THE TERRA NOVA GOES SOUTH 63 



cruel scars a foot or more long on their flanks, some barely 

 healed, which were due to the attacks of killer whales. No 

 one seems to know why they are called crab-eaters, unless 

 perhaps because they never eat crabs. Their chief food consists 

 of small shrimp-like animals called Euphausia, which they 

 devour in great quantities. The shrimps live on the yellow 

 diatoms which encrust the lower surface of the floes. The 

 seals have rather large, strong teeth, but these are of little use 

 to them, and are a relic of bygone days when the seal had hind 

 legs like his cousin the otter. Very sinuous and graceful is a 

 seal in its native element, but on the ice its method of pro- 

 gression can hardly be called beautiful. It wriggles along 

 with rapid undulations of its body, more like a large slug than 

 a mammal. In death this floppiness of structure — I know no 

 more expressive word — made it difficult to handle the weighty 

 carcases. Before skinning they were carefully measured by 

 Dr. Wilson and Cherry-Garrard. Clad in overalls and armed 

 with keen knives, the two set to work, and soon separated the 

 skin and blubber from the carcases. In these seals the blubber 

 formed a continuous firm white layer about an inch thick, 

 though in the Weddell seals further south it is often much 

 thicker. 



The skeletons as well as the skins are to be preserved for 

 museums. As much flesh is cut ofFthe bones as possible, and 

 the remainder gradually dries into a sort of " biltong," and 

 has no smell. The flesh was served to the dogs, who soon 

 got to like it, while the livers were cooked for the wardroom, 

 and tasted most uncommonly good, even in our present state 

 of plenty. I can well imagine how a returning sledge party 

 looks forward to seal's liver at headquarters. 



Next day Dr. Wilson rigged up a " flensing " table for 

 freeing the skins of the blubber. It is a wooden arrangement, 

 very like a large saddle-tree, forming a handy sloping surface 

 on which the skin lies while the blubber is pared away. The 

 blubber was commandeered by Dr. Atkinson for his patent 

 blubber stove, which is going to help warm the hut down 

 south. The blubber is fed into a tin dish surrounding the 

 chimney of the stove. Here it gradually melts and runs down 

 a narrow pipe, which enters the stove and is curved over the 

 floor of the latter. Out of this curved " burner" the oil drips 

 continually, and gives a hot flame. The waste heat passes up 





