NATURE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20602, 28 June 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

NATURE NOTES.

JHE ELEPHANT SEAL\

BY J. DRUMMOND, F.T/.5., P.Z.S.

The elephant seal, which lives on the Campbell Islands, on the Macquario Group, and in other parts of the New Zealand zoological area, are slothful, clumsy, unwieldy, and, according to some observers at least are of very low. ' n * telligence. The males are pugnacious and fight, fiercely among themselves, but seldom inflict mortal injuries, although the wounds they give are serious. Most of the wounds in these encounters aire caused by bites on the back of the neck and on the body, but the eyes are often seal sometimes scratches the surface of the eyeball of another seal sufficiently to cause inflammation. One-eyed seals are seen in all the rookories on. South Georgia, on the other side of the globe, where tens of thousands of elephant seals spend the southern summer.

A young elephant seal appears at birth with a black woolly coat. A few weeks later the Esau garment is thrown off from the back and from the stomach, and, finally, from the head and face.. 1 his process exposes a grey coat of soft_ hair. No sooner is the baby born than it begins to bark in a shrill staccato, like a puppy. Ab the ago of one month tho sound is much deeper and harsher. The youngster, when excited raises it head and tries to roar like its parent, but at first can make only a hissing voice in its throat. When slightly older it produces a rattle in its throat. Feeble at first, this soon develops into the proper roar of a grown-up. About three ieet long at birth, tho baby, at the end of the first month ? is four feet, and almost as broad as it is long, a funny, chubby, podgy creature, snuggling up to its motiier and demanding milk.

Leaving their mothers, the young gather in batches of twenty or moro. They do not take to the sea immediately, but lie around sleeping and slumbering 011 the beaches, or playing in streams of fresh water or in shallows near the shore. The call of the ocean then comes to them. They into deeper water, make longer and longer excursions over the surface, and begin to find food for themselves. From the time they leave their mothers until they take to the water, about six -weeks, they do not feed, but live on their enormously thick blubber. ' •

The males are polygamous. The number of females a male may have in his establishment depends on his strength, activity and ability to keep off other males. As many as thirty females have been counted in one establishment. The rule is for a male to have from, twelve to twenty' females. Some males are content with only two or three. Males in adjacent establishments t fight continually. They drive away bachelors who lie on the beach and loiter in the water. If a bachelor is small, it usually accepts the warning conveyed by a series of loud' roars, and edges away. . If it is big, it usually answers roar with roar, issues a challenge, and comes closer. The master of the establishment afrhen is beside himself with rage. TEIe rushes blindly at his foe, making a direct lino over females and young.

If this- does not-frighten .the bachelor, there is'a terrible fight. Face to face, dose to each other, the rivals rear up, operi their mouths to the widest limits, ..inflate their nostrils and fall upon each other, trying to inflict lacerations with their cknmeteeth. If one makes an ■unsuccessful lunge , and falls forward,, the other comes down on top of him with all its weight and bites his back and neck, sometimes tearing out a lump of skin and blubber almost a foot square. This is the end. of the fight. The vanquished leaves the field as quickly as possible, the victor pursuing for a short distance. '■■,-..

Mr. L. Harrison Matthews, a member of the zoological staff of the Discovery Expedition to the Falkland Islands, who has supplied this interesting account of seals, says he believes that elephant seals would be .'very dangerous if they moved on land with agility. He states that it is only their cumbersome unwieldiness that makes them harmless to men. If a male fails to frighten a human intruder from its establishment, it rushes toward him with all speed, regardless of obstacles. If the intruder is in the middle of the establishment, the master lollops over females and young, taking no notice of the disturbance it causes. It might be expected that the young would be flattened out, but they are seldom injured.

Female members of an establishment are very quarrelsome among themselves.' If one, 1 in moving, disturbs another, snapping begins, and both strike forward and downward with their canine teeth, after tho manner of the males. Unlike tho males, tho females do not take part in pitched battles. Their quarrels are merely displays of bad temper. Disturbed by a human intruder, they raise the front part of tho body, open their mouths widely, make a harsh roaring noise at the back of the throat, and lunge out toward the intruders. Their voices when angry are like the voices of tho males, but not nearly so deep. They call their young by a long-drawn-out falsetto, almost a whine, produced with the head thrown up and the mouth wide open. If an establishment is disturbed so greatly that the young are separated from their mothers, there is an amazing volume of sound uhtil the mothers have found their yonnfc.

A diving seal timed by Mr. Matthews stayed under water for twelve minutes. He says he believes that these seals can stay below the surface longer without much inconvenience. When other seals were driven into the water in order to discover how long they dived, they did not return to the surface within sight. Seals, by tho way, are sometimes wrongly called amphibians. They spend much of their lives in tho water, but they are iipt amphibious. They are mammals and breathe air. The amphibians are much more lowly and humble creatures, breathing water by means of gills in tho early part of their lives and changing later to breathers of air. Tlicy are lower than tho reptiles, coming in the social scalo between them and the fishes.

Below the skin of an elephant seal there is a layer of blubber so thick that when tho seal moves on land the whole body trembles like a bag of jelly. Tho presence of ■ this blubber has caused tho elephant seal to be hunted almost to extinction in some of its homes. Tho hunting was so ruthless at South Georgia many years ago that in 1885 the elephant seal was almost exterminated there. Hunting falling oft', the species has increased there, and now, probably, is as plentiful as ever. As killing is regulated by the* Government, there is no risk of extirpation. Ashore, tho normal mortality is low. Elephant seals are not attacked by fatal epidemics that afflict the northern fur seals in their rookeries. A few young occasionally die of starvation through wapdering from their mothers, as they are singularly unintelligent in finding their way back, even for, a short distance. Tho mothers are equally stupid in finding their young. Adults are soldom found dead ashore. No.signs of disease were seen in any. South Georgian seals. The killer whale, one 'of tho most horribly ferocious creatures in,the world, is the only natural onomy of the elephant seal. Mr. Matthews knows of. <lt is stated that killer .whale;; have been to cut elephant seals in tyyo at one bite.