u 



E. LÖNNBERG. CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FAUNA OF SOUTH GEORGIA. 



Sörling saw to his great astonishment that they had chosen resting-places 5 — 600 

 metres from the shore and about 10 to 20 metres above the sea level. 



When the old bulls had come ashore and crawled up from the beach Sörling 

 saw them now and then raise the body so high that the före flippers were lifted 

 from the ground. They did that for the purpose of being able of looking round över 

 the high tussock-grass. During this spying act they looked very comical. If satis- 

 fied with the lookout they lay down to rest a while and then crawled on again a 

 distance equal, to their length of body or perhaps double that length, then they took a 

 rest, and so on. 



They lay partly single partly several together in groups. One such group con- 

 sisted, for instance, of 6 very old males and one old female lying side by side. They 



* 



.Fig. 2. a. An Elephant-seal basking at the surface; b. the same in the act of diving. 



lie this way for several days, Sörling says, or even weeks without going into the 

 water. »The place where they lie is moist and wet. Of ten big lairs or holes are 

 formed where they lie. In these holes the water collects so that a large mudpuddle 

 becomes the bed of the animal and a very stinking one it is. »I have seen Ele- 

 phant-seals lie in such mud-holes, that were so deep», Sörling reports, »that only 

 the snout and the eyes appeared above the surface.» The Elephant-seals love also 

 to lie in the small fresh-water rivulets and small lakes. 



When these animals lie at the surface of the water basking, they keep the 

 head and the hind-flippers stretched up above the water in the air as the accom- 

 panying sketch indicates but the whole body is submerged. When they dive again 

 the back is shown (conf sketch fig. 2). 



The fore-flippers are very movable in almost every direction. When the Ele- 



