ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



761 



IN THE AQUARIUM POOL THEIR MOVEMENTS APPEAR CLUMSY, BUT THEY ARE POWERFUL SWIMMERS. 



their movements, and the body can be bent more 

 than double in any direction, owing to the great 

 flexibility of the spinal column. 



The elephant seal takes its name from the 

 fact that the adult male possesses an elongated 

 proboscis which attains a length equal to the 

 remainder of the head. This snout is somewhat 

 protrusible, but when not elongated hangs in a 

 pendulous fashion over the mouth. The female 

 and young do not possess the proboscis. In the 

 young males at the Aquarium it is just begin- 

 ning to develop and can be protruded only a 

 couple of inches. 



The adult male is said to emit a deep roar 

 which can be heard for miles and the females 

 and young males to bellow like bulls. Our 

 young specimens, however, have very high- 

 pitched voices, so that their notes often ap- 

 proach a whistle. 



In swimming, the fore flippers which arc 

 small, appear to be of little use except in bal- 

 ancing. The hind flippers are used much as a 



fish uses its tail, and the hinder portion of the 

 body is flexed from side to side. This move- 

 ment makes their actions appear somewhat 

 clumsy in the small Aquarium pool, especially 

 when contrasted with the extremely graceful 

 movements of the fur seals, which appear to fly 

 through the water by means of the fore flippers. 

 In the sea they must be powerful swimmers, for 

 they are stated by both Scammon and Townsend 

 to frequent only the region of the roughest 

 breakers. On land they crawl with great dif- 

 ficulty and our specimens never make use of the 

 platform in their pool as do all our other species 

 of seals. They are able to mount the platform 

 but it seems to have no attractions for them and 

 they sleep as well as play and cat without leav- 

 ing the water. 



The elephant seals arc the largest of all the 

 Pinnipedia, the adult males attaining a length 

 of more than twenty feet. There is a marked 

 sexual difference in size, as adult females at- 

 tain a length of only ten or eleven feet. 



