Supplement to the catalogue of seals and whales in the British Museum

Young or albino? entirely cream-coloured, about 2 feet long.

Inhab. Falkland Islands and Cape Horn.

Pennant, in his ‘Quadrupeds,’ describes an Eared Seal, rather more than 2 feet long, the whole body of which was covered with longish hair of a whitish or cream-colour; it was brought from the Straits of Magellan, and preserved in Parkinson’s Museum on the south side of Blackfriar’s Bridge (see “Eared Seal,” Pennant’s Quad. ii. p. 278). Dr. Shaw, in his ‘General Zoology,’ gave the name of Phoca flavescens to this species, and figured it (i. p. 260, t. 73).

This is very probably the young of the Hair-Seal of the Falklands, described by me as Arctocephalus Hookeri, which is of a pale-yellowish colour. Pennant does not mention the want of the under-fur.

Dr. Burmeister observes:—“We have in the Museum [at Buenos Ayres] a young half-grown specimen [of Arctocephalus falklandicus] nearly 3 feet long. From this I have taken the skull, of which I send you a description and drawings” (Ann. N. H. 1866, xviii. p. 99, t. 9. f. 1, 2, 3, 4). From the comparison of the figures, and especially of the teeth and the form of the palate, with our older skull of Arctocephalus Hookeri, I have little doubt that it is the skull of a specimen of that species before the grinders were all developed. It is not the skull of Otaria jubata, which the other specimen he called A. falklandicus is, as proved by the form and position of the hinder nasal openings. The figure of the young skull differs from the older skull of A. Hookeri in the British Museum in having a notch in the middle, while the older skull of A. Hookeri has a conical prominence in the same place. Such differences are found in skulls of Seals at different ages.

The skull of the young animal described and figured by Dr. Burmeister as Arctocephalus falklandicus (Ann. & Mag. N. H. 1866, xviii. p. 99, t. 9. f. 1 & 2), is probably the young skull of this species. It agrees with it in the elongated form of the skull, and in the large size and great development of the processes of the orbits.

Dr. Murie regards Otaria Philippii as founded on the skull of this species (P. Z. S. 1869, p. 108).

Mr. Allen, on the contrary, includes Otaria Hookeri as a synonym of Otaria jubata. One could not have a better proof of the want that Mr. Allen had of more materials when he undertook a revision of the family.

4. ARCTOCEPHALUS.

The face of the skull elongate, forehead flat. The palate concave, especially in front, with a thickened margin on each side near the teeth, and then narrowed behind; the internal nasal opening elongate, longer than broad, narrow and arched in front, the edge in a line with the orbital process of the zygomatic arch, which is large and well developed. Flap of toes moderate.

In the adult skull of A. antarctica, from the Cape, the fifth hinder grinder has only very short rounded callous roots, which are slightly divided into two lobes; and the hinder sixth upper grinder seems to have a root of the same character. But not having any skulls of younger animals, I am not able to describe what are the forms of the roots of these two teeth in the younger state.

In the skulls of the older specimens (which are not adult, as they have the sutures between the bones still distinct), the fifth and sixth upper grinders have two distinct diverging roots.

* The fifth and sixth upper grinders with two roots (?); the sixth upper partly behind the hinder edge of the zygomatic arch. Arctocephalus. (Africa.)

1. Arctocephalus antarcticus. The Cape Fur-Seal.

Inhab. South Africa, Cape of Good Hope.

The two adult skulls in the British Museum differ greatly in the width of the hinder nasal opening, in the form of the hinder lower lateral processes of the occipital bone, in the form of the back of that bone, and in the shape of the condyles.

