72 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



29. THE CALIFORNIAN SEA ELEPHANT. 



GENEEAi HISTORY.— The California Sea Elephant, MacrorMniis arifjustirostrix Gill, was first 

 described by Dr. Gill, in 1866, from a skull of a female in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, received from Saint Bartholomew's Bay, Lower California. Its external characters were first 

 made known by Oapt. C. M. Scammon in 1869, and the species was redescribed by him in 1874, 

 with detailed measurements of two adult females and a newly-born pup. This is all that has thus 

 far appeared relating to its technical history. Captain Scammon, as early as 1854, gave some 

 account of the habits of this species, under the name Sea Elephant, and earlier incidental references 

 to it doubtless occur in the narratives of travelers. Dr. Gill observes, in his paper already cited, 

 "For a long time, the fact that a species of the genus Macrorhinus or Elephant Seal inhabits the 

 coast of Western North America has been well known. But, on account of the want of opportunity 

 for comparison of specimens, the relations of the species have not been understood." I fail to find, 

 however, in any technical account of the Sea Elephant, any previous notice of their occurrence on 

 the coast of North America. 



GBOGRAPHiCAi DISTRIBUTION.— The Sea Elephant seems to have been formerly very abun- 

 dant on the coast of California and Western Mexico, whence it became long since nearly extirpated. 

 Captain Scammon, in writing (about 1852) of Cedros Island, oft" the coast of Lower California, says : 

 " Seals and Sea Elephants once basked upon the shores of this isolated sjjot in vast numbers, and 

 in years past its surrounding shores teemed with sealers, sea-elephant and sea-otter hunters; the 

 remains of their rude stone houses are still to be seen in many convenient places, which were once 

 the habitations of these hardy men." > A few Sea Elephants are still found at Santa Barbara Island, 

 where they are reported, however, to be nearly extinct. Whether or not they still occur elsewhere 

 along the Californian coast I am without means of determining, although it is probable that a small 

 remnant still exists at other points, where scarcely more than a quarter of a century ago vessels 

 were freighted with their oil. Neither is it possible to determine with certainty the limits of their 

 former range. Captain Scammon, who doubtless obtained his information from trustworthy sources, 

 states that it extended from Cape Lazaro, latitude 24° 46' north, to Point Reyes, in latitude 38°, or 

 for a distance of about two hundred miles. As has heretofore been stated, Dampier, in 1686, met 

 with Seals on the islands off the western coast of Mexico, as far south as latitude 21° to 23°, but of 

 what species his record unfortunately fails to show. They were doubtless either Sea Elephants oi 

 Sea Lious {Zalophus calif ornianus), and may have included both. This rather implies its former 

 extension, two hundred years ago, considerably to the southward of the limit assigned by Ca])tain 

 Scammon, on j)robably traditional reports current among the residents of this part of the coast at 

 the time of his visit there in 1852. 



" The sexes vary much in size, the male being frequently triple the bulk of the female; the oldest 

 of the former will average fourteen to sixteen feet; the largest we have ever seen measured twenty- 

 two feet from tip to tip." "The adult females average ten feet in length between extremities." — 

 Scammon. "Round the under side of the neck, in the oldest males, the animal appears to undergo 

 a change with age; the hair falls off, the skin thickens and becomes wriukled — the furrows cross- 

 ing each other, producing a checkered surface — and sometimes the throat is more or less marketl 

 with white spots. Its proboscis extends from opposite the angle ol the mouth forward (in the larger 

 males) about fifteen inches, when the creature is in a state of quietude, and the upper surface 

 appears ridgy; but when the animal makes an excited respiration, the trunk becomes elongated, 

 and the ridges nearly disappear." The females "are destitute of the proboscis, the nose being like 

 that of the common Seal, but projecting more over the mouth." — Scammon. 



'Scammon, C. M. : "Ou a new species of the genus llua-orhi-nus." Proc. Chicago Acad., i, 1866, pp. 33, 34. 



