•;rf ^ ■■III n ^ DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR U. a GEOLOGICAL AND GEOGEAPHICAL SURVEY OF THE TEBBIT0RIE8 F. V. HAYDEN, Geologist-in-Chabg« MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATIONS— No. 12 HISTORY OP ISrORTH A.MEIlIQj^ISr f PINNIPEDS A MONOGRAPH OF THE WALRUSES, SEA-LIONS, SEA-BEARS AND SEALS OF NORTH ^MEHIOj^ By JOEL ASAPH ALLEN Ataistant in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Camhidge Special Collaborator of the Survey WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICK 1880 PREFATORY NOTE. United States Geologicai. and Geographical Stjevey of the Territories, Washington, B. C, July 1, 1880. The present series of monographs of the Korth American Pinnipedia, by Mr. J. A. Allen, may be considered as a second installment of the systematic History of North American Mam- mals, of which the Fur-Bearing Animals by Dr. Elliott Cones, U. S. A., forming IsTo. 8 of the Miscellaneous Publications of the Survey, was published as a specimen fasciculus. The first monograph of this series, treating of the Walruses, was prepared nearly three years since for publication in the Bulletin of the Survey, but before it was quite ready for the press, Dr. Coues, owing to his pressing engagements in other directions, invited Mr. Allen to extend his treatise to embrace the entire suborder of the Pinnipeds, to which he had already given special atten- tion, with a view to its incorporation as a part of the proposed general History of North American Mammals. Since, how- ever, considerable time must elapse before the whole work can be completed, it has been thought best not to delay the publi- cation of the part already prepared relating to the Pennipeds. As nearly ^11 of the species belonging to this group found in the northern hemisphere are members of the North American fauna, the present treatise is virtually a monograph of all the species occurring north of the equator, and includes incidentally a revision of those of other seas. The literature of the whole group is not only reviewed at length, but the economic phase of the subject is treated in detail, embracing, in fact, a general history of the Sealing industries of the world* The technical treatment of the subject is based mainly on the rich material of the National Museum, supplemented at many important points by that of the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Cam- bridge, which, through the kindness of the directors of these institutions, was generously placed at the author's disposal. That contained in the other principal museums of the country III IV PREFATORY NOTE. was also examined, so that so far as the species of the northern hemisphere is concerned the amount of material consulted doubtless far exceeds that ever before studied by any single investigator of the group. For the biographical part, to which much space has been allotted, matter has been freely gathered from all available sources. In addition to the results here first published, the work may be considered as a compendium of our present knowledge of the subject. In regard to the need of a work like the present, it may be stated that with the exception of Dr. Theodore Gill's important "Prodrome" of a proposed monograph of North American Pinnipeds, published in 186G, there has been no general treat- ment of the species since the excellent compilations of Drs. Harlan and Godman appeared, now more than half a century ago. Eesj)ecting foreign works, nothing has been recently published covering the ground here taken beyond a very gen- eraLs^nopsis of the technical phases of the subject. The best ^counts of the species occurring along the shores of Europe ''are in other languages than English, while no general history of the economic relations of the subject exists. In relation to the important Fur Seal Fisheries of Alaska, the author has \)een able to present in extenso the results of Captain Charles Bryant's long experience at the Fur Seal Islands, where for nearly ten years he was the government agent in charge of the islands. Although not received until the article on this species had been transmitted to the printer, it proves to be, to only a small degree, a repetition of the account given by Mr. Elliott, also reproduced at length. The history Captain Bryant gives of the changes in the numbers and relations of the different classes of these animals at the rookeries, under the present system of management of the Fur Seal business, forms a valu- able basis for generalization in regard to the future regulation of this industry, and is also an important contribution to the life-history of the species. The cuts, some thirty in number, illustrating the cranial char- acters of the Wakuses, were drawn for the present work by Mr. J. H. Blake, of Cambridge, and engraved by Messrs. Eussell and Eichardson, of Boston. The Survey is indebted to Professor Baird, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, for a series of six- teen original iigmes, engraved by Mr. H. H. Nichols, of Washing- ton, from photographs on wood, illustrating the skulls of CallorU- nus ursinusj Peale's ^^HaUchcerusantarcticMS,''^ Oystopliora eristata^ PREFATORY NOTE. V aud Macrorhinus angustirostris ; also to the Zoological Society of London for electros of Gray's '■^Halicyon richardsi,''^ and of a series of historic figures of the walrus published in the Society's "Proceedings," by the late Dr. Gray, aud to the proprietors of " Science Gossip," for electros of the full-length figures of seals. These were received through Dr. Coues, who also furnished the full-length views of Eumetopias stelleri and Callorhinus ursimis. Mr. Allen desires me to express, in tbis connection, acknowl- edgments of his indebtedness to Prof. Spencer F. Baird, Secre- tary of the Smithsonian Institution, and to Prof. Alexander Agassiz, Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, for the liberality with which they have placed at his service the rich material relating to this group of animals contained in the museums respectively under their charge; to Prof. Henry A. Ward, of Rochester, N". Y., for the use of much valuable material relating to the Walruses that he would not otherwise have seen ; and to Captain Charles Bryant, late si^ecial agent of the United States Treasury Department, for his report, kindly prepared at the author's request, for the present work. Also to Dr. Elliott Coues, Secretary of the Survey, for the use of many of the cuts, for valuable suggestions during the prepa- tion and printing of the monograph, and revision of the proof- sheets. F. V. HAYDEN, United States Geologist. LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. Cambridge, Mass., May 25, 1880. Sir : I have the honor to transmit herewith for approval and for publication the " History of North American Pinnipeds," being a monograph of the Walruses, Sea-Lions, Sea-Bears, and Seals of North America. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. A. ALLEN. F. V. Hayden, Washington, J). C. vn TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page. Title I Prefatory note HI Letter of transmittal V Table of contents Vll List of illustrations Xm Characters of the Pinnipedia 1 Family ODOB^NID^— Walruses 6-186 Synonymy 5 General observations and characters of the group 5-12 Genera 12-14 Synopsis of the genera 14 Genus ODOBiENUS 14 Synonymy and history 14-17 Species 17-23 • Odob^nus rosmarus— Atlantic "Walrus 23-147 Synonymy and bibliographical references 23-26 External characters 26-38 Sexual differences 38-43 Individual variations and variations dependent upon age 43-45 Measurements of skulls 46 Dentition 47-57 Fossil remains 57-65 Geographical distribution, present and past 65-79 Coast of North America '. 