OCEANIC MAMMALS 465 



of the island." More recent accounts speak of the killing of 

 elephant seals as now "carefully regulated" by the Falkland 

 Islands Government not only on South Georgia but also on 

 other islands within its jurisdiction, so that improvement and 

 perpetuation of the industry may be hoped for. This improve- 

 ment in this species is apparently indicated also by the recent 

 conditions in the South Orkney Islands, to the southward; for 

 Marr (1935, pp. 373-375) writes that, though far from plenti- 

 ful, it is now found there in moderate numbers. "At one time 

 it used to frequent the South Shetlands [to the southwest] in 

 vast numbers, and for the sake of the oil it yielded, perished in 

 thousands along with the fur seal during the wanton destruc- 

 tion of 1820-22. So heavy had the slaughter of elephant seal 

 been that when the ' Chanticleer ' arrived at the South Shet- 

 lands in 1829 not one was to be seen, although no doubt the 

 species still survived, as did the fur seal, on various out-of-the- 

 way sites unfrequented by sealers. Offering a relatively small 

 commercial reward, it escaped extermination and is to be found 

 to-day in some parts of the South Shetlands, particularly on 

 Elephant Island where several hundred were seen by the 

 Shackelton-Rowett expedition in the autumn of 1922. For all 

 its former abundance at the South Shetlands, the early sealers 

 between 1821 and 1823 do not record a single elephant seal at 

 the South Orkneys"; the first record was in 1874, when Dall- 

 mann saw many, after which it was noted as an infrequent 

 visitor, although more were seen during the ice-free year of 

 1908. In 1914-15, Marr notes that large numbers came ashore 

 to bask and sleep on Signy Island. In January, 1933, he 

 writes, the number of elephant seals hauled out on the South 

 Orkneys was estimated to be about 296, but it was not defi- 

 nitely ascertained whether they bred there. Probably the 

 varying ice conditions about these islands, now as in the past, 

 are the determining factor, rendering the group more or less 

 unsuitable as a breeding ground. 



In the southern Indian Ocean elephant seals formerly fre- 

 quented Kerguelen Island and the Crozet Islands in large 

 numbers. During the first half of the nineteenth century they 

 were almost exterminated on Kerguelen, but after that there 

 came a respite during which the numbers seem to have built 

 up once more. With a revival of the hunt for oil at about the 

 beginning of the present century, sealers had again devastated 



