24 AUSTRALIAN ZOOLOGY. 
Sealing.—Seals abound in countless numbers on the 
packed ice of the Southern Ocean, as this extract from the Daily 
Telegraph, Aug. 12th, 1893, shows :—‘*On Sep. 9, 1892, four whaling 
barques started forth on their quest into the well-nigh unknown 
regions of the far south. After an absence of about nine months 
the ships returned to Dundee, Their crews found the seas fairly 
teeming with seals, some of the floes being dotted black with them, 
and, failing the whales, a full cargo of oil and sealskins was assured, 
Having called at Falkland Islands, the vessels proceeded south, and 
in a few days they sighted the first berg ; it was table-shaped at the 
top, a form which is characteristic of the southern latitudes ; in the 
north the bergs are loftier and tower up in pinnacles. By Dec. 19 
they fairly made the ice, and steaming onwards they passed immense 
bergs as high as from 100 ft. to 200 ft., and varying in length from 
two or three miles to one that was about 30 miles long. It took 
fully six hours to pass it, steaming at the rate of five knots an hour, 
when commenced the seal hunting. In the morning six boats started 
from the ship’s side, each manned by five sailors, armed with clubs, 
and in charge of an officer carrying a Henry ‘express’ rifle. They 
rowed across to the floes, which were thickly covered with seals. 
The animals were quite unsuspicious, and allowed the boats to be 
attached and the men to approach, without showiug any signs of 
fear; inthe north they have grown wiser, and plunge under on 
sighting a man. Then the warfare, or rather slaughtering, com- 
menced, and a bullet followed by clubbing laid them low in scores. 
Our day’s hunt generally numbered from 300 to 400 seals, and by 
the middle of Feb. they had obtained nearly 6000. They came 
across three varieties of seals—the sea-lions, sea-leopards, and sea- 
bears, the last of which were the most plentiful. The sea-lions are 
ferocious looking fellows, black in colour, and measuring from 10 ft. 
to 11 ft. in length, with large round blue coloured heads. The skins 
of the sea-leopards are spotted brown and yellow, and their heads 
are smaller. The sea-bears have fur of a yellowish white colour, 
and are altogether of a smaller maker’ 
Food.—It is a voracious eater. Being carnivorous, it lives on 
fish and occasionally marine birds. A large seal now in the museum, 
Sydney, which was captured in fresh water, was found to have 
swallowed a full-grown platypus. It was taken in the Shoalhaven 
River, in Aug. 1859, It was an old male which measured 12 ft. 
Where jfound.—The sea-leopard is not common on the Aus- 
tralian coast ; its habitatis the Antarctic Ocean. It only occurs on 
these shores as an occasional visitant, strayed from its usual haunts, 
or as a wanderer, driven by untoward circumstances far away from 
home. It has been found on the southern portions of this continent, 
on the coasts of Tasmania and New Zealand, Falkland Islands, on 
Newcastle beach, this specimen was 7 ft. 10 in. in length, one was 
found some miles above the salt water in the Shoalhaven River, and 
a flne one was captured in Lake Illawarra, its skeleton is now 
exhibited in the Sydney museum. Seals after wandering to these 
shores frequently ascend rivers to a great distance, and during the 