65-71 Coast of Europe 71-79 Nomenclature 80 Etymology 80-82 Literature 82-107 General history 82-92 Figures 92-107 Habits and the chase 107-133 Products 133-134 Food 134-137 Functions of the tusks 137-138 Enemies 138-139 Domestication 140-147 ODOBiENUS OBESUS— Pacific "Wall-US 147-186 Synonymy and bibliographical references 147 External characters and skeleton 147-155 Measurements of skeleton 149-150 Measurements of skulls 155 Differential characters 156-170 Nomenclature 170-171 General history 171-172 Figures : 172-174 Geographical distribution 174-178 Habits, food, commercial products, and the chase 178-186 Family OTARIID^— Eared Seals 187-411 Synonymy and characters of the group 187 Technical history 188-207 Higher groups 188-190 Genera 190-193 Species 193-207 IX X TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page. Cluuacters of the Pixxipedia — Continued. Family OTAEirD.j:— Eared Seals. Sj-nopsis of the genera and species 208-213 Mythical and undeterminable species 214-216 Geographical distribution 216 Fossil Otaries 217-221 Milk dentition 221-224 Irregularities of dentition 224 Position of the last upper permanent molar 225 General observations 225-227 Habits 227 Products 228 Destruction of Fur Seals for their peltries 229-231 G«nU8 EUMETOPIAS 231 # EuMETOPiAS STELLEBi— Steller's Sea-Lion 232-274 Synon j-my and bibliographical references 232 External characters 232-236 External measurements 236 Skull 237-238 Measurements of slsulls 238 Teeth 239 Skeleton 240-244 Measurements of skeleton : 242-244 Sexual, adolescent, and individual variation 244 Geographical variation 244 Comparison with allied species 244-247 Measurements of skuUs of Otaria JUBATA 247 Geographical distribution ^ 248 General history and nomenclature 248-254 Habits, 254-274 Genus Zalophds 275 * Zalophus californiaxus— Califomian Sea^Lion 276-312 Synonymy and bibliographical references 27C External characters 276-278 Young 278 Pelage 278 Size 278-283 External measurements 279-280 Measurements of skeleton of female 281-283 Skull 283-285 Measurements of skulls 285 Dentition 286 Sexual differences 287 Variation with age 287-289 Comparison with allied species 289 Geographical distribution 289-291 General history and nomenclature 291-296 Habits 296-312 Genus Callorhinus 312-410 • Calloehinus URsmus— Northern Fur Seal 313 Synonymy and bibliographical references 313-314 External characters 32^^ Coloi- !." 314 Pelage 315 ®^® 316-319 External measurements 319 Ears 32Q Fore limbs g.^O Hind limbs 32o TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI Page. Characters of the Pinnipedia — Continued. FamUy OTARIED^— Eared Seals. Genus Callokhinus. Calloehinus UB8INUS — Northern Fur Seal. SkuU 320-323 Measurements of skulls 323 Teeth 324 Skeleton 324-326 Measurements of skeleton 325 Sexual differences 325-327 Differences resulting from age 327 Individual variation 328 Comparison with allied species 329-331 Measurements of skulls of Arctocephalus austbaus 331 Geographical distribution and migration 332-335 General history and nomenclature 335-339 Figures ^ 339-341 Habits 341-371 The chase 371-378 Mode of capture 372-378 History and prospects of the Fur Seal busiaesa at the Prybilov Islands 378-381 Enemies of the Fur Seals 381 History of the Fur Seal Fishery at the Prybilov Islands, Alaska, from 1869 to 1877, by Chakles Bryant 382-411 Preliminary and general observations 382-388 Recent changes in the habits and relative numbers of the different classes of Seals 388-398 Cause of the changes in the habits of the Seals, &c 398-402 Albinos and sexually abnormal individuals 403 Description of the young ; variation in color with age, &c 403 Molting 404 Sexual organs, &c 405 Power of suspending respiration 406 Natural enemies 406 Effect of climatic influences 407 Number of Seals required for the subsistence of the natives. . 409 "Winter resorts and habits of the Seals 4X0 Family PHOCID.a;— Earless Seals 412-756 Characters of the group , 412 Technical history 412-160 Higher groups 412-414 Genera 414-421 Species 421-460 Classification 460-467 Synopsis of sub-families and genera 461-463 Synonymatic Ust of the species. 463-467 Geographical distribution 467-469 Fossil remains 469-481 North America 469-476 Europe 476-481 Milk dentition •- 481-484 General habits and instincts 484-486 Food 486 Enemies 487 Migrations 487-^91 Locomotion on land 491-496 Seal hunting 496-546 XII TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page. Characters of the Pinnipedia — Continued. FamUy PHOCIDiE— Earless Seals. Sealing districts 496-522 West Greenland ,497 Newfoundland 497-499 Jan Mayen or " Greenland " Seas 499-511 Nova Zenibla and Kara Sea 511 White Sea 511-513 Caspian Sea '. 513-517 North Pacific - 517 South Pacific and Antarctic Seas 517-522 Methods of capture, &c 522 Shore hunting 522-530 Esquimaux methods 522 By means of nets 523-528 The seal-box 528 The seal-hook 529 The "Skrackta" 529 Ice hunting -530 lu the Gulf of Bothnia 530-534 Ofl" the coast of Newfoundland 534-540 In the Jan Mayen Seas 540-542 Dangers and uncertainties of ice hunting 543-545 Species hunted 545 Abundance of Seals at particular localities 546 Products 546-549 Preparation of the products 549-551 Wasteful destruction of Seals 551-553 Decrease from injudicious bunting 553 Seals and Seal hunting in the olden time in the Gulf of St. Lawrence . 553-557 Sub-family PHOCiN.iE 557 Genus Phoca 557-559 Phoca vitulina — Harbor Seal 559-507 Synonymy and bibliographical references 559-562 External chaiacters 562-565 Distinctive characters 565-571 Individual and sexual variation 571-573 Measurements of the skulls 574 General history and nomenclature 575-584 Geographical distribution 584-588 Habits 588-597 Phoca (Pusa) fcetida— Kinged Seal 597-629 SynonjTny and bibliographical references 597-600 External characters 000-603 Individual variation and variations dependent upon sex and age. 603-605 Measurements of the skull ' 606 Differential characters 607-614 Phoca (Pusa) caspica 609-610 Phoca (Pusa) sibirica 612-613 Geographical distribution 614-616 General history and nomenclature 616-619 Habits 619-629 Phoca (Pagophilus) gecenl.vndica — Harp Seal 630-654 Synonymy and bibliographical references 630-632 External characters 632-637 Sexual and individual variation and variations dependent upon age 637 Measurements of the skull 638 General history and nomenclature 639 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XIII Page. Characters of the Pinnipedia— Continued. Family PHOCID^. Sub-family Phocin^. Genus Phoca. Phoca (Pagophilus) ghcenlandica — Harp SeaL Geographical distribution 640 Migrations and breeding stations 641-647 Habits 647-651 Enemies 651 Food 652 Hunting and products 652-654 Genus Erignathus 654 Ebignathus barbatus — Bearded Seal 655-675 Synonymy and bibliographical references — 655-657 External characters 657 Skull and skeleton 658-661 Measurements of the skeleton 660 Measurements of the skull 661 General history and nomenclature 662-666 Geographical distribution 666-670 Habits, products, and hunting 670-675 Genus Histriophoca 675-676 HiSTRiOPHOCA FASCIATA — Eibbon Seal 676-682 Synonymy and bibliographical references 676 External characters 676-678 Size 678 General history 678-681 Geographical distribution 681-682 Habits 682 Genus Hauchoerub 682-689 General history and discussion of the ' ' Genus PusA " of Scopoli . . 