352 
F ORES T AND S T R E A M 
June, 1918 
THE LIFE OF THE STRANGE SEA-ELEPHANT 
A VIVID ACCOUNT OF AN ANIMAL HUNTED BY AMERICAN SEAFARERS FOR 
OVER A CENTURY BUT STILL ONE OF THE LEAST KNOWN OF LARGE MAMMALS 
A LTHOUGH hundreds of thousands of 
Antarctic sea-elephants, the largest 
and strangest of seals, have been 
killed for their oil during the last century 
and a quarter, it is deplorably true that we 
know relatively little about the life history 
of these huge beasts. The following excel¬ 
lent description, in many ways the best ac¬ 
count of the sea-elephant that has ever been 
published, was written by a man who pro¬ 
fesses no knowledge of natural history. It 
is quoted from a recent hook, “15,000 Miles 
in a Ketch,” by Captain Raymond Rallier 
du Baty, a gallant son of France, who in 
1907-1908 sailed a forty-five ton fishing 
ketch from Boulogne, France, to Melbourne, 
Australia. During the course of the ro¬ 
mantic voyage, du Baty spent two months 
r.t Kerguelen Land, in the southern Indian 
Ocean, where he hunted sea-elephants and 
incidentally wrote down this sympathetic, 
memorable story of their habits. 
“After the winter months,* the full-grown 
males came first to shore in the last days 
of August. They were very big, being 
more than twenty feet long. In the water 
their trunks were hidden, but when they 
scrambled upon the rocks, and especially 
when they were an¬ 
gry, they elevated 
their short trunks, by 
which they get their 
n a m e of sea-ele¬ 
phants, and gave vent 
to deep roars. About 
15th September the 
females followed their 
lords and masters, 
and as soon as they 
were on shore they 
gave birth to their 
young. We saw some 
of the little seals 
born, and the mothers 
seemed to suffer a 
great deal, crying and 
groaning in a strange¬ 
ly human way. At 
these times the fe¬ 
males seemed eager 
to go out to sea again, 
but the old bulls kept 
watchful eyes on them 
and would hustle after 
them, round them off 
from the rocky ledge, 
and push them back- 
on to the shore. The 
females were only 
about one-third of the 
length of the males, 
and each male had 
about twelve as his 
7 ^ HE Natural History Department 
has been for nearly half a 
century a clearing-house for infor¬ 
mation of interest to all. Our read¬ 
ers are invited to send any questions 
liiat come under the head of this de¬ 
partment to Robert Cushman Mur¬ 
phy, in care of Forest and Stream. 
Mr. Murphy, who is Curator of the 
Department of Natural Science in 
the Brooklyn Museum, will answer 
through these columns. [Editors.] 
wives. But they did not keep them undis¬ 
puted and unchallenged. Through the sea 
came a throng of bull-elephants eager to 
fight for the possession of the females. 
The old fellows, as soon as they saw these 
enemies approaching, rushed at a great pace 
to the water’s edge to give instant battle to 
them. Then a fierce and bloody fight would 
take place, thrilling and fearful to any 
human being who might be watching. One 
of the newcomers would roll his e^es upon 
a gaudy beauty on the shore and attempt 
to get towards her. But he could only do 
so past the bleeding and wounded body of 
an old warrior who was already the hero of 
a hundred fights. I saw one such duel 
which lives in my memory. The bull-ele¬ 
phant who had been first in possession 
raised himself on the fore part of his body 
with his hind-quarters right off the ground, 
and with his great jaws gaping and uttering 
deep trumpet blasts he awaited the coming 
of his foe. He found one worthy of his 
strength, a male as big as himself, as fierce 
as himself, as strong as himself. They 
fought for twenty minutes head to head, 
jaws to jaws, charging each other like bat¬ 
tering rams, shoving and pushing with 
monstrous force, biting and gnawing at 
each other with appalling ferocity. They 
made for each other’s neck and scrunched 
their jaws into the flesh of it, until shaken 
off and hurled backwards by the other beast. 
The neck of each sea-elephant was covered 
with long deep cuts. Their blood poured 
down and made ruddy pools among the 
rocks in which they wallowed and struggled, 
still biting fiercely and shooting out their 
necks with that quick, sudden, powerful 
jerk of which I had 
learnt to beware in 
my own combats with 
them. There was 
something grotesquely 
terrible and soul- 
affrighting in this 
combat between those 
two titanic warriors. 
Yet my eyes were 
spellbound by the 
haunting interest of 
it. At last the male 
who had been first on 
shore weakened. His 
gross body was pant¬ 
ing and gasping. The 
blood was streaming 
from a score of 
wounds, one eye had 
been torn from its 
socket, and his force 
was spent. Suddenly 
he gave up the fight, 
and with a despairing 
roar he plunged 
across the rocky ledge 
and disappeared into 
the sea. The victor 
came leisurely to the 
camp of the van¬ 
quished and, careless 
of his own wounds, 
which had made him 
a mass of gory flesh, 
The combat of the bulls. This remarkable photograph was taken at South Georgia 
by J. Innes Wilson. These desperate rivals have reared up until their fore-flippers 
are far above the ground as they hurl themselves at one another’s throat 
’The antarctic winter, which is our summer. 
