Mac developed a great animosity against the rats and thoroughly enjoyed rooting them out on all occasions. The only explanation of their presence on the island is that they had arrived in the ships which were wrecked along the coasts. They got into the Shack several times, and we simply brought in Mac and shifted things about till she caught them.
Rough weather occurred during the first week of August, and with occasional temporary weakenings a gale blew throughout, reaching fifty miles an hour at different times. Snow, hail and sleet fell every day, and on the 3rd the temperature was below freezing-point all day. The Shack, which always shook a little in exceptionally heavy gales, now vibrated a good deal in a forty-mile wind, no doubt feeling the effects of the beating it had undergone.
Blake found a cave running through North Head and went round, on the 5th, to examine it. He proved it to be about sixty yards from opening to opening, and to widen out very much inside; the roof being about fifteen feet above the floor.
Hamilton and Sandell went along the coast on the 6th and brought home a dozen Maori hens for the pot. Hamilton secured some spiders, parasites on birds and many beetles under the moss and stones on the site of a penguin rookery, besides shooting a few terns.
The tern is a very pretty bird with light grey plumage, a black head and red beak and feet. We found no nests on the island, though the fact that the birds remain throughout the year implies that they breed there. They fly very fast while not appearing to do so, but their movements are by no means graceful. They flit about over the water close to the shore, every now and then dipping down picking up morsels and keeping up a constant, shrill squeaking.
The sea was so high on the 7th that it reached the weight of the tide-gauge and, lifting it up, unshipped the recording gear, as the steel wire flew off the wheel before the latter could take up the slack. I deemed it advisable to use stout cord instead of wire in the future and made a protective slot for the weight. I had blocked up the seaward side of the pipe with rocks, but found that these caused a deposit of silt so I had to get into the water at low tide and shift them all out again to clean away the accumulation of sand.
Very heavy snow fell during the afternoon, the flakes being the size of half a crown. A fresh north-north-west wind dropped to a calm at 4 P.M. and almost immediately it began to snow, the island being quite white by 5.30 P.M.
Bright sunny intervals alternated with light snow-squalls on the 10th, and the temperature was below freezing-point all day. It was pleasant to be out of doors, and I walked along to the west coast to see if there were any signs of activity amongst the sea elephants.
An unmistakable sign of the near approach of the breeding season was the presence of an enormous old bull, almost too fat to move, lying on the beach. Very few small ones were seen, as, on the arrival of the adult males and females for the breeding season, the young ones leave for a while, presumably in order to get fat for the moulting period, or because they are afraid of the bulls, who are particularly savage at this time. The full-grown bulls attain to a length of twenty feet, and have a fleshy proboscis about eight or ten inches in length hanging over the mouth, suggesting the trunk of an elephant. It is from this fact that they derive the name of sea elephant.
There is a considerable disparity in size between the adult male and female, the latter very rarely exceeding eleven feet, though we have seen a few twelve and thirteen feet long. The females have no snout development and some of them facially very much resemble a bull terrier. The adults are called bulls and cows, while, curiously enough, in the sealers' phrase, the offspring are referred to as pups. The places where large numbers of them gather together during the breeding season are known as rookeries! "Rookery" appears to me to be inapplicable to a herd of sea elephants, though "pup" supplies a more apt description of the young.