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PLATE LXXXVIL YOUNG WEDDELL SEALS. 



FIG. 1. A young Weddell Seal, just born. From a photograph by E. W. SKELTON 

 (Sk. 208, ^-plate), Nov. 4, 1902; taken in M'Murdo Sound. 



FIG. 2. Young Weddell Seal, about three weeks old. From a photograph by 

 R. W. SKELTON (Sk. 223, ^-plate), Nov. 26, 1902; taken in M'Murdo 

 Sound. 



The woolly coat in which the infant Weddell Seal is born has but indistinct 

 markings of a darker and a lighter shade on a buff-grey ground. During the first 

 month of its life the seal lies out upon the ice, and lives on the mother's milk. It 

 has a cry like the " baah " of a sheep, and is far more suspicious of the approach of 

 man than its parents, and much more timid. 



In Fig. 2 the woolly coat is shown in the process of moulting. This begins in 

 the third week and is completed by the end of the fourth week, when the animal 

 first enters the water to feed itself. 