683-689 Halichcerus guypus — Gray Seal 689-706 Synonymy and bibliographical references 689-690 External characters 690-693 Measurements of skulls 694 Geographical distribution 695-696 General history and nomenclature 696-698 Habits 699-706 Genus Monachus 707-708 MoNACHUS TROPICALIS — "West Indian Seal 708-723 Characters 708 Dampier's account 708-710 Hill's and Gosse's accounts, 1843, 1851 710-715 Gray's accounts, 1849, 1874 175-718 GiU on the West Indian Seals, 1866 718 Analysis and discussion of the foregoing 718-720 Affinities of the Jamaican or Pedro Seal 720-721 Geographical distribution 721-723 Sub-famUy CYSTOPHORHlNiE 723 Genus Cystophoua — 723 • Cystophora ckistata — Hooded Seal 724-742 Synonymy and bibliographical references 724-726 External characters 726-729 Skeleton and skull 730-733 Measurements of skulls "32 Measurements of the skeleton 733 Geographical distribution and migrations 733-737 General history and nomenclature 738-740 Habits 740-741 Hunting and products 741-742 XIV ' TABLE OF CONTENTS. Charac. rs of the Pinnipedia— Continued. Family PHOCTDM. Sub-family — CYSTOPHORHiNiE. Genus Macroehinus 742 • Maceorhin ub ANGU8TIE0STEI&— Califomian Sea Elephant 743 Bibliographical references 743 External characters >. 743-746 Stnll 746-749 Measurements of skulls 748 Measurements of the skeleton of Mcuyrorhinvs leoninua 749 Comparison with the Southern Sea Elephant 749-751 Geographical distribution 751-752 General history ____ 752-753 Habits 753-755 Chase and products 755-756 APPENDIX. A. Material examined 757-764 Family Odob^nid^ ^ 757-758 Odobaenus rosmarus 758 Odobaenus obesus 753 EamUy Otariid^ 758-760 Eumetopias stelleri 753 Zalophus califomianus 759 Callorhinus ursinus 7g0 Family Phocid.e 761-764 Phoca vitulina 7g2 Phoca foetida 7g2 Phoca groenlandica 753 Erignathus barbatus 763 Histriophoca fasciata 763 Halichoerus grypus 764 Cystophora cristata 764 Macrorhinus angustirostris 764 B. Additions and Corrections 765-774 Family Odob^xid.e 765-769 Odobcenus rosmarus — Atlantic Walrus 765-768 Additioual references 765 Size and external appearance 765 Geographical distribution 766-767 JTova Zembla 766 Franz-Josef Land 766 Abundance in Wolstenholme Sound 766 Spitzbergen, &c 766 Iceland 766 Supposed presence of "Walruses in the Antarctic Seas 766 The Walrus a formidable antagonist 767 Curiosity and fearlessness of the Walrus 767 Locomotion ; use of tlie tusks in climbing 767 Figures of the Walrus 768 Odobcenus obesus — Pacific Walrus 768 Distribution 768 Family OxARiiDiE 769-774 Otaries at the Galapagos Islands 769 Fossil Otaries 770 Captui-e of Sea Lions for menageries 77O Zalophus califomianus — California Sea Lion 77I Period of gestation 77X Callorhinus ursinus 772 Breeding off the coast of Washington Territory 772 Family Phocid^ 773 Extinct species 773 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Pig. 1, p. 41. OdobcBnus rosmarus, skull of female in profile and lower jaw from above. Fig. 2, p. 42. Odohace^ms rosmarus, sknll of female from above. Fig. 3, p. 43. Odohcenus rosmarus, skull of female from below. Fig. 4, p. 93. Olaus Magnus's " Rosmarus seu Morsus ]S'orvegico8." Fig. 5, p. 93. Olaus Magnus's " Porous Monstrosus Oceani Germanici." Fig. 6, p. 94. Gesner's "Kosmams." Fig. 7, p. 94. Gesner's "Vacca marina" (Addenda to Icones Animal). Fig. 8, p. 94. Gesner's "Eosmarus" (Icones Animal., 1560). Fig. 9, p. 95. De Veer's "Sea Horse," 1609. Fig. 10, p. 96. Hessel Gerard's " "Walruss, " 1613. Fig. 11, p. 100. Martin's "Wall-ross," 1765. Fig. 12, p. 101. Buffon's " Le Morse," 1765. Fig. 13, p. 153. Odobcenus ohesus, three views of head. Fig. 14, p. 156. Odobacenus obesus, skuU in profile. Fig. 15, p. 157. Odobcenus rosmarus, skull in profile. Fig. 16, p. 158. Odobcenus rosm,arus, skull from front. Fig. 17, p. 158. Odobcenus obesus, skull from front. Fig. 18, p. 159. Odobcenus rosmarus, occipital view of skull. Fig. 19, p. 159. Odobcenus obesus, occipital view of skull. Fig. 20, p. 160. Odabcenus rosmarus. skull from above. Fig. 21, p. 161. Odobcenus obesus, skull from above. Fig. 22, p. 162. Odobcenus obesus, young skull from above. Fig. 23, p. 162. Odobcenus rosmarus, young skull from above. Fig. 24, p. 163. Odobcenus obesus, young skull from front. Fig. 25, p. 163. Odobcenus rosmarus, young skull from front. Fig. 26, p. 164. Odobcenus rostnarus, skull from below. Fig. 27, p. 165. Odobcenus obesus, skull from below. Fig. 28, p. 166. Odobcenus rosmarus, lower jaw from above. Fig. 29, p. 166. Odobcetius obesus, lower jaw from above. Fig. 30, p. 167. Odobcenus rosmarus, lower jaw from side. Fig. 31, p. 167. Odobcenus obesus, lower jaw from side. Fig. 32, p. 168. odobcenus rosmarus, lower jaw of young from above. Fig. 33, p. 168. Odobcenus obesus, lower jaw of young from above. Fig. 34, p. 169. Odobcenus rosmarus, lower jaw of young from side. Fig. 35, p. 169. Odobcenus obesus, lower jaw of young from side. Fig. 36, p. 173. Odobcenus obesus. Cook's figure of the animal. Fig. 37, p. 259. Eumetopias stelleri, figures of animal Fig. 38, p. 317. Callorhinus ursinus, figures of animal. Fig. 39, p. 321. Callorhinus ursinus, skull of female in profile. Fig. 40, p. 321. Callorhinus ursinus, skull of female from above. Fig. 41, p 322. Callorhinus ursinus, skull of female lower jjrw. Fig. 42, p. 322. Callorhinus ursinus, skuU of female from below. Fig. 43, p. 563. Phoea vitulina, animal. Fig. 44, p. 580. " Halichoerus antarcticus," Peale, skuU in profile. Fig. 45, p. 580. '' Halichcerus antarcticus," Peale, skull from above. Fig. 46, p. 581. " Halichoerus antarcticus," Peale, skull from below. Fig. 47, p. 582. " Halichcerus antarcticus," Peale, lower jaw. Fig. 48, p. 583. " Halicyon richardsi," Gray, skull in profile. Fig. 49, p. 601. Phoca foetida, animal. XV XVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Fig. 50, p. 633. Phoca groelandiea, animal. Fig. 51, p. 691. Halichaerus grypus, animal. Fig. 52, p. 727. Oystophora cristata, animal. Fig. 53, p. 728. Gystophora cristata, skvXL in profile. Fig. 54, p. 729. Oystophora cristata, skull from above. Fig. 55, p. 730. Oystophora cristata, skull from below. Fig. 56, p. 731. Oystophora cristata, lower .jaw. Fig. 57, p. 744. Macrorhinus angustirostris, skull in profile. Fig. 58, p. 745. Macrorhinus angustirostris, skull from above. Fig. 59, p. 746. Macrorhinus angustirostris, skull from below. Fig. 60, p. 747. Macrorhinus angustirostris, lower jaw. HISTORY OF THE NORTH AMERICAN PINNIPEDS. The Pinnipeds, or Pinnipedia, embracing the Seals and Wal- ruses, are commonly recognized by recent systematic writers as constituting a suborder of the order Ferce, or Carnivorous Mammals. They are, in short, true Garnivora, modified for an aquatic existence, and have consequently been sometimes termed' ^^ Amphibious Carnivoray Their whole form is modified for life in the water, which element is their true home. Here they display extreme activity, but on land their movements