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 sea-shore and 3000 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 most dense. "Diatoms were so abundant
in parts of the Ross Sea, that a large plankton net (18 meshes to an
inch) became choked in a few minutes with them and other members of the
Phytoplankton. It is extremely probable that in such localities whales
feed upon the plants as well as the animals of the plankton.
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