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

the cows and creates a bank in the middle. Some of them shot the stones with great
force, 5 or 6 feet into the air. I saw one cow at 1e flipping water from the stream in
this way.
I sat for an hour on the top of the hill at the south end of area 1, watching the
general activities in the harem. The bulls were more or less motionless, conserving
their energy. The pups yapped and moved incessantly, causing the cows to move,
which precipitated mean little bites by other cows, retaliation and so on. The
sheathbills were very much in evidence. Very few cows were suckling pups and
there were 3-4 pups grouped together in places, having left, or been left by, their
mothers, for the time being. One cow was suckling which had very full breasts, for
when the pup changed from upper to lower nipple a stream of milk squirted over it.
I did the other half of the count in the afternoon. In harem 8a there were 12 dead
pups in an area of about 20 square yards and all except 3 of them had died in holes
melted in the snow. This was the only area where the pup count was likely to be far
wrong and so I made a very careful count, so think the figure is correct.
I repainted 8 date-marked cows in area 8. They would all be easily identifiable
on 12 October, when they were to be killed for material dated post-partum. All were
more or less together in a small group where originally painted, indicating that cows
move very little when suckling pups. Those which had moved were unaccompanied
by pups and had probably lost them.
Next day the weather was very bad – wet and windy - and I didn’t start the
count until 10 o’clock. The continuing accession of cows was into the small beach
harems, between the large concentrations. There was also a noticeable increase in the
number of bulls. It continued windy and wet and I saw no stone- or sand-flipping
until beach 12, when the sun appeared for a short while and the beach was more or
less sheltered from the wind. There was a dead bull in the water off this beach, but I
was unable to ascertain the cause of death – perhaps a traumatic shock when fighting
(a heart attack?). In general there was little of interest to record and the pup count
was approximate only. Totals were: 82 large bulls and 8 medium, 981 cows, 391
pups. Altogether 1,462, not counting those killed.
I returned to camp and started the genny, then read and made some notes. I had
a radio chat with Charlie, but he had no very important news. Southern Opal had
reduced speed to 5 knots, so would be later than expected.
It was very wet again next morning but the wind had moderated. Arthur had
offered to help me out, but I didn’t expect him because of the heavy swell and
immense breakers along the shore, and decided to wait until 10 o’clock and then try
to carry out as much as possible of the work on my own. However, at 9.30 am I made
out the boat coming across the fjord. They attempted to land at the usual place, but it
was quite impossible, so I signalled them to go round the corner to area 5, which was
partly protected from the swell. Even so it wasted a lot of time, and it was 10 o’clock
before Arthur and I set off for area 1.
We managed to kill and examine all the date-marked cows I required for
specimens, representing the period 13 -19 days post-partum and I was very pleased.
So far as I knew no dated specimens of this kind, had been obtained by any other
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