SEALS. 211 
have been lost. This and the fact that the metal labels which had 
been attached to the specimens have been in nearly all cases corroded 
through immersion in brine detracts greatly from the importance of 
what would otherwise have been a most valuable collection. 
Hasits, Lire-History, Erc.—It may be said with truthfulness 
that until the last decade. of the nineteenth century we knew prac- 
tically nothing of the habits of the Antarctic seals. At that date, 
with reviving interest in the exploration of the South Polar regions, 
several efforts were made to supplement our information on these 
subjects, so that at the present time our knowledge, although far 
from adequate, is no longer a complete blank. I have thought that, 
in the present scrappy state of our knowledge, it is better to give 
in detail the observations of the various observers than to attempt 
a summary which, at the best, would need almost immediate 
revision. 
The Antarctic summer of 1892-93 found the Scottish whalers 
Diana, Balena and Active in the neighbourhood of Joinville Island 
and Louis Philippe Land. Mr. W. 8. Bruce, who accompanied the 
Balena as naturalist, has given us a few notes on the seals which 
he observed. These, although I suspect that his identification may 
have been in some cases mistaken, are graphically written, and give 
us a fair picture in a general way of the mammalian life of the Antarctic. 
Mr. Bruce found all four species on the pack-ice, where, “loving 
the sun, they lie on the pack all day digesting their meal of the 
previous night, which had consisted of fish or small crustaceans, or 
both. . All the seals were obtained from the pack-ice, in bluest 
and clearest water. . The present generation had never seen man, 
and at his approach they did not attempt to flee, but surveyed him 
open-mouthed and fearful, during which process they were laid low 
with club or bullet. Sometimes they are so lazy with sleep that I 
have seen a man dig them in the ribs with the muzzle of his gun, 
and, wondering what was disturbing their slumbers, they raised their 
head, only too quickly to fall pierced with a bullet. 
“ .. In, December all the seals were in bad condition, thinly 
blubbered and grievously scarred, and it is noteworthy that the 
females appeared to be as freely scarred as the males. During 
January their condition improved, and by February they were 
heavily blubbered and full of scars. The males were apparently as 
numerous as the females, but I made no definite statistics... . By 
February the embryo is well developed, gestation probably beginning 
in December. . . . Almost every female, towards the end of January 
Pp 2 
