CHAPTER I. 

 THE SEA ELEPHANT. 



Maceobhinus angustikosteis, Gill. (Plate xx, fig. 1, 2.) 



Among the varieties of marine mammals which periodically resort to the land, 

 no one attains such gigantic proportions as the Sea Elephant. This animal, which 

 was sometimes called the Elephant Seal, and known to the old Californians as the 

 Ekfante marino, had a geographical distribution from Cape Lazaro, latitude 24° 46' 

 north, longitude 112° 20' west, to Point Reyes, latitude 38° north, longitude 

 122° 58' west on the coast of California ; and, strange as it may appear, we have 

 no authentic accounts of this species of amphibious animal being found elsewhere 

 in the northern hemisphere. At the south, however, about Patagonia, Tierra del 

 Fuego, and numerous islands in both the Atlantic and Pacific, and the Crozets, 

 Kerguelen, and Herd's Islands, in the high latitudes of the Indian Ocean, have 

 been points where the Sea Elephants have gathered in almost incredible numbers, 

 and where hundreds of thousands of them have been slain by the seamen, pursuing 

 their prey in those distant regions. 



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 following meas- 

 urements (in feet and inches) and notes were taken of two large females and one 

 new-boim pup, obtained on the coast of Lower California: 



No. 1. Ho. 2. 



Length from tip to tip 9 10 



Eound the body behind fore flippers 5 10 5 9 



Length of tail 2 2i 



Breadth of tail at root 2 2^ 



Length of posterior flippers 1 7 110 



Expansion of posterior flippers 1 8 1 8 



Length of fore flippers 1 5 1 2 



Width of fore flippers G 6 



[115: 



