12 EDWARD A. WILSON. 
again. You are not a yard from him, and you may shout to him to wake. He 
takes no notice whatever, so you shout again. He hears you, and, opening his 
bloodshot eyes upon you, stares in amazement without making an effort to 
move (see figs. 8 and 9, p. 12; also fig. 21, p. 24). He is probably upon his back, 
but that does not prevent the emptying of his bladder, which, as a rule, is his 
first move, indicative, perhaps, of some slight uneasiness of mind. This increases 
as he begins to realise you are something not quite usual, and he slowly rolls over 
away from your direction, and then stops again to stare and very likely to make a little 
piping trill in his throat with his mouth shut. It sounds like the tinkling of water in 
a stone cistern, and you see the movements in his throat.* He is inclined to go to sleep 
again and forget about you. His large hazel brown eyes no longer show the blood-red 
canthus as they did before, when you first surprised him, and you walk round to his 
tail. He objects to this, as a rule, and attempts at once to avoid you by rolling over 
sideways or slinging his hind quarters round and away from your proximity, his main 
endeavour being to keep you broadside on. If you insist and manage to touch one of 
his hind flippers with your foot, he is at once really frightened. He may then either 
immediately rear half up off the ice at you and bellow with an open mouth, or else he 
will rapidly roll and shuffle away from you and make off as hard as he can lope for the 
nearest hole. In so doing he will constantly look round first on one side and then the 
other to see whether you are following, or else he will make off clumsily with his head 
held high up in the air, with both eyes widely open, watching you the while along 
his back, and in this position he forms a very quaint and characteristic picture. 
Many a time did we wonder at the complete ignorance of danger exhibited by 
this seal, so wholly ditferent to the suspicious character of its kindred in the North. 
Their rookeries were a constant source of interest to us and an ample food supply, 
from which we drew largely for our needs. The meat was coarse in fibre and very 
dark, but by no means rank, and although the blubber was uneatable the flesh was our 
greatest stand-by, not only as a preventive of scurvy but a certain cure for the disease. 
Judging: from our experience in passing first through the pack ice north of Ross 
Sea, and then along the coast of South Victoria Land, Weddell’s Seal is to be found 
only within sight of land or of land ice. We saw no example of it in the pack ice, and 
in this respect confirmed the late Mr. Hanson’s observations on the ‘Southern Cross’ 
Expedition. There can be no doubt now that Weddell’s Seal is definitely a coastal 
species, which never wanders farther from land than it can help, though occasion- 
ally it is carried by drifting ice to various distant islands, and even across large 
stretches of sea and open ocean to lands where it can only be considered an accidental 
visitor. For example, it has been reported trom Juan Fernandez, Kerguelen and 
Heard Islands, and even from New Zealand, where a specimen was stranded on the 
* Weddell’s Seal when quite young gives a “baah” like a sheep. This becomes a roar as the seal grows 
older, but other and more musical notes are common, such as a moan beginning with a high pitched note and 
ending with a low one, often like an ice moan ; or a series of plaintive piping notes may be produced, ending on the 
call note of a bullfinch, or changing to a long shrill whistle which terminates with a grunt or a snort or a gurgle. 