The skull from the Cape of Good Hope, in the Museum of the University of Edinburgh, was described and figured by Dr. Turner under the name of Arctocephalus schisthyperoës, in the ‘Journal of Anatomy and Physiology,’ vol. iii. p. 113. The name is changed to A. schistuperus by Dr. Günther in the ‘Zoological Record’ for 1868, p. 20. It is evidently the skull of a half-grown animal, with all its teeth developed, but with the sutures of the bones still apparent. It agrees in every respect with what I should expect to be the form and structure of the skull of Arctocephalus antarcticus from the Cape; but unfortunately the two skulls of that Sea-bear from the Cape which are in the British Museum are from old animals; and the specimen figured by Cuvier, Oss. Foss. v. 220, t. 18. f. 5, is also adult. It differs from the skulls of the two adult specimens of that species in the British Museum in the hinder nasal aperture being much extended forwards and gradually tapering to a point in front, which reaches to the transverse palato-maxillary suture. This peculiarity in the form of the palate, which Prof. Turner has not observed in any other seal-skull, seems to have induced him to regard it as a distinct species. From the examination I have made of the skulls of Seals in the Museum and other collections, I am induced to believe that it is an individual abnormality of Arctocephalus antarcticus. I have observed a similar malformation in the palates of two other species. I was myself misled by their structure, before I met with the other examples, to regard a skull with such a deformity as a distinct species.

At one time I thought that it might be a peculiarity of the young state, as it had up to that time only been observed in skulls of half-grown animals. It occurs in half-grown specimens of Euotaria nigrescens; but the skulls of the very young specimens of this Seal in the British Museum have the front edge of the hinder nasal opening truncated and slightly arched in form, with well-developed square palatine bones united by a central suture just as in the adult, but broader and straighter.

It was this observation that induced me to return to my original opinion, that the skull which I had at first regarded as a young skull of Arctocephalus monteriensis (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1859), and then as a separate species under the name of A. californianus (Cat. Seals and Whales, p. 51), was only a monstrosity of A. monteriensis, as I did in the Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1866, xviii. p. 232; and I am now induced to believe that Arctocephalus schisthyperoës is only an imperfectly developed skull of A. antarctica.

Dr. J. R. Forster, in Cook’s voyage in 1775, observed the Eared Seal at the Cape of Good Hope, and called it Phoca ursina. Believing it to be the same as the Sea-bear he had observed in New Zealand, Thunberg, in his list of Cape Mammalia in the third volume of the ‘Transactions of the St. Petersburg Academy,’ iii. 322, notices this animal under the name of Phoca antarctica (see Fischer, Syn. Mam. p. 242). Dr. Peters has applied the name of Otaria pusilla to this species, believing it to be the Petit Phoque of Buffon, which has been named Phoca pusilla by Schreber, and had before been named Phoca parva by Boddaert. Buffon says that it came either from India or the Levant; but it is not by its description to be distinguished from a young specimen of almost any of the species. It is as likely to have come from the Falkland Islands as from the Cape, as the French had traffic with Les Iles Malouines, as they call them.

M. de Buffon describes a small Eared Seal, which he calls a “second Phoque” (vol. xiii. p. 341, t. 43, where it is named “le petit Phoque”), which, he was assured, came from India, but very probably came from the Levant; and he considers it adult, because it has all its teeth. It is only one-fifth of the size of the Seal of the European seas (Hist. Nat. xiii. p. 344). He further speaks of it as “le petit Phoque noir des Indes et du Levant” (p. 345). It is evidently a young Eared Seal. The figure is probably from the skin, with the bones of the toes and jaws, presented to the cabinet by M. Mauduit (mentioned at p. 433. n. 1273), and said to have come from India.

The specimen Buffon figured, then being in the Paris Museum, was thus described by Cuvier (Oss. Foss. v. p. 220):—“Cet animal a deux pieds de long; ses oreilles sont grandes et pointues; son pelage est fourré, luisant, d’un brun noir très-foncé et a sa nuance blanchâtre. Le ventre seul est brun-jaunâtre.” The teeth show that it is young.

The figure and description of the Petit Phoque of Buffon have had the following names given to them:—

• Little Seal, by Pennant and Shaw.
• Phoca pusilla, Schreber, Säugeth. 314 (Peters).
• Phoca parva, Bodd. Elench. 78.
• Otaria pusilla, Desm. N. Dict.
• Otaria Peronii, Desm. Mamm.

Fischer, in his ‘Synopsis,’ under Phoca pusilla, p. 252, gives the Cape of Good Hope and Rotteness Island, on the coast of Australia, as the habitat of the species.

