Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

At harem 8b (north of the main one) the bull chased two others which
approached to 18 yards. Red-face bull (bull C), of harem 8a raised himself on his foreflippers
when two other bulls approached to within 20 yards and they retreated. One
was bull B, who found solace trying to seduce a cow that would not co-operate. A
cow pupped and I painted her with 2-red-spots in front of the tail, as a date mark. She
was lying quietly, then raised her hindquarters and moved around, when I first saw
the pup and placenta, but the whole expulsion process had taken only a moment. She
wasn’t able to make a sound, other than an incoherent strangled gulp, but about 3
minutes later was quite recovered and barking continuously. The cord wasn’t
severed and she didn’t attempt to bite it. Nor did she clean up the pup – she nuzzled
it and another one near, and decided on her own, which was yapping all the time. It
was not suckled before 1800 when I left.
Then I lifted another pup out of a deep hole, one I had counted but didn’t mark
the previous day, and I date-marked its mother red-X. After I removed her pup from
the hole she stared into the hole, with large eyes and a scared expression, making a
throttled bark. The pup crawled towards her yapping, but she continued to look into
the hole, as though she associated her pup with it – possibly scent?
24 September started with a real blizzard and when I went out visibility was
down to about 10 yards. Possibly it would clear later. During a lull in the storm I
decided to go round the southern beaches, though it was still blowing hard even in
the shelter of the hill, and gusts of great force came down from the mountains.
There was only one new pup, though several new cows had hauled out to swell
the numbers. I painted the cow with the new pup with a red-spot near the tail and
repainted the proboscis of bull A. This bull now had a dispersed harem, of 32 cows
and 3 pups; none of which were sucking. Another bull, which I painted red-x (bull
D), lay in the centre of the harem, with bull A some distance south near four
straggling cows. Bull A appeared to tolerate his presence and I thought at first that he
had been displaced, but bull D was smaller and then edged away from bull A. This
drew the latter’s attention for he roared and the other beat a retreat. However bull D
didn’t go far enough, for, with a series of roars bull A chased him for 25 yards and
then returned to his harem. Several of these cows were very large. Many had the
skin disease noted before – a reddish yellow rash, mainly about the nose and eye,
axilla and fore-and hind-flippers. In some animals it also extended down the back. In
area 2, near the rock which was its northern limit, was a bull with a scar on his rump
shaped like an arrowhead (bull E) and very distinctive.
The wind continued to blow after I returned to camp. I found that one tent pole
had broken but could do nothing about it, except build a snow wall affording
protection. The wind increased in violence, if that were possible, and I expected other
poles to go. Whenever I looked out it was blizzing thickly. Then at 1645 the wind
suddenly abated and I was able to go round the other beaches. The grand total was
69 bulls, 117 cows and 12 pups – 198 altogether.
Bull B was not to be seen. I marked two more bulls, one in charge of harem 8b
became red-arrow (bull F), and one with a harem on the beach in area 10 became redright-mouth
(bull G). There were 2 more pups in areas 10 and 12 and I date-marked
370