are confined and labored. They consequently rarely leave the water, and generally only for short periods, and are never found to move voluntarily more than a few yards from the shore. Like the other marine Mammalia, the Getacea and Sirenia (Whales, Dolphins, Porpoises, Manatees, etc.), their bodies are more or less fish-like in general form, and their limbs are transformed into swimming organs. As their name implies, they are Jin- footed. Generally speaking, the body may be compared to two cones joined basally. Unlike the other marine mammals, the Pinnipeds are all well clothed with hair, while several of them have, underneath the exterior coarser hair, a thick, soft, silky under-fur. In contrasting them with the ordinary or terrestrial mammals, we note that the body is only exceptionally raised, and the hmbs are confined within the common integument to beyond the knees and elbows, and are hence to only a slight degree serviceable for terrestrial locomotion. The first digit of the manus is generally lengthened and enlarged, as are both the outer digits of the pes. As compared with other Ferce, they present, in osteological characters, many obvious points of difference, especially in relation to the structure of the skull, limbs, and pelvis, and in dentition. The skuU is distinctively characterized by great compression or constriction of the inter- orbital portion, the large size of the orbital fossae, in the lachry- mal bone being imperforate (without a lachrymal canal) and contained within the orbit, and in the presence (generally) of Misc. Pub. No. 12 1 1 Z CHARACTERS OF PINNIPEDIA. consiilerable vacuities between the palatine aud frontal bones and the tympanic and exoccipital bones. ' The deciduous den- tition is rudimentary, never to any great extent functional, and frequently does not jiersist beyond the foetal life of the animal. In the permanent dentition, the canines are greatly developed, sometimes enormously so; the lower incisors are never more than four in number, and sometimes only two ; the upi)er incisors usually niunber six, but sometimes only four, or even two ; the grinding teeth (premolars and molars) are generally simple in structure, and usualty differ from each other merely in respect to size, or the number of roots by which they are insertetl. The pelvis differs from that of the terrestrial Ferce in the shortness of the iliac portion and the eversion of its anterior border ; the ischiac bones barely meet for a short distance in the male, and are usually widely separated in the female, the pelvic arch thus remaining in the latter permanently open ventrally. The existing Pinnipeds constitute three very distinct minor groups or families, differing quite widely from each other in imjiortant characters : these are the Walruses, or Odohccnidw, the Eared Seals, or Otariidce, and the Earless Seals, or Phocidce. The first two are far more nearly allied than are either of these with the third, so that the Odohwnidce and Otariidw may be together contrasted with the Phocidce. The last named is the lowest or most generalized group, while the others appear to stand on nearly the same plane, and about equally remote from the PJio- cidm. The Walruses are really little more than thick, clumsy, obese forms of the Otarian tyi)e, with the canines enormously developed, and the whole skull correlatively modified. The limb-structure, the mode of life, and the whole economy are essentially the same in the two groups, and, aside from the cran- ial modifications presented by the OdohcvnidcVj which are obvi- ously related to the develoinnent of the canines as huge tusks, the Walruses are merely elephantine Otariids, the absence or presence of an external ear being in reality a feature of minor importance. The characters of the suborder and its three families may be more formally stated as follows : * *Tlie characters Iiere given are in part those collated hj' Dr. Theodore K. Gill in 1873 ("Arrangement of the Families of the Mammals."' Smithsonian Miscellaneons Collections, Ko. 230, pp. 56, 68, 69), by whom the distinctive features of these groups ^vere first formulated. They have, however, been carefully verified and fiu-ther elaborated by the present writer, while the families are here quite differently associated. CHARACTERS OF PINNIPEDIA. 6 Limbs piuuiform, or modified iuto swimming organs, nnd enclosed to or beyond the elbows and knees within tbe common integument. Digits of the manus decreasing in length and size from the first to the fifth ; of those of the pes, the first and tiftli largest and longest, the three middle ones shorter and subequal. Pelvis with the iliac jjortion very short, and the anterior border much everted; ischia barely meeting by a short sjanphjsis (never anchylosed) and in the female usually widely separated. Skull generally greatly compressed interorbitally ; facial j)ortion usually short and rather broad, and the brain-case abruptly ex- panded. Lachrymal bone imperforate and joined to the maxil- lary, enclosed wholly within the orbit. Palatines usually sepa- rated by a vacuity, often of considerable size, from the frontals. Tympanic bones separated also by a vacTiity from the exoccipit- als. Dentition simple, generally unspecialized, the molars all similar in structure. Deciduous dentition rudimentary, never truly functional, and generally not persistent beyond the fcetal stage of the animal. Permanent incisors usually f or f, some- times '*i {Cystopliora and MacrorMnus), or even f (Odohcenus); canines i ; molars * | , f , or f PINNIPEDIA. A. Hind legs caiiiable of being turned forward and iised in terrestrial loco- motion. Neck lengthened (especially iu family II). Skull with the mastoid processes large and salient (especially in the males), and with distinct alisi^heuoid canals. Anterior feet nearly as large as the posterior, their digits rapidly decreasing in length from the first to the fifth, without distinct claws, and with a broad cartilaginous border extending beyond the digits. Hind feet sucej)tible of great expansion, the three middle digits only with claws, and all the digits terminating in long, narrow, car- tilaginous flaps, united basally. Femur with the trochanter minor well developed Gressigrada. I. Without external ears. Form thick and heavy. Anterior por- tion of the skull greatly swollen, giving support to the enor- mously developed canines, which form long, protruding tuska. Incisors of deciduous (foetal) dentition {} ; of permanent denti- tion §. K o j)ostorbital processes, and the surface of the mastoid processes continuous with the auditory bullse Odobcenidce. II. With small external ears. Form slender and elongated. Ante- rior poi-tion of the skull not unusually swollen, and the canines not highly specialized. Incisors of deciduous dentition f , only the outer on either side cutting the gum ; of permanent denti- tion 1, the two central pairs of the upper with a transverse groove. Postorbital processes strongly develoi^ed. Surface of the mastoid processes not continuous with the auditory bullae Otariidw. B. Hind legs not capable of being turned forward, and not serviceable for terrestrial locomotion. Neck short. Skull with the mastoid * In view of the uncertainty respecting the proper notation of the grind- ing teeth, they will in the present work be designated simply as molars, "with no attemx>t at distinguishing "premolars" from "molars." 