20 EDWARD A. WILSON. 
At the close of the rutting season, which follows directly upon the separation of 
the young ones from their mothers, it is noticeable how often one may find the bulls 
in secluded places, to which they have retired with a multitude of open wounds. This 
bears upon the discovery of dead seals, not only in secluded spots, but in places which 
one would have thought were almost inaccessible to them. There can be no doubt, how- 
ever, that the same instinct which leads a temporarily damaged bull to retire from 
all company for awhile leads a sick or aged seal which no longer feels equal to the 
struggle for existence amongst its fellows to retire still further, and to persist in its 
efforts at retiring to the moment of its death. In this way, and in no other, can we 
account for the discovery of dead seals at a distance of 35 miles inland from the coast, 
and on the surface of a glacier no less than 3,000 feet above sea-level. In these cases the 
carcases were those of Crab-eaters ; again the carcases of four Crab-eaters were found by 
Mr. Ferrar at the foot of ‘ Cathedral Rocks,” in the Royal Society’s Range, 2,000 feet 
above sea-level, and thirty miles inland. Yet another was found on New Harbour 
Glacier, 200 feet above sea-level, and twenty miles from the coast. 
The carcase of a Weddell’s Seal was found by Lieutenant Armitage 2,400 feet above 
sea-level on a similar glacier, and other seal remains at similar heights and distances 
from the coast. On another sledge journey along the western side of McMurdo 
Sound two dead Weddell’s Seals were found, much weathered, on the tongue of Koettlitz 
Glacier, some twenty miles from the sea-ice ; and, still further in, an old and battle- 
scarred male alive, and covered with suppurating sores, more than twenty miles from 
any of his kind. The instinct of retirement is strong when evil overtakes these animals, 
and their one idea is to get far away from their fellows. Starvation in such cases must 
have expedited matters, and the climate being of a kind to preserve the remains, we 
came upon them, as I have stated, in the course of our various sledge journeys. 
Weddell’s Seal, by its shape and build, is by no means so well fitted for 
progression on the ice as it is for rapid movement in the water. All its enemies—they 
cannot be very numerous—are in the water ; its food also is in the water, and its whole 
energies must be directed to the avoidance of the one and the overtaking of the other. 
It therefore becomes transformed on entering the water into a rapid fish-like swimmer 
that can beat the pace of the fishes that form its food. 
If one watches this seal on a flat surface (and when out of the water it is almost 
always on sea ice), one notices that the ordinary method of progression is a very 
laboured “ hitching along” of its bulky body a foot or two at a time, the chest being 
used as a fixed point upon which to draw up the remainder of the body by the action 
of the abdominal muscles. In this way the pubic part of the pelvis becomes in turn 
the fixed point, and upon it the body is again shot forward. The limbs in this 
mode of progression are not brought into action at all, indeed the hind limbs, palm to 
palm, are held in a vertical plane extended backwards with the tail and raised from 
contact with the ice. The fore limbs, also held closely applied to the sides of the 
chest, cannot even be considered of use in keeping the animal on an even keel, for 
