ANOTHER SPRING 465 



but no fear, opening and shutting his nostrils the while as 

 he takes in a supply of fresh air. It is clear that they travel 

 for many miles beneath the ice, and I expect they find their 

 way from air-hole to air-hole by listening to the noise made 

 by other seals. Some of the air-holes are exit and entrance 

 holes as well, and I found at least one seal which appeared 

 to have died owing to its opening freezing up. They may 

 be heard at times grinding these holes open with their 

 teeth (Ponting took some patient cinematographs show- 

 ing the process of sawing the openings to these wells) and 

 their teeth are naturally much worn by the time they be- 

 come old. Wilson states that they are liable to kidney 

 trouble : their skin is often irritable, which may be due to 

 the drying salt from the sea ; and I have seen one seal which 

 was covered with a suppurating rash. Their spleens are 

 sometimes enormously enlarged when they first come out 

 of the sea on to the ice, which is interesting because no one 

 seems to know much about spleens. Speculation was caused 

 amongst us by the fact that some of these air-holes had as it 

 were a trap-door above them. One day I was on the ice-foot 

 at Cape Evans at a time when North Bay was frozen over 

 with about an inch or more of ice. A seal suddenly poked his 

 nose up through this ice to get air, and when he disappeared 

 a slab which had been raised by his head fell back into this 

 trap position. Clearly this was the origin of the door. 



Weddell seals and the Hut Point life are inextricably 

 mixed up in my recollections of October. Atkinson, Deben- 

 ham, Dimitri and I went down to Hut Point on the 12th, 

 with the two dog-teams. We were to run two depots out 

 on to the Barrier, and Debenham, whose leg prevented 

 his further sledging, was to do geological work and a plane 

 table survey. Those of us who had borne the brunt of the 

 travelling of the two previous sledge seasons were sick of 

 sledging. For my own part I confess I viewed the whole 

 proceedings with distaste, and I have no doubt the others 

 did too ; but the job had to be done if possible, and there 

 was no good in saying we were sick of it. From begin- 

 ning to end of this year men not only laboured willingly, 

 but put their hearts and souls into the work. To have to do 



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