116 MARINE MAMMALS OF THE N0BTH-WE8TERN COAST. 



No. 1. No. 2. 



Eound extremity of body at root of tail 1 6 1 7 



From tip of nose to corner of mouth 7 8 



Opening of mouth ^ ^ ^2 



From tip of nose to eye 8 9 



From tip of nose to fore flippers 2 7 3 



Length of fissure between the eye lids If 



New-bom Pup. 



Length from tip to tip ^ 



Length of posterior fli^jpers 7J 



Length of fore flippers 7 



Breadth of fore flippers 2J 



From tip of nose to side flippers 1 6 



From tip of nose to eye 4 



From eye to ear ( the minute opening of which is barely perceptible ) 2 



From tip of nose to corner of mouth 4J 



Opening of mouth 3 



The posterior flippers of the Sea Elephant are very nearly like those of the 

 Leopard Seal, except that they are clawless. The fore flippers, however, are fur- 

 nished each with five nails, which, in shape, somewhat resemble those of the human 

 hand, but in color they are a dull black ; the longest in the two adult examples 

 examined measured one and a half inches. The two teats of the smaller animal 

 were twenty inches from the posterior termination of the body. In the larger one 

 they Avere two feet and three inches from the root of the tail, which is extremely 

 short and pointed. The whiskers on each side of the face, in both specimens, 

 numbered from thirty -five to forty, the longest of which were seven inches; their 

 color was of a dark brown tipped with a lighter shade. Eight or ten bristle -like 

 hairs were present upon or near the upper lid of the eye, and constituted the eye- 

 brows. The pup, whose measurements are given above, had forty -six whiskers on 

 one side of its face, and forty -two on the other, and ten frizzly hairs over each 

 eye. Its color was a dark brown, or nearly a chestnut shade. 



The color of the adult Sea Elephant is a light brown, when its thin short hair 

 is grown to full length ; but, immediately after shedding, it becomes like that of 

 the land elephant, or of a bluish cast. The average thickness of its skin is fully 

 equal to that of the largest bullock. A fat bull, taken at Santa Barbara Island, by 

 the brig Mary Hekn, in 1852, was eighteen feet long, and yielded two hundred and 

 ten gallons of oil. 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 wrinkled — the furrows crossing each other, producing a checkered 



