MACRORHINUS LEONINUS. 
The Sea Elephant. 
Phoca leonina, Linn., Syst. Nat. I. (1758), p. 38. 
Macrorhinus leoninus, Allen, Hist. N. Amer. Pinnipeds (1880), p. 466, ibigue citata; K. A. Andersson, 
Wiss. Ergeb. der Schwed. Siidpolar-Exped., Bd. V. 2 (1905), pp. 16-18 ; Brown, Mossman and Pirie, 
Voy. ‘Scotia’ (1906), pp. 203, 261, 327. 
MATERIAL IN THE ‘Discovery’ CoLLECTION. 
No. 26, 9, Young. Skin and skull. November 22,1901. Macquarie Island. 
No. 48, ¢, Young. Skin and skull. November 22, 1901. Macquarie Island. 
No 37, g, ad. Skin and skull and complete skeleton. January, 1904. Cape Royds, South 
Victoria Land. : 
The colouring of the soft parts is as follows :—Iris, dark brown ; mouth and tongue, pale pink. 
On the occasion of our landing on the Macquarie Islands we saw something of 
the Sea Elephants that are to be found there, a scanty remnant of a much persecuted 
race of animals. 
The landing on the east side, in the bay known as Fisherman’s Cove, is not 
altogether easy, by reason of the swell which rolls in from the open ocean, but this 
diminishes as one enters the belt of kelp which liberally fringes the shore. 
A short way up from the beach are a few whalers’ or sealers’ huts; the flat part 
of the coast-line, extending from a quarter to half a mile, between the water’s edge 
and the foot of the hills, is little better than a bog, stony in some places, covered with 
tussac grass in others, and wet everywhere. 
Beside the huts was abundant evidence of the nature of the work undertaken by 
those who had inhabited them. Not only had Sea Elephants been boiled down for oil, 
but penguins also, and Aptenodytes longirostris had evidently come in for an undue 
share of attention, as the heaps of their discarded bones attested. 
How near to extinction the Sea Elephant has been in these islands it is hard to 
say, but since 1880, when Professor Scott of Dunedin visited the island and found 
the Fur Seal quite extinct, shore parties are said to have been constantly boiling down 
both penguins and Sea Elephants, and 20 tons of Hlephant oil were taken by five 
sealers a few years before our own visit to the island. In South Georgia, even so 
long ago as 1823, Weddell reported the Sea Elephant to be nearly extinct, no less than 
20,000 tons of Elephant oil having been shipped to the London market alone. At one 
time (1802), we are told that 600 Sea Elephants were obtained in ten weeks 
between March and May, at King’s Island, in the Bass Straits. 
That seals of any kind should be still remaining is now a matter for wonder, and 
we were surprised to find in our short visit that there were really quite a considerable 
number of young Sea Elephants on the shore, and more, no doubt, than we saw, for 