4 CHARACTERS OF PINNIPEDIA. processes swollen, but not salient, and without distinct alisphe- noid canals. Anterior limbs smaller than the posterior, the first digit little, if any, longer than the next succeeding ones, all armed with strong claws, which are terminal. Hind feet ca- pable of moderate expansion, short; digits (usually) all armed with strong claws, and Avithout terminal cartilaginous flaps. Femur with no trace of the trochanter minor . . . Reptigrada.* III. Without external ears. Postorbital processes wanting, or very small. Incisors variable (f, |, or ^). Deciduous dentition not persistent beyond foetal life Phoddce, The Pinnipeds present a high degree of cerebral develop- ment, and are easUy domesticated nnder favorable conditions. They manifest strong social and i^arental affection, and defend their yonng with great persistency and courage. They are car- nivorous (almost without exception), subsisting upon fishes, mollusks, and crustaceans, of which they consume enormous quantities. The Walruses and Eared Seals are x>olygamous, and the males greatly exceed the females in size. The ordinary or Earless Seals are commonly supposed to be monogamous, and there is generally httle difference in the size of the sexes. The Walruses and Eared Seals usually resort in large numbers to certain favorite breeding grounds, and during the season of re- production leave the water, and pass a considerable period ujion land. The Earless Seals, on the other hand, with the exception of the Sea Elephants, do not so uniformly resort to particular breeding grounds on land, and leave the water only for very short intervals. They usually bring forth their young on the ice, most of the species being confined to the colder latitudes. Only one of the various species of the Pinnipedia appears to be strictly tropical, and very few of them range into tropical waters. As a group, the Pinnipeds are distinctively character- istic of the Arctic, Antarctic, and Temperate portions of the globe, several of the genera being strictly Arctic or Subarctic in their distribution. The Walruses are at present confined mainly within the Arctic Circle, and have no representatives south of the colder portions of the l^orthern Hemisphere. The Otariidw and Fhocidce, on the other hand, are abundantly represented on both sides of the equator, as will be noticed more in detail later. * For the suggestion of the terms Gressigrada and Eeptlgrada I am indebted to my friend Dr. Elliott Coues. FAMILY ODOBiENID^. Walruses. *' IVichecidw, Gkay, Loudon Med. Eepos., 1821, 303" (family). A;pud Gray. TrichecMdoR, Gray, Ann. of Philos., 1825, 340; Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d ser., x\-iii, 1866, 229; md., 4tli ser., iv, 1869, 268; Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 5 (family). Trichecina, Gray, London's Mag. Nat. Hist., i, 1837, 538; "Zool. Erebus and Terror, 3" (subfamily). In part only, or exclusive of Halichoerus. Trichechina, Gray, Cat. Mam. Brit. Mus., pt. ii, 1850, 29; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 33 (subfamily). In j)art only = Trkliecina Gray, 1837. " TrichecMdce sen Campodontia, Brookes, Cat. Anat. and Zool. Mus. 1828, 37." Triclieclioidea, Giebel, Fauna der Vorwelt, i, 1847, 221: Saugeth., 1855, 127 (family). li-icfteciHfl, Turner, Pi-oc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1848, 85, 88 (subfamily). Itosmaridw, Gill, Proc. Essex Institute, v, 1866, 7, 11 ; Families of Mam., 1872, 27, 69, 70 ( = '' TrichecMdce Brookes, Gervais").— Allen, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., ii, 1870, 21. Eosmaroidea, Gill, Fam. Mam., 1872,70 ("superfamily" =^ Eosmaridce GiU.). Br oca, Latreille, Fam, E^g. Anim., 1825, 51 (family). Lcs Morses, F. CuviER, Dents des Mam., 1825, 233 ; Diet. Sci. Nat., lix, 1829, 465 (family). G-ENEEAL OBSERVATIONS. Among the distinctive features of tlie Odobcenidce are the enormous development of the upper canines, and the consequent great enlargement of the anterior portion of the skull for their reception and support, the early loss of all the incisors except the outer pair of the uj)per jaw, the caducous character of the posterior molars, and the molariform lower canines. The Wal- ruses share with the Eared Seals the ability to turn the hind feet forward, and consequently have considerable power of loco- motion on land. This is further aided by a greater freedom of movement of the fore feet than is possessed by the Earless Seals. The Wakuses differ from the Eared Seals by their much thicker bodies, shorter necks, and longer caudal vertebrae, the dorsal and lumbar vertebrae remaining of proportionately the same length. In consequence of their obesity, the ribs and the x)roximal segments of the limbs are longer in the Wah-uses than in the Eared Seals, while the distal segments of the limbs are relatively shorter. The scapula is long and narrow, instead of short and broad, as in the Otariidcc, and its crest is placed 5 6 FAMILY ODOB^NID^. more anteriorly. Accordingly, in respect to general form, we liave slenderness of both body and limbs in tlie one contrasted witli great tliickness of body, and distally a disproportionate reduction of the extremities in the other. The most striking differences, however, exist in the cranial characters, resulting from the great development of the upper canines in the Wal- ruses, and the consequent modifications of the facial portion of the skidl. In the Otariidw, the general contour of the skull is strongly Ursine ; in the Odohcmidcv, it is unique, owing to its great expansion anteriorly. In respect to other cranial features, the Walruses differ from the Eared Seals in having no post-orb- ital processes, and in the mastoid processes being not separated from the auditory buUfe. The teeth are all single-rooted, and have in the permanent dentition no distinct crowns. On comparing the Odohamidw with the Fhocidcc, the differ- ences in general structure are found to be ftir greater than ob- tain between the Walruses and Eared Seals, especially in regard to the hind extremities ; these in the Phockhv being directed backward, and useless as organs of terrestrial locomotion.. Hence, in so far as the Odohcvnidw and Otariidw agree in limb- and skull-structure, they both similarly depart from the Phocine type. As already indicated in the synopsis of the suborder Pin- nipedia, the Phocidce differ far more from either the Odohaniidce and Otariidw than do these latter from each other. This differ- ence is especially emphasized in the skull ; for while the Odo- bwnida' and Otariidw agree in all important cranial characters, aside from the special features correlated with the immense enlargement of the upper canines in the former, they widely differ from the Phocidw. This is especially seen in the absence in the latter of ah alisphenoid canal, in the greatly swollen audi- tory bullie, the position of the carotid foramen, and the non- salient character of the mastoid processes. The few points in which the Wakuses differ in myology from other Pinnipeds, Dr. Murie states to be "the presence of a co- raco-brachialis, a flexor brevis mauus, a pronator quadratus, an opponeus pollicis, and a palmaris brevis," in the possession of which it differs both from Otaria and Phoca, but that in other respects they ' ' muscularly present general agreement." " C om- pared with the Seals \ Phoca ?] there are two extra peronei and a flexor brevis hallucis." " Though deficient in concha, the auri- cular muscles are remarkably large."* * Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1870, p. 545. GENEKAL OBSERVATIONS. 7 " Considermg the very different attitudes assumed by the Tri- checMdce and Otanidce as comj)ared with the FJiocidw,''^ he farther adds, " it is remarkable how very little deviation follows in the muscular development. The two former, as might be antici- pated, present a general agreement, especially in the mode of implantation of the muscles of the hind leg, and in this respect recede from the Seal, yet but slightly." * In respect to the position and character of the viscera, a gen- eral agreement has beeen noted vdth. those of the other Pinni- peds, and they present nothing that calls for special notice in the present connection. As Dr. Murie has stated, there is little appreciable difference exhibited throughout the Pinnii)eds in the construction of the alimentary canal. " It is simply that of a Carnivore, with, however, a moderate-sized caecum. The great glandular sui)erficies and correlated large IjTnphatics point to means of speedy and frequent digestion; and in the Walrus these apparatus are extraordinarily developed."! In accordance with the characters already given (p. 3), if any subdivision of the Pinnipeds into groups of higher rank than families is to be made, it seems evident that the Odohoenidce and Otariidce are to be collectively contrasted with the Phocidw; in other words, that to unite the Otariidce and Phocidcc as a group of co-ordinate rank with the Odohwnidw is to lose sight of the wide differences that separate the two first-named fami- lies, as well as of the many imi)ortant features shared in com- mon by the Odohcvnidce and Otariidce, by which both are trench- antly separated from the Phocidcc. Although the AValruses are now very generally recognized as constituting a natural family of the Pinnipeds, ranking co-ordi- nately with the Eared Seals on the one hand and with the Earless Seals on the other, the aftinities of few groups have been more diversely interpreted. As early as the thirteenth century, the author of the " Speculum Regale", — one of the earliest works re- lating to natural history, in which the Walnis is mentioned, — stated distinctly that the Walrus was an animal closely related, to the Seals ; and we find that nearly all natural-historj^ writers I>rior to the middle of the eighteenth century who referred to the Walruses, gave them the same association. It was the technical systematists of the last half of the eighteenth century who broke uj) this natural juxtaposition, and variously grouj)ed * Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond., vol. vii, 1872, p. 459. t Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond., vol. vii, 1872, p. 461. 8 FAMILY ODOB^NID^. tliein with forms with which they had no relationship. In the infancy of science, nothing was perhaps more natural than that animals should he classified in accordance with their mode of life, their habitat, or their external form, and we are hence not siu'prised to find that Eondelet, Gesner, Aldrovandus, Jonston, and other ijre-Linnsean writers, arranged the Pinnipeds, as well as the Sirenians and Cetaceans, with the fishes, or that other early writers should term all four-footed creatures "Quadru- peds," and divide them into "Land Quadrupeds" and "Quadru- peds of the Sea." While all marine animals were by some early wi'iters classified as "fishes,"* the Pinnipeds were much sooner disassociated from the true fishes than were the Cetaceans and Sirenians, the mammalian affinities of which were not at first recognized by even the great Linne himself, who, as late as the tenth edition of his " Systema Naturae" (1758), still left them in the class "P/sces." In view of the several excellent descriptions and A'ery credit- able figures of the Atlantic Walrus that appeared as early as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (a detailed account of which will be given later), it is surprising that the early sys- tematic writers should display such complete ignorance of some of the most obvious external characters of this animal, as was notably the case with Linne, Klein, Brisson, Erxleben, and Gmelin, who strangely associated the Walrus and the Manatee as members of the same genus, and grouped them with such diverse creatures as Sloths and Elephants. Linne, it is true, in the earlier editions of the " Systema Naturte," placed the Wal- rus with the Seals in the genus Phoca, in his order Fercp, — a near hit at their true affinities. Later, however, following probably Klein and Brisson, he fell into the grave error of removing theiu to nearly the most unnatural association possible. In this con- nection, it may prove not uninteresting to sketch, in brief out- line, the strange history of the classification of this singular group of fin-footed Carnivores. As akeady stated, Linne's first allocation of the group was the natural one. Brisson,t in 1756, led in the long role of error by| forming his third "order" of mammals of the Elei)hant, the *Most modern languages still retain relics of this ancient custom, as evinced, for example, in sucli Englisli words as shell-fish, cray-fish, ivhale- fishery, seal-fishery, etc., while hvalfish (Swedish), ivalvisch (Danish), wallfisch (German), etc., arc common vernacular names applied to Cetaceans. t Eegne Animal, 17.56, p. 48. GENERAL OBSEEVATIONS. 9 "VValrus, and tlie Manatee, the. two last named constituting his " lieiius Odohenus.'' Tliis was a marked retrocession from even the system of Ivlein,* of a few years' earlier date, who brought together as one family the Seals, Otters, Beaver, Walrus, and Manatee. Linne, in 17GG,t not only removed the Walrus from the genus Phoca, in which he had previously placed it, to Tri- chedt us, hnt also transferred it from his order JPera' to Bruta, which thus contained not only the Walrus, but such a diverse assemblage as Elephants, Sloths, and Anteaters. Linne's genus Tiichechu-s, as at this time constituted, was equivalent to Bris- son's genus '^ Odohenus.'''' Erxleben,| who recognized no higher groups than genera, placed the Walruses and Seals together im- mediately after the Carnivores. Schreber,§ at about the same date (1777), adopted a similar classification, the Walrus stand- ing next after the Elephant and preceding the Seals. Schre- ber's genus Trichechm contained also the Dugong and the Manatee. Gmelin,|| in 1788,folloM-ed the Linuieau arrangement of 17G6; the Wah-us, as usual from the time of Brisson to Gmeliu, standing next to the Elephant, and associated generic- ally with the Sirenians. Blumenbacli,tl from 1788 till as late even as 1825, still arranged the Walrus and the Sirenians in the genus Trichechns. In other respects, the Walrus appears with new associates, tlu^ genus Trichechus being united with Ornlthorliynchux to form a "iaiidly"(!) of his "order" Pahnata. The order PaJnuifa, as the name imphes, Avas composed of the web-footed mammals, and divided into three "families," namely, "A. Glires'^ (consisting of the genus Castor); '^B. Fercc''^ {Phoca and. Lutra); and ^^C. Bruta'''' {Ornithorhynchus and Trichechns). This is essentially also the arrangement proposed by Klein in 1751. The first stei) toward dismembering the unnatural conglo- meration known previously under the names Trichechus and ■Odohenus was made by Eetzius** in 1791, who divided the genus Trichechus of former authors into three genera, namely, Ifanatus, for the Manatee; RydromaUs, for Steller's Sea-Cow {= Rhytina Ilhger, 1811) ; and Trichechus, the last embrac- **Quacl. Disp. Brev. Hist. Nat., 17.