52 EDWARD A. WILSON. 
they were to be found in twos and threes asleep amid the clumps of tussac grass 
(Dactylis), and quite invisible until we came upon them, as much to their surprise 
as ours. Those that we saw here had come on land to change their winter coats, 
November being the month when they regularly leave the water for the purpose. 
After this, it is said, the calves are born, and the mating season begins in February. 
The males are then very thin by reason of their long abstinence from food during the 
time they have remained on shore. 
It is said that the Sea Elephant rarely goes far from land, but it is hard to believe 
that this is the case, since we obtained a half-grown male in South Victoria Land 
(47° 50'S. lat.), 1,000 miles or more from the nearest spot at which the animal has 
been known to breed; and a second example is lately reported to have been seen in 
the South Orkneys by the Scottish Expedition.* 
The habit they have of suddenly rearing their massive heads, with a loud, 
inspiratory roar and, in the male, inflated nostrils, showing the while a wide, pink 
cavern of a mouth and formidable canines, has before now been well described. 
In none of the animals that we saw in the Macquarie Islands did the total length 
exceed 8 feet. A full-grown female is said to reach a length of 10 feet. We met with 
none of the enormous males whose length has been known to reach as much as 22 feet 
in all, nor did the proboscis in any of the young males with which we came in contact 
attract either comment or attention ; indeed, it was hardly noticeable, though a slight 
suggestion of its presence may be seen in the accompanying photograph, which shows 
the somewhat pointed shape of the nose of a young male, in which the proboscis 
is but to a slight degree developed (fig. 30, p. 52). 
We saw, perhaps, a score or more in half a mile of the foreshore, some of which 
were asleep quite close to the kelp-lined beach, others some distance from it, even 
up the hillside amid the tussac grass. There were also large rookeries of penguins, 
both of the King (Aptenodytes longirostris) and of the Royal (Catarrhactes Schlegel), 
both of which were breeding at the time. Though in close proximity, these birds 
and the Sea Elephants showed a total disregard of one another’s presence, the latter 
being found asleep quite near the penguins in the muddiest of pools. 
That the animals will use their jaws in self-defence when startled we proved by 
presenting a stick to the open mouth that sometimes confronted us in a startling 
manner as we made our way up some steep and grass-covered bank. The powerful 
animal would wrench it from our hands with so much vigour that we were careful 
to avoid a closer contact. Nevertheless, when on shore, their movements are 
exceedingly clumsy and their progress slow. A rate of a mile an hour would be a 
generous estimate when the animal is in a hurry to be away. The movement is best 
described as an ungainly “lope.” 
In the water they are at once at home. When brought to bay on land, a thing 
which is easily accomplished by the simple means of treading on some portion of the 
* R. N. Rudmose Brown, The Scott, Geog. Mag. for April, 1905, p. 207. 
