when the mother bellowed the
little one would also open his mouth, producing just the ghost of a
bellow: not because he seemed afraid of us, but rather because he
thought it was the right thing to do: as indeed it probably was. One old
cow was marked with hoops all round her body, like an advertisement of
Michelin tyres: only the hoops were but an inch apart from one another,
and seemed to be formed by darker and longer bands of hair: probably
something to do with the summer moult. Two cows, which scrambled out of
the same hole one after the other, were fighting, the hinder one biting
the other savagely as she made an ungainly entrance. The first was not in
calf, the aggressor, however, was: this may have had something to do with
it. They were both much cut about and bleeding.

A seal is never so pretty as when he is a baby. With his grey woolly
coat, which he keeps for a fortnight, his comparatively long flippers and
tail, and his big dark eyes, he looks very clean and pussy-like. I
watched one running round and round after his tail, putting his flipper
under his head as a pillow, and scratching himself, seemingly as happy as
possible: yet it was pretty cold with some wind.

Little is known of the lighter side of a Weddell's life. It seems
probable that their courtship is a ponderous affair. About October 26
Atkinson found an embryo of about a fortnight old, which is an
interesting stage, and this was preserved with many others we found, but
all of them were too old to be of any real value. I think there is a good
deal of variation in the size of the calves at birth. There is certainly
much difference between the care of individual mothers, some of which are
most concerned when you approach, while others take little notice or lop
away from you, leaving their calf to look after itself, or to find
another mother. Sometimes they are none too careful not to roll or lie on
their calves.

One afternoon I drove a bull seal towards a cow with a calf. The cow went
for him bald-headed, with open mouth, bellowing and most disturbed. The
bull defended himself as best he might but absolutely refused to take the
offensive. The calf imitated his mother as best he could.

Meanwhile Atkinson and Dimitri took some mule-fodder and dog-biscuit to a
point twelve miles south of Corner Camp. They started on October 14 with
the two dog-teams and found a most terrible surface on the Barrier, the
sledges sometimes sinking as far as the 'fore