The description of Cuvier much more nearly fits that of the young Arctocephalus nigrescens from the Falkland Islands. The fur of the young Cape Seal is dark, black above and below; the hairs are slender, and brown (not whitish) at the base; and the underside is not yellowish brown; so that it is very doubtful if it is the young of the Cape Seal.

Dr. Peters, believing Buffon’s specimen to be a young Cape Seal, changed the name of Delalandii to pusilla.

In the Museum are three states in flat skins:—

1. Adult male, with slight mane, called in the sale-catalogue “large-wig.” Fur whitish, with a few intermixed black hairs; under-fur short, reddish. B.M.

2. Adult, without the mane, called in the sale-catalogue “middling.” Fur reddish white, grizzled with scattered black hairs; underside of the body darker, reddish brown; under-fur short, reddish. B.M.

3. Young, about 18 inches long, called in the sale-catalogue “black pup,” from the Cape of Good Hope. Fur black, polished, soft, smooth, without any grey tips, rather browner black beneath; under-fur brown, very sparse; hairs slender, polished, black, with very slender brown bases. B.M.

** The fourth, fifth, and sixth upper grinders with two distinct diverging roots: the fifth in a line with the hinder edge of the zygomatic arch. Euotaria. (America.)

2. Arctocephalus nigrescens. The Southern Fur-Seal.

Inhab. Falkland Islands, Volunteer Rock (Capt. Abbott).

The two skulls of this species in the British Museum agree in most particulars; but they differ considerably in the form of the hinder nostrils. The larger one is without its upper teeth, but the forms of the roots are well exhibited by their sockets; the front edge of the hinder nasal opening is produced rather further forward, and is acutely angular. The other skull, which is rather smaller and has the teeth in good condition, has the hinder nasal opening with a slightly arched, nearly truncated, front edge.

Dr. Peters refers Phoca falklandica (Shaw, Zool. i. p. 256) and Otaria falklandica. (Hamilton, Ann. & Mag. N. H. 1839, p. 81, t. 4; Jardine, Nat. Lib. vi. p. 271, t. 25) to this species. But as neither Dr. Shaw nor Dr. Hamilton describes the number or position of the teeth, it is not possible to determine if this is the Fur-Seal of the sealers, collected at the Falkland Islands, more especially as the fact of the skull coming from the Falkland Islands is not well ascertained. See the other synonyma which have been established on the sealers’ descriptions and figures or the skins collected for the furriers at the Falkland Islands (Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales, pp. 55, 56). Dr. Hamilton, who prides himself on his figure, represents the hind legs as extended behind: but they look very awkward in that position, the stuffer having evidently had a difficulty in extending them.

The hair of A. nigrescens is considerably longer than that of A. cinereus, but not so harsh, the fur of the half-grown A. nigrescens being longer, sparse, flat, rather curled at the end, giving it a crispness to the feel; while the hairs of the very young specimens are abundant, nearly of equal length, forming an even coat that is soft and smooth to the touch.

Capt. Abbott’s young specimen in the British Museum chiefly differs from the adult specimen in the same collection in the hairs being longer, more erect, and with minute white tips, and in the face, throat, and chest being rufous brown; but this reddish colour is common to the young of several Sea-bears.

The skulls from Desolation Island, on the south-west coast of Patagonia, presented to the Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh by the late Professor Goodsir, evidently belong to Euotaria nigrescens, the usual Fur-Seal of the Falkland Islands and other parts of the coast of South-west America. Two of the skulls are from adult animals, are without the lower jaws, and have only a few worn and broken teeth, having been rolled on the beach.

The other skull is of a young animal, exactly similar to the skull of a young Euotaria nigrescens, n. 1013e, in the British-Museum collection. The front edge of the hinder nostrils is as arched as in that specimen; the teeth are rather more developed than in our skull; they have a well-marked central lobe and a distinct small acute tubercle on the front edge of the cingulum.

