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 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."[68] I do
not know to what extent these open waters are frequented by whales during
the winter, but in the summer months they are full of them, right down to
the fringe of the continent. Most common of all is the kind of sea-wolf
known as the Killer Whale, who measures 30 feet long. He hunts in packs
up to at least a hundred strong, and as we now know, he does not confine
his attacks to seal and other whales, but will also hunt man, though
perhaps he mistakes him for a seal. This whale is a toothed beast and a
flesh-eater, and is more properly a dolphin. But it seems that there are
at least five or six other kinds of whales, some of which do not
penetrate south of the pack, while others cruise in large numbers right
up to the edge of the fast ice. They feed upon the minute surface life of
these seas, and large numbers of them were seen not only by the Terra
Nova on her various cruises, but also by the shore parties in the waters
of McMurdo Sou