54 EDWARD A. WILSON. 



fore limbs of the Otariidse, the large watery eyes and gaping mouth, and, above all, 

 the disproportionately rapid tailing off of the hinder parts. 



As we approached he began to edge towards the water, and had even entered it 

 before we killed him. To haul such an animal up on the beach was no light task, for 

 being a half-grown male his weight was probably half a ton or more. The mouth and 

 tongue were fleshy pink, the latter short and thick with a deep-cut notch in the distal 

 end. The eyeballs were very large with dark brown irides. All these parts were put 

 on one side to be preserved, but though they lay quite close to us as we flenced the 

 skin we were robbed of them by the Skua gulls. The whole skin moreover was after- 

 wards buried in a mound of sand, yet the Skuas went to the trouble of uncovering 

 it in part, and made bare patches on the back by pecking off the hair. 



The boldness of this bird, combined with its strength of bill and claw, must 

 never be forgotten by the collector in these regions, for it matters not what is left 

 lying on the ice, they will soon have tried either to eat or to remove it. One views 

 with small pleasure a Skua flying off to sea with a favourite knife-sheath or a belt ; 

 even coats are dragged about the ground, and bits of blubber freely taken from the 

 hand. 



The stomach of this Sea Elephant was empty, as also was the entire length of the 

 intestines, which were very uniform in size and quite firmly contracted into a cord-like 

 structure containing only a few small nematodes. Nevertheless, it was a heavily 

 blubbered animal, to the extent of two or three inches under the skin, the whole 

 body over. One cannot think, therefore, that it had been starving for any great 

 length of time, and how it can have found its food on these icebound coasts, so 

 different to those of its normal habitat, is difficult to see. From its dentition one 

 would be led to consider that cephalopods must form the greater part of its 

 subsistence. 



The cheek teeth are in every way degenerate when compared with the well- 

 developed canines and incisors, and this is a feature which may be expected more in 

 an animal that lives on soft-bodied animals than in one that must either catch fish or 

 crush the shells of molluscs. The small peg-top plaited crowns of its cheek teeth are 

 in no sense adapted to such work. If a series of the skulls of this animal be examined, 

 there will be found a variability in the number and permanence of the cheek teeth 

 which reminds one strongly of the same feature in the dentition of Ommatophoca. 



Of the five skulls of Macrorhinus leoninus, at present in the British Museum, 

 no less than three are aberrant from what one must take as the normal dentition. 

 This is as follows : 



T 2 2 p 1--1 5 5 



'!--!' '1 1' "5^5' 



Flower gave the milk dentition as 



T 2 2 p 1 1 pp 3 3 



L u ^- - 



