One day we had an interesting little adventure. We had shot and killed one, a fine bull about ten feet long, which had sunk to the bottom in some five fathoms. Having just pulled away from him, we were about ten yards from the ice-foot, when another very large sea-leopard overtook us, swimming from the direction of the dead bull. It passed under the pram, bumping against the keel in doing so. When about ten yards ahead of us it turned and made straight back for us, but as we were bows-on to it, it came right alongside the boat, churning up the water and wetting us. At this moment it turned on its side, its right fore-flipper beating the surface and its belly towards us, and was just starting to rear its head up when we both lunged at it with our paddles, and so pushed the little boat away from it. This brought us alongside the ice-foot, from which Campbell got a shot at it half a minute later, and wounded it in the neck. The moment after we lunged at it with our paddles it dived, then reappeared ten or fifteen yards off, rearing its head out of the water, and it was at this moment that Campbell shot it. After this it reappeared several times at the surface, but drifted away with the tide and we lost it. [Illustration: Fig. 53. A Sea-Leopard 10 ft. 6½ ins. long] [Illustration: Fig. 54. A Young Sea-Leopard on Sea-Ice (Page 87)] The sea-leopard has not a reputation for attacking men in boats, and this one may have been actuated by curiosity merely, but in favour of its meaning to attack us were, first, that it came to us straight from the direction of the dead bull we had shot, and secondly, that it seems hardly likely that after bumping against our keel, mere curiosity could have tempted it to come back and try to look over the gunwale! As a rule we had to drift very quietly along when hunting sea-leopards, as the slightest sound frightened them away. All that we could do to protect our friends was to shoot as many of these sea-leopards as possible but though we may have made some difference, there were always many about. Some idea of the depredations committed by these animals may be gathered from the fact that in the stomach of one which we shot I found the bodies of eighteen penguins, in various stages of digestion, the beast's intestines being literally stuffed with the feathers remaining from the disintegration of many more. Photographs of these animals are seen in Figs. 52, 53, and 54. Though the actual presence of a sea-leopard put the Adélies to confusion, causing them to "porpoise" madly away for a few hundred yards, yet once away from the immediate neighbourhood of the arch enemy, they appeared to think no more of him, and behaved as though there were no further need for anxiety, though probably they kept a sharp look-out nevertheless. Evidence goes to show that the sea-leopard is the only living enemy, excepting man, that threatens the life of the adult Adélie penguin.