February, 1903.] 



KNOWLEDGE, 



43 



minated ouly a few centuries ago by the Maoris), is yet 

 the largest member of its own particular groujj. Again, 

 no fossil ape is known wbicli is anywhere in the running 

 as compared with a full-grown male gorilla. It is, more- 

 over, 2>robable, despite the old-world legends of giants, 

 that man at the present day is, on the whole, a taller and 

 finer animal than he ever was before. 



Of course there are certain cases where the animals of 

 to-day cannot compare with some of their predecessors, 

 and a case in point is afforded by the extinct atlas tortoise 

 of Northern India, which (although its size has been 

 vastly exaggerated) far exceeded in bulk its living cousins 

 of the Galapagos and Mascarenes. This, however, may 

 perhaps be accounted for by the larger area of its habitat. 

 Among the inhabitants of the ocean we shall find even 

 more striking testimony as to the large bodily size (either 

 absolute or relative) attained by many animals of the 

 present day. Probably no mollusc was ever larger than 

 the giant clam, whose valves measure a yard or more in 

 length ; and we have no evidence that the enormous cuttles 

 and squids, forming the food of the sperm-whale, were 

 ever rivalled in size during past epochs. The huge long- 

 limbed crab of the Japanese seas, and the cocoa-nut crab 

 (which is but a marine creature that has taken to a terres- 

 trial existence) of the islands of the Indian Ocean, are 

 likewise probably the giants of their kind. At no epoch 

 of the earth's history have we any record of an animal 

 approaching in size the blue rorc[ual, with its length of 

 between eighty and ninety feet, and its weight of, probably, 

 at least as many tons. The sperm-whale and the Green- 

 laud right-whale were, at the time of their abundance, 

 certainly the largest of their respective kinds ; while the 

 basking-shark has probably been unequalled in bulk by 

 any of its predecessors. The great white shark of the 

 present day is indeed considerably inferior in size to its 

 cousins whose teeth now strew the floor of the Pacific, 

 but these latter lived at no very distant period, and may 

 possibly still survive. Walruses were never larger than 

 they are at the present day, and the dugongs and manatis 

 of the seas of our own days were fully as large as any of 

 their ancestors of which we have ken ; while the northern 

 sea-cow of Bering Sea — exterminated only a century and 

 a-half ago — was in this respect far ahead of all other 

 competitors. 



The same is true with regard to the anima forming 

 the subject of the present article — the sea-elephant, or, 

 better, the elephant-seal — which so vastly exceeds in size 

 all other members of its tribe that even the largest sea- 

 lions and walruses, when placed alongside its huge bulk, 

 look dwarfs by comparison. But it is not only from its 

 vast size that this seal is of more than ordinary interest, 

 since it is remarkable for many peculiarities in structure 

 and habits, approaching the eared seals (or sea-lions and 

 sea-l)ears) more closely than is the case with any other of 

 the true or earless seals. It has also, unhappily, an 

 interest attaching to it on account of its inipending 

 extermination. 



Elfplumt-seals frequent the shores of many of the 

 islands of the Soutii Seas, where they spend a long time 

 on land during the breeding season, and also occurred 

 formerly on the Pacific Coast of North America from Cape 

 Lazaro to Point Eeyes, Californiu, whore tlioy are now 

 ]iractii-ally extinct. As these ("alifornian elephant-seals 

 were completely isolated from those inhabiting the South 

 Sea Islands, they are regarded by American naturalists as 

 constituting a species by themselves ; but since their 

 distinction from the typical soutlieru form is but, slight, it 

 seems ]ireferal)le to look upon tiiem in the light of an 

 isolated local race. Tliese seals never appear to wander 

 south to the Antarctic pack-ice. 



Our first definite, if not actual, knowledge of the elephant- 

 seal seems to have been derived from a specimen brDught 

 to England by Lord Anson in 1744 from the island of 

 Juan Fernandez, and'the figure and account given in the 

 " Voyage Round the World " of that great commander, 

 where the' species is called " sea-lyon." Lord Anson seems 

 to have obtained a male and a female specimen ("lyou" 

 and "lyoness" he calls them"), the former of which was 

 stuffed and exhibited in the British Museum. What its 

 dimensions were is now unknown, a somewhat unfortunate 

 matter, since it was probal)ly a full-grown adult male of 

 larger size than any, or the majority of those, to be met 

 with at the present day. After being exposed in the 

 Museum galleries for considerably more tlian half a century, 

 probably without any protection from dust and the still 

 more mischievous hands of visitors (who then, as now, 

 doubtless displayed an irresistible impulse to handle everj- 

 accessible object), the specimen must certainly have shown 

 marked signs of wear and tear. Anyway, if we may 

 judge by the fact that the jaws and teeth, which had 

 been mounted in the skin, were sold by the Museum to 

 the Royal College of Surgeons in I8U9, the specimen 

 apjjears'to have been destroyed early in the last century. 

 The aforesaid jaws and teeth are still preserved in the 

 Museum of the College of Surgeons. 



Although many years later a female skin, presented by 

 the Admiralty, was mounted and exhibited, from the date 

 of the destruction of Lord Anson's specimen the British 

 Museum till quite recently had no example of either skin 

 or skeleton of an adult male of this giant seal to show the 

 public. The deficiency has been made good by the gene- 

 rosity of Mr. Walter "Rothschild, and the mounted skin 

 and skeleton of two nearly adult males are now exhibited 

 in the same case. Unfortunately, the taxidermist has not 

 been as successful as he might have been in the mounting 

 of the skin, but nevertheless the specimens sufiice to convey 

 an adequate idea of the huge bulk of the creature, and the 

 leading peculiarities of its form. 



It may be mentioned here that Anson's figure and 

 description afforded to Linnaeus his only knowledge of the 

 species, and upon this evidence was established his Phoca 

 leonina, the specific title being the equivalent of Anson's 

 " sea-lyon." As the real sea-lions are totally different 

 animals — eared-seals, in fact — it is a great pity that this 

 name was ever given, but, as being the earliest, it has to 

 stand, and cannot be replaced, as proposed by some writers 

 by the more appropriate elephant iiia. As the elephant-seal 

 differs very widely from the common seal and its immediate 

 relatives, it could not, of course, with the advance of zoo- 

 logical science, be suffered to remain in the same genus, 

 an°d it accordingly now typifies a group by itself imder the 

 name of Macrorhinns leonintnt. 



The generic title Macrorhinn.^ refers to the most dis- 

 tinctive feature of the species, the peculiar trunk-like form 

 of the muzzle of the old males. Not only do the male and 

 female elephant-seal differ in regard to the form of the 

 muzzle (the trunk being undeveloped in the last-named 

 sex), but there is also a vast inferiority in the size of the 

 latter as compared with the former. So marked, indeed, 

 is this discrepancy, that an early observer is stated in 

 Weddell's "Voyage" to have mistaken the two sexes for 

 mother and young. 



From the testimony of old " beach-combers" and otheis 

 who have hunted them in their native haunts, it seems 

 evident that the dimensions now attained by sea-elephants 

 fall far short of those reached in the old days, when they 

 abounded on the islands of the South Seas, and were per- 

 mitted to grow to their full size. In the majority of text- 

 books twenty feet is given as the length of the species ; 

 but it is definitely known that specimens at the present 



