A GIANT AMONG SEALS 229 
Elephant-seals frequent the shores of many of the 
islands of the South Seas, where they spend a long time 
on land during the breeding season, and also occurred 
formerly on the Pacific Coast of North America from Cape 
Lazaro to Point Reyes, California, where they are now 
practically extinct. As these Californian elephant-seals 
were completely isolated from those inhabiting the South 
Sea Islands, they are regarded by American naturalists as 
constituting a species by themselves; but since their 
distinction from the typical southern form is but slight, it 
seems preferable to look upon them in the light of an 
isolated local race. These seals never appear to wander 
south to the Antarctic pack-ice. 
Our first definite, if not actual, knowledge of the elephant- 
seal seems to have been derived from a specimen brought 
to England by Lord Anson in 1744 from the island of 
Juan Fernandez, and the figure and account given in the 
“ Voyage Round the World” of that great commander, 
where the species is called “sea-lyon.” Lord Anson 
seems to have obtained a male and female specimen 
(“lyon” and “lyoness” he calls them), the former ot 
which was stuffed and exhibited in the British Museum. 
What its dimensions were is now unknown—a somewhat 
unfortunate matter, since it was probably a full-grown 
adult male of larger size than any, or the majority, of 
those to be met with at the present day. After being 
exposed in the Museum galleries for considerably more 
than half a century, probably without any protection 
from dust and the still more mischievous hands of 
visitors (who then, as now, doubtless displayed an irre- 
sistible impulse to handle every accessible object), the 
specimen must certainly have shown marked signs of 
wear and tear. Anyway, if we may judge by the fact 