The two adult skulls are very like the adult skull of E. nigrescens, 1013d, in the British Museum; but the opening of the internal nostrils is narrower, and their front edge in one is not nearly so angular, and in the other it is rather more arched than in either of the other two skulls, showing that the size of the posterior nasal aperture and the form of its front edge vary in different specimens of this species.

The comparison of the young skull with the more adult one shows that the grinders change their position considerably as regards the front edge of the hinder nasal opening. In the young skull of Euotaria nigrescens the hinder end of the tooth-line is very near (not a quarter of an inch from) a line level with the front edge of the internal nasal opening, and the hinder part of the palate in front of the aperture is nearly as broad as the middle of the palate: in the adult skull the hinder end of the tooth-line is a full inch from the front edge of the internal nasal opening, the hinder part of the palate is contracted toward the internal nostril, and the internal nasal opening is lengthened and narrowed; but the real position of the teeth, as compared with the front part of the zygomatic arch, is little altered, though the form of the palate gives them the appearance of being more changed than they really are.

These skulls are interesting as showing that Euotaria nigrescens, like Otaria leonina and Morunga elephantina, is, or was, common to the Falkland Islands and the west coast of South America.

The chief character by which the adult skull of Euotaria nigrescens can be distinguished from the adult skull of Arctocephalus antarcticus is, that the hinder or fifth upper grinder and the penultimate or fourth are placed rather in front of the hinder edge of the front part of the zygomatic arch; but the position of the teeth is most distinctive in the skull of the young animal, and loses much of its importance in comparing old skulls together, unless the skulls and teeth are very accurately compared; and even then the distinction is more imaginary than real.

I cannot understand Capt. Abbott’s account of this species. He says that “the full-grown Seal is about the size of the common English Seal. The largest skin I have ever seen I do not think measured more than 4 feet in length, perhaps hardly so much. The hair differs in colour, being sometimes grey, and at other times of a brownish tint; that of the young is of a darker brown colour.” All this agrees better with the true O. falklandica; but yet he says the skin of his half-grown specimen is now in the British Museum, and that skin is undoubtedly Euotaria nigrescens. Has Mr. Abbott confounded the two species in his mind? Or did he forget the animal? for he informed me that there were no Sea-elephants now living on the island. (P. Z. S. 1868, p. 190.)

“The bones of the pectoral limb of the Fur-Seal of commerce differ from those of the Sea-lion.”—Murie, P. Z. S. 1869, p. 109.

See Lecomte’s account of the habits of these animals, P. Z. S. 1869, p. 106.

The British Museum contains the skin and skull of a large blackish Eared Seal, nearly 6 feet long, that was purchased of a dealer as “a Fur-Seal from the Falkland Islands;” but, as the dealers seem always to give that as the habitat for all seal-skins with a distinct under-coat that come into their possession, I have quoted the habitat with doubt. When occupied in describing the Seals of the southern hemisphere for the ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror,’ I named the Seal Arctocephalus nigrescens, and had the skull figured under that name; but the plate has not yet been published, though copies of it have been given to Dr. Peters and other zoologists. In the ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society’ for 1859, pp. 109, 360, and in the ‘Catalogue of Seals and Whales,’ I described the skull of this species. There is also in the Museum a skull of a younger animal of the same species.

Capt. Abbott, in 1866, sent to the British Museum a large and a small Seal from the Falkland Islands. The large one was examined and determined to be the southern Sea-lion (Otaria jubata). The small one, nearly 3 feet long, was very similar in external appearance; and as the teeth, which could be seen without extracting the skull, showed that it was a young animal, it was regarded as the young of the Sea-lion, and it was stuffed without extracting the skull, and labelled as such. This specimen has been examined by several zoologists, among the rest by Dr. Peters, when engaged with his paper on Eared Seals, and has passed unchallenged until this time, thus showing how difficult it is to distinguish these animals by their external characters alone.

