194 DR R. N. RUDMOSE BROWN ON 



source were also found in the Sea-leopards' stomachs. However, on occasions when 

 penguins are not available the Sea-leopard does not despise fish and crustaceans. 

 Probably in midwinter the Sea-leopards migrate northwards to the edge of the pack, 

 and so keep in touch with the penguins, which do the same. 



Lobodon cardnophaga (Jac. et Puch.) the White Antarctic Seal. 



The White Antarctic Seal or " Crab-eater" is not uncommon at the South Orkneys, 

 and in some parts of the Antarctic occurs in large numbers. Dr Turquet thinks it the 

 commonest species in the regions west of Graham Land explored by the Francais, 

 where the Pourquoi Pas? also found it plentiful. Dr Bruce in 1892-93 found this 

 species in the greatest abundance of any off Louis Philippe Land, where the Balsena 

 killed some 4000 to 5000 of them. In the Bay of Whales, in the Ross Barrier, 

 Captain Roald Amundsen found it to be a common species. No expedition has 

 found it uncommon, although we did not see it as frequently as the Weddell Seal. 

 This, however, may be because numerous Weddell rookeries occurred near our 

 winter-quarters. 



The Lobodon typically occurs on the pack-ice, often far from land, and it was in 

 these conditions that most of the specimens we saw were recorded. They are seldom 

 seen on shore. During February and March 1903, while the Scotia was cruising in the 

 pack of the Weddell Sea, scarcely a day passed without several being seen. They are 

 never found far from open water. The Lobodon is not as a rule a solitary animal : 

 generally several are seen together. Dr Bruce in 1892 recorded as many as forty-seven 

 lying on the same piece of pack-ice. 



During the winter the Lobodons desert the fast ice. Not a single specimen was 

 seen by us at the South Orkneys from the middle of March to the 1st of August. In 

 the somewhat less severe regions west of Graham Land they seem to leave a little later. 

 The Discovery also found that the Lobodous left when the sea froze over in winter. In 

 the winter they apparently stay at sea among floating ice, for there seems to be no record 

 of them visiting such lands as the Falkland Islands, Kerguelen, or Macquarie Island ; but 

 stragglers have been reported from Patagonia, and as far north as the Rio de la Plata 

 and also the coasts of Australia. 



We came on no breeding-places of the Lobodon, but found a number of young ones 

 during the summer. An individual captured on August 1st, which Russ, one of the 

 dogs, chivied out of a tide-crack on to the floe, was a young one, but evidently about a 

 year old. 



The pupping season, according to M. Racovitza, is September, which would agree with 

 the apparent age of the young that we captured during the summer. There is little 

 doubt that they lived at or near the South Orkneys, though not in the bays we visited, 

 for numbers of them were seen towards the end of August, after which none seem to 

 have been noticed until November. In that month two old males were seen. In the 