^1, pp. 40, 92. t Syst, Nat., ed. 12, 1706, p. 49. t Syst. Reg. Aiiim., 1777, p. 593. ? Siiugetli., ii, [1776?], p. 260. II Syst. Nat.,i, 59. UHaudb. d. Naturgcsch., 1788, p. 142, aud later editions. ^*Kongl. Yeteiisk. Acad, uya Haudliiig., xv, 1794, pi>. 286-300. 10 FAMILY ODOBtENID^. iQg botli tlie Wali'us and the Diigong. While this was in the main a most important and progressive inuovation^ Eet- ziiis seems to have labored, hke several still earlier writers, under the impression that the Wakus, like the Dugong, had no hind feet. Ozeretskovskj-,* about a year later, and probably ignorant of Eetzius's paper, also placed, as curiously happened, the Walrus and the Dugong together in the genus Trichechus,. because he supposed the Dugong had hind feet, hke the Walrus ! These curious antithetical mistakes indicate how little was known by systematic writers about the structure of these ani- mals as late as the close of the last century. « The elder Cuvier, t in 1798, while retaining the Walrus and the Sirenians in the genus Trichechus, separated them from some of their former unnatural entanglements by again associating Tri- chechu.s and Phoca in his group "Mammiferes Amphibies," which he iDlaced between the " Solipedes " and " Mammiferes Cetaces." He divided this group into "I. Les Phoques (P/ioc«)" and "II. Les Morses {Trichecus, L.)"; the latter including "1. Tricheciis rosmariis-^; '-2. Trichecus dugong^^ ; "3. Trichecus manatus.'' As already shown, Retzius nearly disentangled the Walrus from the Sk'enians, leaving of the latter only the Dugong in the genus Trichechus. G. Fischer, | in 1803, completed the sep- aration by removing the Dugong and the Manatee, to which he gave the generic names respectively of P/rt/j/.s'/o»/»s {=ITaJicorc, niiger, 1811) and Oxystonms { = ManatHS,Jiet/Ans^ 1701), lea vnig only the W^akus in Trichechus. The genus Trichechus, hoAve\er, as first instituted by Artedi (1738) and Linne (1758), as will be shown later, did not relate in any way to the Walrus, l)eing applied exclusively to the Manatee. It was not till 1760 that the term was first made to cover both the then known Sirenians and the Wabus, although the embroilment of the two groups began with Brisson, ten years earlier. The Pinnipeds and Skenians, collecti^'ely considered, were first separated as distinct groups by lUiger § in 1811, who raised them to the rank of orders, they forming respectively his orders Finnipedia and Natantia. The former consisted of two genera, Phoca, embracing all the Seals, and Trichechus, containing only the Walruses. They were regarded as forming a single family,. * '2 * Nova Act. Acad. Petrop., xiii, 1796, pp. ;}71-37.5. tTabl. filament., p. 172. t Das National-Museum der Natiirgeschiclite, ii, 1803, j»p. 344-358. $ Prodromus Systematis Mammalium et Avium, 1811, pp. 138, 139 ; Abliaudl der Akad. Wisseuscli. zu Berlin, 1804-1811, (1815), pp. 39-159, jj«ssi»n. GENEKAL OBSERVATIONS. 11 equivalent in extent with the order Pinnijyedia. The propriety of the changes introduced by IQiger was not speedily recognized by contemporary writers 5 Cuvier, and many subsequent syste- matists for half a century, placing the Pinnii)eds among the Carnivora and the Sirenians among the Cetacea, with the rank respectively of families, the family Phocidcc embracing all the Pinnipeds. Dr. J. E. Gray, in 1821,* and again in 1825,t widely separated the Walruses from the Seals as a family, THcliecliidw, which he most strangely i)laced (together with the Sirenians) in the order Cete. Later, however, in 1837, f he reunited the Wal- ruses and the Seals into the single family FJwcidw, which he divided into five subfamiUes, TricliecMna being the third and central group, and embracing the genera Haliclioerus and TricJie- clius. This highly artificial classification he retained tiU 1866,^ when, following other systematists, he again raised the Wal- ruses to the rank of a distinct family. Latreille, § in 1825, not only treated the Pinnii)eds as an order {Amphihia), but separated the Walruses from the others as a €listinct family (Broca), the Seals forming his family Cyno- morpha. In 1829, F. Cuvier|| divided the Pinnipeds into the Seals proper ( " les Phoques proprement dits") , and the Walruses ( ' 'les Morses") . Brookes, ^ in 1828, again recognized the Walruses as forming a family (^'- Trichedddce sen Campodontia^^) distinct from the other Pinnipeds. Wagier,** in 1830, made the Walruses merely a genus of his order Ursi. Xilsson, tt in 1837, divided the Pin- nipeds into two sections, the second of which embraced not only Trieheclius, but also Halichcerus, Cystopliora., and Otaria. Tur- ner, Xt ill 1848, from a study of the skulls, separated the Pinni- peds into three natural grouijs, considered by him to hold the rank of subfamilies, namely: ArctoccpJialhia, embracing Otaria a.nd. Arctocephalus ; THchecina, consisting of the genus ^'Triclie- cus^^; and FJiocina, embracing all the other Seals. Gill, §§ in 1866, * "London Med. Repos., 1821, p. 302," aj)iid Gray, t Annals of Philosopliy, 2d ser., vol. x, 1825, p. 340. t Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. i, p. 583. § Fam. Eeg. Anim., p. 51. II Diet. Sei. Nat., t. lix, p. 367. U ''Cat. of Ms Anatom. and Zoiil. Mus., p. 36," aimd auct. **Naturl. Syst. Ampli., p. 27. tt Vetensk. Akad. Handl., 1837, 235; Wiegmann's Arch. f. Naturg., 1841,, p. 306(transl.). tt Proc. Zool. Soc. Lend., 1848, pp. 85, 88. v^\^ Proc. Essex Institute, a'oI. v, p. 7. 12 GENEEA OF THE FAMILY. "vras the next aiitlior who recognized the Wah'uses as forming a distinct family, which he termed Bosmaridce. In this step, he was immediately followed by Gray,* and by the present writer t in 1870. Lilljeborg, J in 1874, also accorded them family rank, as has been the custom of late with various other writers. Gill, § in 1872, raised them to the rank of a " superfamily " {Rosma- roidea), treating them as a grou]p co-ordinate in rank with his ^' PJiocoidea,^^ consisting of the Phocidcc and Otariidce. Their final resting-place in the natural system has now prob- ably been at last reached, the majority of modern systematists agreeing in according to them the position and rank of a family of the Finnipedia. To Ilhger seems due the credit of first dis- tinctly recognizing the real afiinities of both the Pinnipeds and Sirenians to other mammals, and with him originated the names by which these grouxDS are now commonly recognized, the chief modification of Illiger's arrangement being the reduction of the Pinni])edia from a distinct order to the rank of a suborder of the Ferce. GENERA. The family Odoha'nidcc {TrichecJiidcv Gray and Brookes = i?06- maridce Gill) includes, so far as at present known, only the existmg genus Odobmius (= Triclieclius of many authors, not of Artedi nor of Linne) and the two extinct genera Trichechodon and Alactherium, recently described