Capt. Abbott, who is now residing in England, informed me that the smaller specimen was the Fur-Seal of the Falkland Islands, that it grows to about half as long again as the specimen sent, and that the old males are grey from the tips of the hairs. I have therefore had the skull extracted from the specimen; and there is no doubt that it is quite distinct from the Sea-lion (Otaria jubata); and, on more careful examination of the skin, I have little doubt, from the colour and the character of the fur, that it is a young specimen of the Seal that I described as Arctocephalus nigrescens. It is interesting as confirming the accuracy of the habitat that I received with that specimen, and which until this time I considered doubtful, as Pennant and others describe the Falkland Island Fur-Seal as grey, and white beneath.

Dr. Peters, on the authority of this habitat (which I have always quoted with doubt), has given the name of Arctophoca falklandica to the animal and skull on which I had established my Arctocephalus nigrescens.

In the British Museum there is the skin of a very young Seal, which was presented by Sir John Richardson as the Falkland Island Fur-Seal, with the observation appended that the adult is 5 feet long, and its skin is worth fifteen dollars. It is without its skull. The fur of this young Seal is dark brown, reddish beneath, and very like that of the young specimen sent by Capt. Abbott; but the hairs are smoother, and the white tips to them are longer and more marked, giving the animal a more grizzled appearance.

There is another young Eared Seal, very like the former, which was received with General Hardwicke’s Collection (who, no doubt, purchased it of a dealer), said to have come from the Cape of Good Hope. I suspect this habitat must be erroneous; for it is very unlike what I recollect of the young Cape Eared Seals, which are called “Black Dogs,” on account of the blackness of their colour. Unfortunately we have no specimen of the latter in the Museum collection. General Hardwicke’s specimen only differs from Sir John Richardson’s in being less punctulated with white; fewer hairs have a white tip, and the tip is shorter.

Both these young specimens differ from the half-grown one obtained from Capt. Abbott, in the fur being softer and smooth to the touch; and Capt. Abbott’s specimen differs from the adult in the length and greater crispness of its fur, the fur of the old one being harsh and hard and closer pressed.

In the first essay, Dr. Peters places Phoca falklandica, Shaw, and Otaria nigrescens together, with doubt, observing that one was known from the skin, and the other by the skull, overlooking the fact that the name nigrescens implied that I had seen the colour of the fur, which was not that given by Shaw to his animal; in his second essay, Dr. Shaw’s, Dr. Burmeister’s, and my animal are all classed together without any doubt.

The skull of Capt. Abbott’s Fur-Seal from the Falkland Islands shows that it was a very young animal, which had only developed its first grinders, the permanent series being developed below them. The tentorium is bony and well developed. The teeth are the same in position and number as they are in the adult skull; and the upper ones, as far as developed, are small and conical, except the fifth upper grinder, which is largest, triangular, with a single subconical lobe on the base of the hinder edge of the cone. The lower canines are small, scarcely larger than the cutting-teeth, which are nearly uniform in size. The lower grinders are of a much larger size than the upper ones in the adult skull, as if they belonged to the permanent series: they are of the same form as the teeth in adult skulls; but the central cone is higher and more acute, and the anterior and posterior lobes at the base of the cone are more developed and acute, the lobes of the last or fifth grinder being larger and rather on the inner surface of the tooth.

The skull of Capt. Abbott’s animal is evidently not the same as the skull of a young Eared Seal described and figured by Dr. Burmeister as the skull of Arctocephalus falklandicus from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, in the Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 3, vol. xviii. p. 99, t. 9, which, from the appearance of the grinders, I suspect is the young skull of Phocarctos Hookeri, the Hair-Seal of the Falkland Islands. There is a considerable difference in the proportions of the skull sent by Capt. Abbott from those of the one figured by Dr. Burmeister. In Capt. Abbott’s specimen the brain-case, from the back edge of the orbit to the occiput, is as long as the length of the face, from the same edge of the orbit to the end of the nose. In Dr. Burmeister’s figure, the face from the same point is much longer than the brain-case.

*** Fourth, fifth, and sixth upper grinders with two diverging roots; the fifth upper grinder entirely behind the hinder edge of the zygomatic arch. The palate narrow. Gypsophoca. (Australia.)

3. Arctocephalus cinereus. Australian Fur-Seal.

Inhab. Australia (John Macgillivray).

Black, greyer beneath; under-fur abundant, reddish brown.

