THE ELEPHANT SEAL.[226]—This creature, like the last, has a peculiar geographical range, but is unique, inasmuch as it is found north and south of the equator. It should, however, be stated that Dr. Gill has designated the northern form by a separate name (Macrorhinus angustirostris), though the distinctive characters have as yet not been substantiated by other naturalists. Meantime, we may be justified in regarding them as one form. It existed formerly in numbers on the Californian coast. But it is best known as frequenting, during the beginning of this century, such islands as Juan Fernandez, the Falklands, New Georgia, South Shetlands, Tristan d’Acunha, Kerguelen’s Land, and, indeed, several of the islands scattered in the Antarctic Ocean. In the young and females, the characteristic feature, or so-called proboscis, is deficient, but in the old males it extends quite a foot beyond the angle of the mouth, and hence the name of Elephant Seal. The females are nine or ten feet, the males fourteen, sixteen, and even twenty feet in length. The colour varies with age from brown to leaden-grey. It seems that they bring forth their young at different seasons in the southern and northern latitudes, in the latter about May or June, in the former somewhat earlier. Accounts differ as to its food, some saying cuttle-fish and seaweed are its principal nutriment.
TEETH OF THE CRESTED SEAL.
Lord Anson, Captain Cook, and M. Péron, each give accounts respecting its extraordinary abundance in southern regions, but their numbers have since been decimated. Captain Scammon describes them as crawling out of the surf towards the ravines half a mile distant from the water, where they congregated in hundreds. Unless when excited, their movement on land is slower than that of the ordinary Seals, but they ascend broken elevated ground fifty or sixty feet above the sea. He says that when sailors are destitute of tobacco-pipes, they hollow its short canine teeth into bowls and use the quills of the Pelican for shanks. Their hunting in Desolation and Herd’s Islands is a most exposed and solitary pursuit. The ship is manned with a double crew, and some of the men are landed on the dangerous, ever-stormy coasts of these islands. Food and necessaries are provided, and rude shanties erected of rough boards, tarred canvas, and pieces of lava-rock. In this dank habitation, planted between an iceberg on the one side and a bluff volcanic mountain on the other, they are left to hunt as best they can, in a climate windy, rainy, cold, and often snowy. Nevertheless, undergoing hardships and privations of no common kind, excitement and prospect of gain compensate for their fatigues and temporary banishment. By the flickerings of a murky oil lamp, and fat and coal diffusing heat, these reckless adventurers pass the long, dreary, cold, evenings in card-playing and boisterous fun. Sea Elephants’ tongues and water-fowl are gladly intermingled with coarser fare. The men divide themselves into groups, and scour the coast in all directions, killing such numbers as fall in their way. They either transport the blubber and skins to their stores, or bury it for a time until opportunity of its removal is afforded. Afterwards it is placed in casks, and these are rolled by the gangs to the beach, when their vessel arrives. The casks are then launched into the surf, pulled through the rollers by the boats to the ship, where they are duly stowed. In the Californian district, the skin of the animal is ripped up along the back and reflected; the blubber is cut into “horse pieces,” about a foot square, and a hole made through which a rope is passed. The pieces are again strung on a raft-rope, a line is made fast to this, when they are dragged through the breakers to the small boat, and towed to the vessel. On board, large pots set in a brick furnace are ready prepared, where the blubber is rendered, the oil extracted being very superior for lubricating purposes. In these voyages the crews, unlike the Dundee fishers, hunt both Seals and Whales at the same time, the Americans having quite a monopoly of this special trade.
ELEPHANT SEAL.
ROSS’S LARGE-EYED SEAL.[227]—In the voyage of the Erebus and Terror to the Antarctic regions, 1839–43, there was obtained a Seal named after the commander of the Expedition. Little or nothing is recorded of its special habitat and habits, the main peculiarities resting in its skeleton. The stuffed skin, now in the British Museum, is of a greenish-yellow colour, with close, oblique, yellow stripes on the side, pale beneath, and the fur is close-set and rigid. The skull is broad, with great orbits. This genus has six molar teeth on each side of the upper and five on each side of the lower jaw. The canines are of very moderate dimensions, and the teeth, as a whole, are relatively small. Its specific name is derived from its great eyes.
THE SEA LEOPARD.[228]—Under the names Sea Leopard and Leopard Seal, indiscriminately used by the sailors or Southern sealers, two animals, apparently distinct, have evidently been confounded by them as well as by naturalists. Indeed, another seemingly totally different animal of the North Pacific has also been named Leopard Seal by Scammon. That to which the title Sea Leopard appears most applicable is what De Blainville and others called the Small-nailed Seal (Phoca leptonyx), and F. Cuvier the Narrow-muzzled Seal (Stenorhynchus leptonyx). Its precise distribution is uncertain, but it has been found on the coasts of Australia, New Zealand, Falkland, Campbell, Auckland, and Lord Howe’s Islands, and the Antarctic Ocean (on pack-ice). It may possibly be met with elsewhere, but the foregoing are authenticated localities. Mr. A. W. Scott describes male and female stuffed specimens in the Sydney Museum. The old male measures twelve feet in length; the glossy spotted skin is of a light silvery grey, with pale yellowish-white in patches, brought into relief by black-grey shading; its back and sides are darker, and belly lighter. The younger but adult female is seven feet long. Her colour above is darkish-grey, almost black in the middle line, intermixed by narrow markings of darker hue, and of yellowish-white, and the under parts without spots and also yellowish-white. A specimen kept alive for several days at Port Jackson had a long muzzle, a long thin neck, and in its habits generally it resembled the Seal tribe. Dr. George Bennett killed a male in Shoalhaven River (August, 1859), several miles above salt-water reach, which had a water-mole in its stomach. Dr. Knox states that those he examined in New Zealand contained in their stomachs fish-bones, gulls’ feathers, and seaweeds. Captain Musgrave, in his forced residence on the Aucklands, already referred to, alludes to this animal as the Black Seal, and describes a fight between one and a Sea Lion (Otaria); the flesh, he says, is rank. So far as his observations go, they remain at these islands pretty nearly all the year round, but others think that they occasionally migrate, or, at least, at certain seasons less frequently approach the land. The skull is remarkably elongated; the double-rooted molar teeth are compressed and serrate, or have a three-lobed crown, the middle being the longest. This animal has but four incisors above and four below, and the canines are of moderate dimensions. The nails on the hind feet are almost absent.
SEA LEOPARD SEALS.