Dredgings performed upon the continental plateau spoken of elsewhere brought forth a fauna which, from its general character, shows a remarkable affinity with the abyssal fauna. We fished, in effect, pedunculated _Crinoidea_, _Elasipoda_, benthal _Asterias_, _Aselidæ_, _Pantopoda_, _Gorgonidæ_, _Polychæta_, _Cumacea_, _Mysidæ_, _Ascidiæ_, which have a striking air of relationship with the similar forms fished in the great oceanic depths. This fact ought not to astonish us, for we well know that the great factor in the distribution of marine animals is temperature. Now, the temperature of the water upon this plateau of five hundred metres in depth is much the same as that of the oceanic depths. The groups best represented are the _Echinodermata_, _Crustacea_ (_Edriophthalma_), _Polychæta_, _Gorgonidæ_, and _Bryozoa_. The birds which were constantly present upon the ice-pack are not numerous: the very large petrel (_Ossifraga gigantea_), the snow petrel (_Pagodroma nivea_), the antarctic petrel (_Thalassocca antarctica_), the brown sea-gull (_Megalestris antarctica_), Forster’s penguin (_Aptenodytes forsteri_), and the Adelia land penguin (_Pygosulis adeliæ_). The whole four seal species inhabiting the antarctic were seen during our stay in the ice-pack; that is, the crab-eater seal (_Lobodon carcinophaga_), Weddell sea-leopard (_Leptonychotes weddelli_), the true sea-leopard (_Ogmorhynus leptonyx_), and Ross’s seal (_Ommatophoca Rossi_). _Balænoptera_ of a small size and _Ziphiidæ_ came very often to breathe in the cracks and leads of the ice-pack. The temperature of the bodies of the seals is about +37°, that of the penguins about +40°. These figures are below the normal. These animals, in order to fight against the exterior cold, do not create more heat than this, only they lose less, and they arrive at this result by means of the thick covering of fat which surrounds them. Direct observations allow us to state this fact. The cold does not appear to have a pernicious influence upon the human organism. In temperatures of from -30° to -40° and calm weather, the feeling one experiences is rather pleasant and invigorating. It is naturally otherwise when the wind blows. I believe that for a traveller the great inconvenience of cold upon the ice-pack is that it creates a condensation of aqueous vapour which is eliminated by the skin’s surface. At the end of a short time the clothes are all wet, and it is hard under such conditions to get warm. But the greatest inconvenience in polar regions lies in the absence of the sun during the winter months. The pernicious influence of the absence of direct sunbeams, upon the human organism, was witnessed to a certainty during the winter of 1898.