To the great bulk there was a mouth, with a breadth, at the angle, of 9 in. only, and a tongue (which we found later to be excellent eating) quite filled it. Dr. Stirling has this specimen mounted in the South Australian Museum. While the blubber ranges from 2 to 6 in. in depth, it varies in weight. Six men were employed in changing the position of one fatty skin while on the skinning-board. This is a fair example of a male, which is always larger than the female. The congregation in harbours was generally systematic. The bulls occupied one part of the beach, and the cows formed a colony in another. There were always several colonies in a harbour, and they seldom appeared to intermingle, The young were not numerous. They had probably set out on their southerly migration before our arrival on Dec. 27th, or were scattered promiscuously along the beaches.
It is the general impression that these mammals lie in their rookeries for days or weeks together, and do not feed otherwise than on their fatty tissue. With this view I do not altogether agree, for most of the Seals are daily to be seen in the water, either coming in with the full flood, or going out with the early part of an ebb tide. That a young Sea-Elephant, 6 ft. in length, can live a month on its own fat was proved by one we brought to Melbourne, and which was lodged in the aquarium, but died a few months later.
One day as many as eighty may be counted; the next day the same beach may only contain ten, with other heads poking above the floating-weed, and showing glassy round black eyes quite wide awake. Our men have often shot as many as sixty at one time, and found next day another twenty had come up among the dead, simply because it was their chosen lair. This species dislikes expending energy on land, and they will lie in a group of twenty to sixty in some grassy spot with a sandy landing. Some few will ascend to an inclined distance of one hundred and fifty yards, and there they are not so active as those below, and probably do not go out daily. The energy would be too much for them, as they are slow crawlers, using only two flippers, and the snake-like action of vertebræ and muscles.
The first anchorage of the brig was at Royal Sound, and before we removed from a beach of four miles in extent we had collected 426 skins. Our two anchors were lifted for a second harbour on Jan. 17th (Greenland Harbour).
