THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



and can move very rapidly on the ice. When he got 

 back, carrying a heavy revolver, the animal was still 

 in the same position, and he shot it twice through the 

 heart, and then twice through the skull. It had remark- 

 able tenacity of life, for it still struggled, and even 

 after a fifth ball had been put through its brain some 

 minutes elapsed before it turned over and lay still. 

 Joyce skinned the carcase, and he found that the first 

 two bullets had actually gone through the heart. He 

 also reported that it seemed to have two hearts, one 

 of which had not been injured, but unfortunately the 

 organs that he brought back to the hut were found and 

 promptly devoured by some of the dogs, so that it is not 

 possible to produce evidence on the point. The specimen 

 was a very fine one, and was a welcome addition to our 

 zoological collection. Soon after the sun returned in 

 the spring I sighted a seal that seemed to be out of the 

 ordinary off Cape Barne, about two miles and a half 

 from the hut. I found that it was a young sea-leopard, 

 apparently suffering from starvation and I sent Joyce 

 down to kill it. I fancy that it had got on to the ice and 

 had been unable to find its way into the water again. Joyce 

 killed it, and found that the stomach was quite empty. 



When daylight returned and sledging began about 

 the middle of August, on one of our excursions on the 

 Cape Royds peninsula, we found growing under volcanic 

 earth a large quantity of fungus. This was of great 

 interest to Murray, as plant-life of any sort is extremely 

 rare in the Antarctic. Shortly after this a strong blizzard 

 cast up a quantity of seaweed on our ice-foot; this was 

 another piece of good fortune, for on the last expedition 

 we obtained very little seaweed. 



