50 EDWAKD A. WILSON. 



The tail is almost black, with a fringe of pale hairs round the edge, and is of a 

 more conical shape than the tail in other members of the Stenorhinchinse. 



All this is true for freshly moulted skins. But in two of the six skins in our 

 collection, and also in two of the ' Southern Cross ' collection, the chin and lower lip 

 are black instead of white, and this blackness extends backwards over the throat to 

 fade away upon the breast and belly. The line of demarcation between this dark 

 band upon the throat and the pale whitish-grey of the sides of the head and neck, 

 cheek, upper lip and eyebrows, is well defined. In four skins of the six in our 

 collection and in two of the ' Southern Cross ' collection, however, the chin and throat 

 instead of being black are white, and this is the colouring of the type specimen in the 

 British Museum. The difference has nothing to do either with sex, age, or locality 

 so far as can at present be seen, and must be cited merely as an instance of individual 

 variation. 



The moult in this seal takes place in January, and in that month the animal may 

 be found in a rusty brownish-grey coat, of which the hairs are loose. When this is 

 shed the blackish-grey coat, which I have just described, appears first as a very meagre 

 covering. It seems that this seal prefers to starve for a week or two rather than enter 

 water whilst the moult proceeds. Hanson, in his diary notes, describes how he found 

 one moulting in the pack : " He was shedding his hair, and to all appearance he had 

 been lying several days in the same place where we found him, as there was a lot of 

 hair and excrement scattered round about on the ice, and on opening the stomach it 



was found to be quite empty There was hardly an inch thick of blubber on 



the skin." Skin No. 28 of our collection is in full moult, and shows well the difference 

 between the colour of the old and new coat. 



The coat of Ommatophoca when examined closely is seen to consist of two different 

 sets of hair. The most abundant of these are short and blackish to the naked eye, 

 while longer white hairs can be seen sparsely but generally intermixed. The white 

 hairs are on an average about one-third longer than the shorter and darker hairs. All 

 are flattened, stiff and straight, with a strong resemblance to the hairs of Macrorhinus 

 and Cystophora. 



Several of the skins in the ' Discovery's ' collection are badly scarred, but in every 

 case they are the scars which result from the fights between the males in the rutting 

 season. They are particularly well seen in skins No. 1 and 46, disposed, as already 

 noted, almost solely, about the head and neck. In no case have I seen scars on 

 Ross' Seal which might be attributed to the Killer Whale, a fact which may be 

 connected with the more perfect development of this seal for a marine life, with its 

 torpedo shape and comparatively large flippers indicating a power and speed in water 

 not seen in other species. 



