410 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Kerguelen Island they would long ago have become extinct, but 

 for one inaccessible beach, " where they still haul up every 

 spring (October, November) ; the beach is limited at each end 

 by precipitous cliffs, across which it is quite impossible to 

 transport oil in casks ; nor can boats land from the sea, or 

 vessels lie at anchor in the offing, as the beach is on the wind- 

 ward side exposed to the full violence of wind and waves." So 

 that here, at all events, there is some hope of the species being 

 preserved. 



I possess an interesting account of these Seals, with a 

 narrative of four years spent on the Crozets, after shipwreck 

 there by a sealer named Goodridge. One habit is generally 

 noticed of this species, although it is common to the group, 

 which is to swallow large quantities of stones. Sealers and 

 sailors usually attribute the function of this action to its use as 

 ballast ; some naturalists seem not disposed to allow this, and 

 attribute it to a digestive craving. The point may be one for 

 discussion ; I rather incline to the sailors' theory, for the reason 

 that fishes seem to require some means of altering their gravity, 

 which is furnished by an air-bladder, and as Seals have not this 

 arrangement, the taking in stones as ballast would seem to fulfil 

 the need very well. 



Now I think that the facts of distribution, &c, recapitulated 

 all point to Behring Straits as the centre of distribution of Seal- 

 life. Here, and here only, the three large groups meet. Here 

 are Walruses, Eared and Earless Seals. From here we may 

 suppose the Walrus and Earless Seals spread over the Arctic 

 Circle into the Atlantic Ocean, one species, at any rate, reaching 

 as far as the Mediterranean. From here the Eared Seals, 

 accompanied by ear-less species, spread all down the Pacific 

 coasts of America, doubling Cape Horn, and creeping up the 

 South Atlantic shores of South America, perhaps to the Gulf of 

 Mexico ; another stream, following the Antarctic ice, reached up 

 to the Cape of Good Hope and some of the islands in the South 

 Indian Ocean ; but we do not find that any reached the eastern 

 coast of Africa, the coasts of India, or the Malay Peninsula. 

 Another stream seems to have migrated from Behring Straits 

 down the Japan Archipelago and part of the N.E. coasts of 

 China. Whether it was this stream which supplied the Seals of 

 the South Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand, or the one from 



