21 
Besides this, however, special expenses connected with 
the increase of the Menagerie, amounting altogether to 
£632 8s. 1ld., were incurred under the following circum- 
stances. 
The young male Sea-Lion (Otaria jubata) acquired by 
the Society in 1866, having proved to be an animal of no 
ordinary interest both to scientific observers and to the 
public, the Council, as already announced to the Society 
in their Report of the year 1867, made arrangements to 
obtain another individual of the same species to replace it. 
To this end they despatched to the Falkland Islands, in 
June 1867, the keeper Frangois Lecomte with instructions 
to endeavour to bring home as complete a living collection 
as possible of the Mammals and Birds of those islands. 
Lecomte left Swansea on the 1st of June, 1867, in the 
coal-ship ‘ Epsilon’ (Capt. Williams), and arrived at Port 
Stanley on the 11th of August. The first fortnight after 
his arrival he devoted to excursions along the shores in the 
vicinity of Port Stanley, but found little of interest here. In 
the middle of September Lecomte went to Capt. Packe’s 
establishment at Island Harbour, and stayed there a month, 
searching the creeks and shores diligently in that vicinity. 
In December Lecomte returned to Port Stanley, where 
Governor Robinson most kindly gave him a room in 
Government House whilst engaged in preparing speci- 
mens and prosecuting researches for the Society. His 
Excellency likewise allowed him the use of a schooner 
of eight tons burden, in which he made several voyages to 
Volunteer Lagoon and the adjoining shores of East Falk- 
land. This was in the month of December, when the various 
species of Penguins, of which Lecomte made a considerable 
collection, are most easily captured. 
About the beginning of March Lecomte left Port Stanley 
again in the Governor’s schooner for “ Sea-Lion Island,” 
off the south shore of East Falkland, with the expectation 
here, at least, meeting with the animal whence the island 
has received its name. But he was again disappointed, 
not a single Sea-Lion having been found in this locality. 
But on the southernmost of the Kelp Islands, lying further 
north, which were visited on the return voyage, a herd of 
about thirty individuals of this animal was discovered; an 
old male (of which the skull was preserved) was shot, and 
four young ones (two males and two females) were captured. 
The female Sea-Lion produces her young (rarely more 