There are the stuffed skin, with its skull, and the bones of the face of another young specimen of this Seal in the British Museum, collected in the Australasian Sea by Mr. John Macgillivray.

According to the observations of Dr. Peters, founded on the examination of the typical skulls, Otaria ursina of Nilsson and Otaria Lemarii of J. Müller (Arch. f. Naturg. 1841, p. 334) include the Arctocephalus antarcticus from South Africa and A. cinereus of Australia.

Otaria Stelleri of Schlegel (Fauna Japonica, t. 22. f. 55) includes both the Australian Eared Seals, viz. Arctocephalus cinereus and Neophoca lobata; and it is quite distinct from the Otaria Stelleri of Lesson and T. Müller, which is a combination of the Sea-bear and Sea-lion of Steller (that is to say, Eumetopias Stelleri and Callorhinus ursinus).

The males of these animals are described as twice as long and broad (that is, four times as large) as the females. This may explain the difference in size of the skulls from the same localities.

The fur changes its colour as the animal grows, the young being generally black; and the adult males and females also differ considerably in the colour of the fur.

The skulls of the following species are not known:—

4. Arctocephalus Forsteri.

Grinders 6/5·6/5, conical.

Inhab. Cloudy Bay, New Zealand.

This animal is only known from Dr. Forster’s description and figure.

Mr. Allen observes, “I can see no evidence of the New-Zealand Fur-Seal (of Forster) being specifically distinct from the Fur-Seal of Australia, A. cinereus (auct.).”—Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. ii. p. 15.

At the same time Mr. Allen ventures to remark, “perhaps the A. cinereus and the A. antarcticus are to be referred to the A. falklandicus, in which case the habitat of this species is the southern seas generally” (Bull. Comp. Zool. ii. p. 45): but he does not seem to have had specimens of any of the three species; otherwise I do not think he would have ventured upon the observation.

Unfortunately, having no skull or other parts of the Lion Seal of the Auckland Islands (the most southern of the New-Zealand group), we are not able to determine whether it is the same species as the Sea-lion of the southern end of the American continent (Otaria jubata), or whether it is the Sea-lion of the southern end of the African continent (Arctocephalus antarcticus), or the Sea-lion of the Northern Australian Seas (Neophoca lobata).

5. Arctocephalus falklandicus.

Fur very soft, elastic; hairs very short, exceedingly close, slender at the base, thicker above, with close reddish under-fur nearly as long as the hair; the upper surface pale, nearly uniform grey, minutely punctulated with white; hairs brown, upper half black, with minute white tips. The nose, cheeks, temples, throat, chest, sides, and underside of the body yellowish white.

Inhab. Falkland Islands (Abbott; B.M.); New Georgia.

This is a most distinct species, and easily known from all the other Fur-Seals in the British Museum by the evenness, shortness, closeness, and elasticity of the fur, and the length of the under-fur. The fur is soft enough to wear as a rich fur without the removal of the longer hairs, which are always removed in the other Fur-Seals. Unfortunately the specimen is without any skull; and therefore I cannot give a description of the teeth, or refer it to any of the restricted genera of Otariadæ.

Mr. R. Hamilton, in the ‘Annals of Natural History’ for 1838, ii. p. 81, t. 4, gives the history of the Fur-Seals of commerce and the method of catching them; and he deposited two specimens in the Museum of Edinburgh, which had been procured by Capt. Weddel. Mr. Abbott having informed me that what I had described under the name of Arctocephalus falklandicus is not now found in the Falkland Islands, and Mr. Bartlett having shown me an imperfect skin of the same species, which he had obtained from a fur-monger, who informed him that such fur-skins were only received from the Arctic part of the Pacific Ocean, I was induced to request Mr. Archer, director of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, to allow me to examine the Seals described by Mr. Hamilton, which, on examination, proved to be my Arctocephalus falklandicus, only differing from the Museum specimen in the fur being considerably darker and harsher; and, from Capt. Weddel’s account as given in the ‘Annals,’ these specimens came from South Georgia or South Shetland. These Seals, which were brought from the Antarctic Ocean, may formerly have inhabited the Falkland Islands, and, like the Sea-lion found there by Pernetty, have been destroyed or driven away. Arctocephalus Hookeri is said to be now found in the Antarctic Ocean and the Falkland Islands. In that case it may be the Falkland-Island Seal of Pennant.

