40 NATURAL HISTORY OF KERGUELEN ISLAND. 



ossific centra of many bones, notably of the vertebrae, have not yet 

 become united together. Prof. Theo. Gill has examined and identified 

 the skeleton, which, with two skins, constitutes the collection of this 

 species finally preserved. 



The sea-elephant begins to " haul up" on the beaches of its breeding- 

 places about October 10, and remains ashore until well into the month 

 of January. The old bulls, which alone are provided with a proboscis, 

 take charge, each, of a large number of females, guarding them from the 

 approach of other bulls, and (so the sealers assert) prevent them from re- 

 turning to the sea before the young are old enough to do so with safety. 

 During the breeding-season the bulls are very pugnacious, fighting 

 fiercely with each other, and even attacking the sealers themselves. 

 Although seemingly so unwieldy, they are described as getting over the 

 beaches with surprising speed, advancing both flippers at a time and 

 using them like crutches. The beaches of Eoyal Sound are fringed by 

 innumerable wallows — cradle-shaped pits — in which the animals lie dur- 

 ing the breeding-season, recalling the buffalo-wallows of our west- 

 ern prairies. 



The increasing scarcity of the sea-elephant, and consequent uncertainty 

 in hunting it, together with the diminished demand for the oil since the 

 introduction of coal-oil into general use, Uave caused a great falling-off 

 in the business of elephant-hunting. The Crozet Islands, for example, 

 had not been '^ worked" for five years, and at Kerguelen there was only 

 one small schooner engaged in this pursuit, two others making Three 

 Island Harbor their headquarters, but spending the " season" at Heard's 

 Island, three hundred miles to the southward. It may, therefore, be 

 reasonably hoped that these singular animals, but lately far on the way 

 toward extinction, will have an opportunity to increase again in numbers, 

 and that the sealers may learn from past experience to carry on their 

 hunting operations with more judgment, sparing breeding females and 

 very young cubs. When the Monongahela visited the Crozet Islands 

 on December 1, they found the sea-elephant very numerous, although 

 left undisturbed for only five seasons. 



Besides the sea-elephant the sea-leopard, {OgmorMnus* leptonyx, 

 Blainv.) often visits the island, as do several species of seal. The sea-leop- 

 ard is also sought for its oil, but is less valuable, being a much more 



■*This name is substituted for Stenorliynchus, hecause the latter has already been 

 ascribed to other animals : to a crab in 1819, and to an insect in 1823 and 1825. See 

 W. Peters in Monatshericht der Koniglich Preussichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Ber- 

 lin, June, 1875. 



