3 o6 THE ANIMALS OF THE ANTARCTIC 



indeed, observed ; but even this did not represent anything like the total, as these 

 seals, despite their bulk, are so completely concealed by the clumps of tall grass 

 amid which they lie that they require to be walked up to before their presence can 

 be detected. A few years before the visit of this particular expedition, twenty tons 

 of sea-elephant oil were obtained by a party of five sailors. This immaturity of the 

 sea-elephants on the Macquaries raises the question as to how long these seals take 

 to arrive at their full size — a question to which it is doubtful if it will ever be 

 possible to give a complete answer. One piece of information acquired during 

 the recent expeditions is that these seals occasionally wander much farther south 

 than had been previously supposed. A half-grown male was, for instance, 

 obtained by the Discovery party on South Victoria-land, at least a thousand miles 

 away from the nearest island on which the species is known to breed ; and a second 

 specimen was reported from the South Orkneys by the Scottish expedition. 

 These discoveries completely disprove the idea that sea-elephants never wander far 

 from land. In New Zealand seas the Macquarie Islands are stated to form the 

 northern limit of the species, which is unknown on the Auckland and Chatham 

 Islands. Kerguelen, Marion, Heard, and Crozet Islands are other well-known 

 resorts where the species was formerly abundant ; while, in other directions, 

 these seals inhabited Tristan da Cunha, Juan Fernandez, the Falklands, the South 

 Shetlands, South Georgia, and Inaccessible Islands, and, it is reported, the Cape of 

 Good Hope. With this essentially southern distribution it is remarkable that the 

 typical species should wander for breeding purposes to the coast of California, 

 north of the tropic of Cancer. Although sea-elephants belong to the same family 

 as ordinary seals (with which they agree in the absence of external ears and the 

 normally backward direction of the hind-flippers), they present certain resemblances 

 to sea-lions and sea-bears. The bulls, for instance, as already mentioned, are 

 nearly double the size of the cows, and also remain a long time on land in the 

 breeding-season, during which they become emaciated by their fast ; this being 

 also a feature in which they resemble sea-lions. The old bulls do not, however, 

 as is mentioned later, assemble ' harems ' of cows after the fashion of sea-bears and 

 sea-lions. Nevertheless, sea-elephants, like sea-lions, come on shore for the purpose 

 of changing their winter-coats, as well as for breeding. From this community in 

 habit and in the relative sizes of the two sexes it is inferred by the naturalist of 

 the Discovery expedition that the sea-elephants, in place of being the most 

 specialised of the true seals, are the most generalised, and the only ones which 

 retain in these respects evidence of affinity with the eared seals. 



In regard to the movements of these monstrous seals when on shore, it 

 appears from the narrative of the expedition of the Gazelle (1874-76) that these 

 monsters, when dragging themselves along on land, do not use their fore-flippers, 

 but propel themselves by bending the hind-flippers forward and pressing them on 

 the ground. On the face of it, such a mode of progression seems difficult to 

 understand, if, indeed, it be not impossible ; and according to the observations of 

 the naturalist who accompanied the recent Swiss expedition to South Georgia, 

 the statement appears to be erroneous. From this account it seems that when 

 sea-elephants move on land they employ only their fore-flippers, supported on 

 which they throw themselves forwards with undulating movements of the body, 



