14 EDWARD A. WILSON. 
seals, there is always a large quantity of mud, sand, and stones in the stomach, which 
appear also in the excreta. This mud is introduced, no doubt, largely by accident in 
collecting the fish and crustaceans which inhabit the bottom of the shallow seas. 
Some of our seamen during the winter months would wait at the seals’ blow-holes 
with a harpoon and line, and with these even the largest Weddell’s Seals could be trans- 
fixed and landed. As they had often been feeding immediately before their capture, 
it was possible sometimes to take ten or twelve little-damaged fish from the stomach 
before digestion had commenced. The fish commonly obtained were species of 
Trematomus, Notothenia, and Gymnodraco. These seem to be as plentiful in the winter 
as they are in the summer months, the actual temperature of the sea-water varying 
but slightly throughout the year. The mere fact that the sea is frozen at the 
surface does not make much difference to the marine inhabitants. The average 
temperature of the water in the winter months from April to September is just above 
the freezing point of sea-water. Consequently there is a uniformity of temperature 
under water during the winter, which is by no means to be found in the air. 
This not only allows marine life to continue and flourish throughout the year, but 
it also accounts for the non-migration of Weddell’s Seal, and for the fact that, 
although it is almost as abundant as in the summer in point of numbers, it is 
not by any means so much in evidence. These seals, which may be seen during 
the summer lying in hundreds on the fast ice, live during the winter almost entirely in 
the water. They find it far more comfortable to remain in water at a uniform tempera- 
ture of 28° F. than to expose themselves to temperatures ranging from about zero to 
—~50° or —60° F. in the air, where wind and snowdrift would make their existence 
infinitely less comfortable even if the temperature itself was less severe. Therefore, 
apart altogether from the fact that the winter months are dark and prevent seals from 
being seen at any distance, there is no doubt that they really leave the water very 
little and only when there is no wind and a moderate degree of cold, conditions 
not often occurring together at the latitude of our winter quarters. Nevertheless, 
we are certain that they were still with us in the depth of the winter, not only 
because the blow-holes were always found open, but because we could hear their 
signals to one another underneath the ice, and because we could actually bring them 
out at the end of a harpoon line whenever we cared to wait for them at a blow-hole. 
Throughout the two winters spent in McMurdo Sound, in lat. 77° 50’, the farthest 
point South at which they have yet been recorded at any time of the year, we noted 
every occurrence of a seal on the ice out of the water. Quite a large number were seen 
and many more heard during the first winter, when the ice was constantly breaking up 
in the strait to within a few miles of the ship, even so late as May 5th, and though 
fewer were seen in the second winter, when the open water was never nearer the ship 
than 10 or 12 miles, there was still a considerable number with us. Consequently 
we knew that the movements of the greater number were influenced by the 
proximity of open water, but not to the extent of more than a mile or two, and 
