WEDDELL’S SEAL. 21 
when the trail of a seal on the snow is examined there may or may not be, on one side or 
the other, a mark showing where one fore flipper did actually but quite accidentally touch 
the snow. Under all ordinary conditions, therefore, it is seen that this seal has quite 
given up the use of its limbs on land or ice, a point in which it differs from several 
of the other true earless seals, and a point which suggests that a very long period must 
have elapsed since it enjoyed the power of using its limbs as an ordinary quadruped. 
I mention below, in connection with Lobodon, that the extremity of fear will 
revive a method of more rapid progression which closely resembles the canter of 
a four-legged animal; but this re-awakening of a power that must have long lain 
dormant was never once noticed in the case of Leptonychotes. I do not think that the 
limbs in Leptonychotes were ever seen to be called into play in accelerating the rate of 
movement, nor was any other method of progression noticed than the hitching, loping, 
or “ looper caterpillar” method of which I have already spoken, a method that reminded 
one of nothing so much as the progress of the caterpillar of one of the Geometer moths. 
If pressed to exert itself, this method of progression was not changed, though the 
movements became very flustered, and then it was a common thing to see the head 
held high in the air that the pursuer might be kept in sight, the seal watching him 
with wide open eyes along its back and shoulders, instead of turning its head side- 
ways, first one way and then the other, as is usually the case when the animal is less 
seriously frightened. 
In the ordinary course of events it required a considerable amount of interference 
to disturb the equanimity of a Weddell’s Seal. Having no enemies outside the water, 
it gazes with blank amazement upon man and dog, with difficulty realising that either 
can have the power to hurt. There was always, however, some risk of its swinging 
round to bite, and this the dogs soon learned ; for the bite of a full-grown seal was 
by all means to be avoided; the seal’s movement in this respect is very quick, and 
the grip being followed by a wrench would certainly tear the flesh from the bones. 
Above all else this seal is an adept at rolling sideways out of reach from danger, 
but in doing so it is merely following the instinct which forbids it to expose its more 
defenceless extremity towards the enemy. There seems to be no need for it to practise 
any but the most labour-saving methods of movement out of the water. Having no 
enemy on the ice when man and his dogs are absent, its needs for travel at the 
worst of times are not exacting. It lives within reach of some permanent crack or 
opening in the floe, which may be either a tide crack along the shore, an opening which 
never fails, or a line of weakness running out for miles from some cape or headland. 
Occasionally, in ice many seasons old, one may find a blow-hole domed over by the 
frozen breath, as in fig. 25, p. 838; and this may be still in use, though the ice be five or 
six feet through. Only on a very few occasions have we seen a track prolonged for any 
distance in the snow. In one exceptional case a track, made by a seal which had 
apparently lost its way, led fairly straight for about half a mile from one area of 
pressure ridges across a hay of unbroken ice to another area off a small headland, where 
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