The A. falklandicus is very like the Fur-Seal from Australia (H. cinereus) in the length of the under-fur as compared with the length of the hairs, and also in the colour of the under-fur and hair; but the fur is much softer, and its general colour is much darker, both above and below.

Pennant describes the “Falkland-Island Seal” from a specimen 4 feet long, in the museum of the Royal Society, thus:—“Hair short, cinereous, tipped with dirty white;” “grinders conoid, with a small process on one side near the base.” It is to this description that Dr. Shaw applied the name of Phoca falklandica (Gen. Zool. i. p. 256). This agrees with a specimen in the Museum in all particulars. It certainly is not the dark blackish-brown Seal which I have described as the Arctocephalus nigrescens, and which Dr. Peters calls O. falklandica.

I sent a piece of the fur of this Seal to Dr. Peters to be compared with the fur of O. Philippii. He observes, “They appear to be quite different; the wool of O. falklandica is fair and has more similarity in colour to the young of O. cinerea. The wool of O. Philippii is entirely ferruginous red, and the longer hairs are stiffer and have a much shorter grey tip than in O. falklandica.”

6. Arctocephalus? nivosus. Cape Hair-Seal.

B.M.

Fur very short, close-pressed, black, varied with close, small, often confluent, white spots; underside of the neck with a few scattered white hairs; belly red-brown (nearly bay); hairs short, thick, of one colour to the base; under-fur none, except a very few hairs on the crown of the head. Skull unknown.

Inhab. Cape of Good Hope. B.M.

Length of skin nearly 8 feet; but stretched and flattened.

Dr. Murie (P. Z. S. 1869, p. 108) says that this is only a variety, seasonal, sexual, or of a different age from the specimens hitherto obtained.

Mr. Allen adopts this view, never having seen the specimen, but changes the phrase into “a previously known species” (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. ii. p. 18); but neither of them mentions the species to which he refers it.

But surely Mr. Allen does not mean that it is only a variety of the skins which were received with it from the Cape of Good Hope; for, if that were the case, the species would belong to one of his subfamilies, and the variety to the other.

In the form and length of the hair it is very different from Arctocephalus antarcticus; and it is almost destitute of under-fur, except on the crown of the head.

Tribe IV. ZALOPHINA.

Grinders 5/5·5/5, large, thick, in a close continuous series; the fifth upper in front of the back edge of the zygomatic arch.

In the younger skull the grinders are placed rather further back, the hinder part of the upper grinder being behind the back edge of the zygomatic arch. The grinders all single-rooted, as the last or sixth grinder in each jaw, which is generally two-rooted, is absent. The face of the skull is considerably produced, and the forehead is flat.

5. ZALOPHUS.

Palate concave, narrow in front, wider at the line of the last grinder, and then contracted behind. The hinder nares narrow, elongate, twice as long as wide, acutely arched in front, front edge in a line with the front edge of the orbital process of the malar bone. Under-fur sparse.

1. Zalophus Gilliespii. Californian Hair-Seal.

Inhab. North Pacific, South California (Brit. Mus.); Japan (fide Peters).

I have not seen any skull or specimens from Japan; so that I am not quite sure that the specimens from the coast of Asia are the same as those from the west coast of America.

6. NEOPHOCA.

Palate concave, broad, as broad before as at the hinder part of the tooth-line, then rather suddenly contracted. The hinder nares broad, rather longer than broad, with the front edge broadly arched, which is further back than the front edge of the orbital process of the zygomatic arch, or malar bone, which is thick and flat. Fur with very little under-fur. Flap of toes moderate.

1. Neophoca lobata. Australian Hair-Seal.

The upper grinders all single-rooted, the root of the last two (the fourth and fifth) being rather compressed, with an obscure central longitudinal groove on the inner side; the first two grinders of the lower jaw with oblong, the last three with compressed roots, and the fourth and fifth with a slight longitudinal groove on the side.

