Gray had described the 

 skins and skulls brought home by Sir James Ross, the written descriptions of the same 

 animal, figured previously in the Zoological Atlas of the French Voyage to the South 

 Pole, made its appearance. Gray recognising his specimens as belonging to the 

 same species, accepted the specific name Carcinophaga, while the French naturalists 

 adopted Lobodon as the generic name proposed by Gray. The University Museum of 

 Zoology at Cambridge is in possession of one of the skulls brought home by the 

 Dumont D'Urville Expedition. Owen's description of Stenorhynchus serridens was 

 taken from a skeleton brought home by Dr. McCormick of the ' Erebus ' and ' Terror ' 

 Expedition, and presented by him to the Royal College of Surgeons of England. 



Much still remains to be discovered concerning the life history of this seal ; the 

 fact that it is to be found chiefly in the pack ice of the open sea, and rarely along 

 the actual coast line, sufficiently explains why our knowledge of its habits should be 

 so limited. Its young, no doubt, are born into the world about the same time as the 

 young of the other Antarctic seals, namely in the latter end of September and 

 the beginning of October, fully a month or six weeks before it is advisable for any 

 exploring ship to attempt the passage of the pack. Consequently the young Lobodon 

 in its infantile coat of rough white fur has been very rarely seen, and no expedition 

 except the Belgian (1897-99) has, to my knowledge, had the good fortune to obtain 

 an example in this stage, for no other expedition has wintered in the pack. 



There can be no doubt, I think, that Lobodon spends the whole of its time 

 throughout the year in the pack. We know that it is to be seen there in compara- 

 tively large numbers during the summer months, from the accounts which have been 

 given by expeditions from the earliest days. It is the common seal of the pack ice. 

 For every example of Ross's Seal or of the Sea Leopard, some fifty or sixty of Lobodon 

 are regularly seen in the Ross Sea pack. 



Weddell's Seal is rarely away from land or fast ice ; so rarely that in our 

 passage through the pack, not one was seen, and it was not until we had come close 

 in shore towards Cape Adare that we met with it at all ; but during our passage 

 through the pack ice early in January we constantly came across small companies 

 of Crab-eaters lying asleep upon the ice floes. Often they were to be seen singly, 

 often in couples, but even more commonly in small groups of five, six, or more 

 together, and of both sexes. Sometimes they would be lying on their backs, and 

 sometimes on their bellies, one position seemed to suit them just as well as 

 another. It is interesting to contrast the distribution of these two species, Lobodon 



