In the records of the voyage of the Challenger it is stated that there were still great numbers of the elephant-seals surviving near Heard Island, and not a few round the shores of Kerguelen Island. Professor Moseley states that on the windward shore of Heard Island "there is an extensive beach, called Long Beach. This was covered with thousands of sea-elephants in the breeding-season; but it is only accessible by land, and then only by crossing two glaciers. No boat can safely land on this shore; consequently men are stationed on the beach, and live there in huts. Their duty is constantly to drive the sea-elephants from this beach into the sea, which they do with whips made out of the hides of the seals themselves. The beasts thus ousted swim off, and often 'haul up,' as the term is, upon the accessible beach beyond. In very stormy weather, when they are driven into the sea, they are forced to betake themselves to the sheltered side of the island. Two or three old males, which are called 'beach-masters,' hold a beach for themselves and cover it with cows, but allow no other males to haul up. They fight furiously, and one man told me that he had seen an old male take a young one up in his teeth and throw him over, lifting him in the air. The males show fight when whipped, and are with great difficulty driven into the sea. The females give birth to their young soon after their arrival. The new-born young ones are almost black, unlike the adults, which are of a light slate-brown. They are suckled by the female for some time, and then left to themselves, lying on the beach, where they seem to grow fat without further feeding. They are always allowed by the sealers to lie like this, 'in order to make more oil.' This account was corroborated by all the sealers I met, but I do not understand it. Probably the cows visit their offspring unobserved from time to time. Péron says that both parent elephant-seals stay with the young without taking any food at all till the latter are about six or seven weeks' old, and that the old ones conduct the young to the water and carefully keep them company. The rapid increase in weight is in accordance with Péron's account. Goodridge gives a somewhat different story—namely, that after the females leave the young the old males and the pups proceed inland, as far as two miles sometimes, and stop without food for more than a month, during which time they lose fat. The male sea-elephants come ashore for the purpose of breeding about the middle of August, the females a little later."
Formerly the elephant-seals were found as far north as the Californian coast, where their capture was the main business of the sealing-traders. This species also formed the mainstay of the far southern sealers. As the elephant-seals were killed off, so the business became less and less profitable. It is to be hoped that the voyages of exploration to the Antarctic ice-fringe will not lead to the discovery of fresh sealing-grounds, for if this is the case there is little chance that any of the southern seals will escape entire destruction. Some form of close time has already been enforced in the pursuit of the hair-seals of Northern Europe; but it is very desirable that the species still found on our own coasts should also receive protection. Except when they paid visits to the fixed salmon-nets, they never did any harm; and fixed nets are now illegal. When a seal learned the use of the stake-nets, which these animals were very quick to understand, it would wait quietly till it saw a fish caught, and then swim up and carry it off before the fishermen could take it.
Two species—namely, the Common Seal and Grey Seal—still regularly visit our shores. The common seal breeds on our south-western coasts, and the grey seal off the Hebrides. If the common seal were accorded a close time, its numbers would probably increase; and the spectacle of such interesting creatures visible on our coast could not fail to be of great interest. All the old legends of mermaids and wild men of the sea are based on the capture of seals. Perhaps the most ancient is one which records such a capture in the river near Orford Castle, in Suffolk, in the reign of Henry II. The ignorant soldiers were persuaded that it was a man, and tortured it to make it speak. They then took it to the church, and showed it the sacred emblems. As it "showed no reverence," they took it back to the castle, and fed it on fish. It was allowed to go into the river, but returned to its captors of its own accord. Later it swam away to the sea. The monk who recorded the story stated his conviction that this seal was an evil spirit which had got into the body of a drowned sailor. A grey seal was taken not many years ago in the creek leading up to the little town of Wells, in Norfolk. It was so tame that the fishermen caught it by throwing coats over it as it lay on the mud.
By permission of the Hon. Walter Rothschild] [Tring.
HARP-SEAL.
The harp-seal comes from Greenland.
By permission of the Hon. Walter Rothschild] [Tring.
SEA-ELEPHANT.