The Worst Journey in the World, Apsley Cherry-Garrard [free ebooks for android TXT] 📗

trying to wind his mate, as we supposed. He was down wind from her, and appeared to find her at a distance of 150 to 200 yards, and the last we saw of him he was heading up the side of the floe where she lay.

There are four kinds of seal in the Antarctic; of one of these, the sea-leopard, I have already spoken. Another is called the Ross seal, for Sir James Ross discovered it in 1840. It seems to be a solitary beast, living in the pack, and is peculiar for its “pug-like expression of countenance.”61 It has always been rare, and no single specimen was seen on this expedition, though the Terra Nova must have passed through more pack than most whalers see in a lifetime. It looks as if the Ross seal is more rare than was supposed.

A Sea Leopard A Weddell Seal

The very common seal of the Antarctic is the Weddell, which seldom lives in the pack but spends its life catching fish close to the shores of the continent, and digesting them, when caught, lying sluggishly upon the ice-foot. We came to know them later in their hundreds in McMurdo Sound, for the Weddell is a land-loving seal and is only found in large numbers near the coast. Just at this time it was the crab-eating seal which we saw very fairly often, generally several of them together, but never in large numbers.

Wilson has pointed out in his article upon seals in the Discovery Report62 that the Weddell and the crab-eater seal, which are the two commoner of the Antarctic seals, have agreed to differ both in habit and in diet, and therefore they share the field successfully. He shows that “the two penguins which share the same area have differentiated in a somewhat similar manner.” The Weddell seal and the Emperor penguin “have the following points in common, namely, a littoral distribution, a fish diet and residential nonmigratory habit, remaining as far south the whole year round as open water will allow; whereas the other two (the crab-eating seal and the Adélie penguin) have in common a more pelagic habit, a crustacean diet, and a distribution definitely migratory in the case of the penguin, and although not so definitely migratory in the case of the seal, yet checked from coming so far south as Weddell’s seal in winter by a strong tendency to keep in touch with pelagic ice.”63 Wilson considers that the advantage lies in each case with the “nonmigratory and more southern species,” i.e. the Weddell seal and the Emperor penguin. I doubt whether he would confirm this now. The Emperor penguin, weighing six stones and more, seems to me to have a very much harder fight for life than the little Adélie.

Before the Discovery started from England in 1901 an “Antarctic Manual” was produced by the Royal Geographical Society, giving a summary of the information which existed up to that date about this part of the world. It is interesting reading, and to the Antarctic student it proves how little was known in some branches of science at that date, and what strides were made during the next few years. To read what was known of the birds and beasts of the Antarctic and then to read Wilson’s Zoological Report of the Discovery Expedition is an education in what one man can still do in an out-of-the-way part of the world to elucidate the problems which await him.

The teeth of a crab-eating seal “are surmounted by perhaps the most complicated arrangement of cusps found in any living mammal.”64 The mouth is so arranged that the teeth of the upper jaw fit into those of the lower, and “the cusps form a perfect sieve⁠ ⁠… a hitherto unparalleled function for the teeth of a mammal.”65 The food of this seal consists mainly of Euphausiae, animals much like shrimps, which it doubtless keeps in its mouth while it expels the water through its teeth, like those whales which sift their food through their baleen plates. “This development of cusps in the teeth of the [crab-eating seal] is probably a more perfect adaptation to this purpose than in any other mammal, and has been produced at the cost of all usefulness in the teeth as grinders. The grit, however, which forms a fairly constant part of the contents of the stomach and intestines, serves, no doubt, to grind up the shells of the crustaceans, and in this way the necessity for grinders is completely obviated.”66

The sea-leopard has a very formidable set of teeth suitable for his carnivorous diet. The Weddell, living on fish, has a more simple group, but these are liable to become very worn in old age, due to his habit of gnawing out holes in the ice for himself, so graphically displayed on Ponting’s cinematograph. When he feels death approaching, the crab-eating seal, never inclined to live in the company of more than a few of his kind, becomes still more solitary. The Weddell seal will travel far up the glaciers of South Victoria Land, and there we have found them lying dead. But the crab-eating seal will wander even farther. He leaves the pack. “Thirty miles from the seashore and 3,000 feet above sea-level, their carcases were found on quite a number of occasions, and it is hard to account for such vagaries on other grounds than that a sick animal will go any distance to get away from its companions”67 (and perhaps it should be added from its enemies).

Often the under sides of the floes were coloured a peculiar yellow. This coloration is caused by minute unicellular plants called diatoms. The floating life of the Antarctic is