In the younger skulls the roots of the grinders are more oblong, less compressed, and do not show the lateral grooves, as far as the teeth can be seen without being drawn from the sockets. In the front part of the younger skull, which was received from Mr. Gould, the teeth are placed rather further back than in the adult skull from North Australia received from Capt. Grey, the hinder part of the fifth tooth being behind the back edge of the zygomatic arch.

Mr. Allen thinks that this is undoubtedly the O. cinerea of Desmarest, from Péron; but it is not the O. cinerea of Quoy & Gaimard (see obs. on Péron’s Seal in the Cat. Seals & Whales, p. 57).

Tribe V. EUMETOPIINA.

Grinders 5/5·5/5, more or less far apart; the hinder upper behind the hinder edge of the zygomatic arch, and separated from the other grinders by a concave space.

7. EUMETOPIAS.

Fur without any under-fur. Palate flattish or rather concave in front, as wide in front as at the end of the tooth-line, and then slightly narrowed behind. Posterior nares oblong, elongate, broadly truncated in front, the front edge being behind the line of the orbital process of the zygomatic arch. The grinders have large oblong roots; the second, third, and fourth upper ones have a subcentral longitudinal groove on the outer side, and a less marked one on their inner surface; the inner side of all but the first of the lower ones are similarly grooved; the fifth upper grinder (or, more properly, the sixth in the normal series) has two distinct roots. The lower jaw much more elongate than that of Otaria jubata, the hinder angle more oblique, and the lower margin long and straight. Flap of toes short.

The skull of the young animal, which was sent by Mr. A. S. Taylor to Mr. Gurney from California, and which I first described, with doubt, as Arctocephalus monteriensis, junior (P. Z. S. 1859, p. 357), and which in the ‘Catalogue of Seals and Whales’ I named A. californianus (see p. 51), agrees in every respect in its dentition with the large skull which we received from California, and which I described and figured as A. monteriensis (P. Z. S. 1859, p. 358, t. 72); but it differs greatly in the form of the hinder nares, which are extended much more forwards, so that the front end, which is very narrow and acute, is much in front of the prominence of the orbit of the zygomatic arch, being, in fact, about in a line with the middle of the lower edge of the orbital cavity.

This skull is evidently that of a very young animal; for the bones are separate; but it has the same number and disposition of the teeth as the large skull. There is the same wide space between the fourth and fifth upper grinders; but there is at the back edge of the fourth grinder, on the right side of the skull, a small pit, from which, no doubt, a small rudimentary tooth has fallen out; and there is a much wider but shallow pit on the other side, which may have been produced by the loss of a rudimentary tooth; the last upper grinder has a large swollen undivided root. If this is a young skull of Eumetopias monteriensis, that species is curious for having the teeth in the old and young skulls in the same situation as regards the bones of the face.

The adult skull and the young one were from the same locality, and, I believe, collected by the same person; and this being the case, I am inclined to regard them as the same, only showing a curious peculiarity in the growth of the animal, and also showing that the form and position of the hinder nostril probably varies as the animal increases in age.

Mr. Gill considers Steller’s Sea-bear (Callorhinus ursinus) to be the type of M. F. Cuvier’s genus Arctocephalus, and therefore abolishes Callorhinus and gives the new name of Halarctus to the true Arctocephali—thus unnecessarily adding to the confusion of the generic names of these animals. He fell into this mistake by not observing that Phoca ursina, and even Otaria ursina, had been applied to several species from very different localities, that F. Cuvier established his genus on the skull of P. ursina of Forster, from the Cape, which he (M. Cuvier) had named Phoca Delalandii, and that F. Cuvier does not figure a skull of the Sea-bear of Steller: indeed the French collection did not at that time, nor does it even now, possess one; and I feel assured that, if it had, F. Cuvier would, according to his custom, have established for it a genus distinct from Arctocephalus, the skulls of the two genera being of such distinct forms.

1. Eumetopias Stelleri. Northern Sea-lion or Fur-Seal.