from fossil remains found in Belgium. Alactherium,\\ while evidently referable to the Odo- hwrndce, differs quite strikingly from the existing ATabuses. The parts known are the left ramus of the lower jaw, the greater portion of the cranium (the facial portion and teeth only want- ing), several cervical vertebrne, a iDortion of the pelvis, and vari- ous bones of the extremities. The rami of the lower jaw are not anchylosed as in the Walrus, and the dentition is quite dif- ferent from that of Odohceims, that of the lower jaw being I. 2, C. 1, M. 4. The symphysis occupies nearly half of the length of the jaw. Van Beueden describes the skull as resembling in some characters the skull of the Otaries, and in others those of the Morses. The molar teeth he says could not be easily distin- guished from those of the Morse if they were found isolated. ISTo * Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d ser., vol. xviii, 1866, p. 229. tBull. Miis. Comp. ZooL, vol. ii, p. 21. t Fauna ofer Sveriges ocli Novges Ryggr., p. 674. § Arrangement of Families of Mammals, 1872, p. 69. II Van Beneden, Ann. Mus. d'Hist. Nat. de Belgique, i, 1877, p. 50. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 13 canines were found at Anvers, but Yan Benedeu is strongly of the opinion that the teeth described by Eay Lankester,* from the Eed Crag of England, in 1865, and named Trichechodon hux- lei/i, are those of his Alactherium cretsii. The other bones re- ferred to Alactherium bear a general resemblance to the corre- sponding bones of the existing Walrus, but indicate an animal of much larger size. The femur and some of the other bones bear also a resemblance to corresponding parts of the Otaries. A cast of the cerebral cavity shows that the brain was not much unlike that of the existing Walruses and Otaries, but AvLth the cerebel- lum smaller. Alactherium thus proves to have been a Pinniped of great size, closely related in' general features to the Walruses of to-day, bfit presenting features also characterizing the Eared Seals as well as others common to no other Pinniped. The genus Trichechodon of Yan Beneden (j^robably not = Trichechodon, Lankester, 18C5) is much less weU known, the only portion of the skull referred to it being part of a right ramus. The other bones beUeved to represent it are nine vertebrae, part of a pel- vis, a humerus, a femur, several metatarsal, metacarpal, and phalangeal bones, etc., and part of a tusk. Says Yan Beneden : " Une branche de maxillaire est tout ce que nous possedons de la tete. Les dents manquent, mais le bord est assez comx)let pour qu'on puisse bien juger de leurs caracteres par les alveoles. Kous pouvons, du reste, fort bien aussi apprecier la forme de cet OS, distinguer sa symphyse et sa brievete. " L'os est brise a son extremite anterieure, la S3^mj)hyse est fort courte et l'os n'a pas plus d'ei^aisseur siu* la ligne mediane que sur lo cote. Les alveoles sont comparativement fort grandes : les trois dernieres sont a pen pre semblables, I'anterieure est la plus petite. C'est I'inverse dans le Morse. La caniae devait etre fort grande. II n'y a qu'une seule alveole pour une dent inci- sive. "Le cor^s du maxillaire est remarquable pour sa courbure. Toute la partie post6rieure qui constitue la hranche du maxillaire manque. On voit sur la face externe trois trous mentonniers. " En comjDarant ce maxillaire a celui du IV^orse vivant, on voit que la symphyse est toute differente, qu'd. existe une grande alveole pour la dent canine et des traces d'une petite alveole ]}OUT une incisive qui restait iDrobablement cachee sous les gen- cives. Dans le Morse vivant, il n'y a pas de place pour une canine [grande] an maxillaire inferieur." * See beyond, p. 62. 14 THE GENUS ODOB^NUS. The otner bones are described as more or less resembling those of the Walrus, and do not much exceed them in size. Some of them are also said to closely resemble corresponding- parts of Alactherium. Van Beneden's descriptions and figures of the lower jaw fragment indicate features widely different from those of the corresponding part in the Walrus, especially in the shortness of the symphysis and in the curvatnre of the part represented, but above all in the number, relative size, and form of the alveoli, and particularly in the large size of that of the canine, which must have been almost as highly specialized as in the Sea Lions. That the tusks referred to it by' Van Beneden (those described by Lankester especially, as well as the fragment he himself fig- ures) belong here, there seems to be at least room for reason- able doubt.* The differences presented by the jaw fragment of Tricliechodon as compared with the corresponding part of Alactherium are even still more marked. The more obvious characters distinctive of the three genera of the Odohccnidcc, as at present known, may be briefly indicated as follows : Synojisis of the GeneraA 1. Odob^nus. — Eami of lower jaw firmly aucliylosed, even iu early life; symphysis short. Incisors (in atlnlt) 0; canines 1 — 1 ; molars 3 — 3, the last much smaller than the others. 2. Alactherium. — Eamiof lower jaw not anchylosed; symphysis very long. Incisors (in adult) 2—2; canines 1 — 1; molars 4 — 4, the last smaller than the preceding ones. 3. ''Trichechodon" (Van Beneden).— Rami of lower jaw (apparently) unanchylosed. Incisors 1 — 1?, very small; canines 1 — 1, highly spe- cialized; molars 4 — 4, the first small, the last three much larger and subequal. Genus ODOB^NUS, Unne. Odolenus, Linne, Syst. Nat., 1. 1735 (ed. F^e), 59 (applied exclusively to the Walrus in a generic sense). — Brisson, E^gne Anim., 1756, 48 (used strictly in a generic sense, but embracing "1. La Vache marine — OfZo&en)(s"=Wah-us; "2. Le Lamantine— J/«««f««." The characters given apply almost exclusively to the Walrus). * Van Beneden himself says : "M. Eay Lankaster avait vu en Angleterre diflKrentes grandes dents, provenant du crag et qui difteraient surtout entre elles par leurs dimensions. Nous croyons devoir rapporter ces dents an genre Alactherium.^^ Yet he cites " Trichechodon Mxlcjii Eay Lankaster" as a syno- nym of Trichechodon l-oiinincMi, described by himself much later ! In view of the uncertainties of the case, it is to be regretted that he did not propose a new generic as well as specific name for his Trichechodon honnincJcii. t With reference only to the lower jaw, the only known part, in case of the extinct types, readily susceptible of comparison. SYNONYMY AND NOMENCLATURE. 15 OdobcciiKS, Malmgrex, Ofvers. K. Vet. Akad. Forh. 1863, (1864), 130. Rosmams, Kleix, Quad. Disp. Brev. Hist. Nat., 1751, 40, 92 (applied in a gen- eric sense exclusively to the Wakus). — "Scopoli, Introd. Hist. Nat., 1777, —."—Gill ("ex Scopoli"), Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 7. Fhaca, LIXXE, Syst. Nat., i, 1758 (in part only). Trichechits, Lixxi5, Syst. Nat., 1766, 49 (in part only; not of Linnd, 1758, nor Artedi, 1738; based exclusively in both cases on Sirenians). Trichechtis (in part only), Erxlebex, Schreber, Gmelix, Blumexbach, Eetzius, and other early writers. Trkhechus, G. Fischer, Nat. Mns. Naturgescli. zu Paris, 1803, 344. — Illi- GER, Syst. Mam. et Av., 1811, 139. — Also of Gray, and most writers of the i^resent century. Odolenotheniim, Gratiolet, Bull. Soc. G6ol. de France, 2'' s6r., xv, 1858, 624 ( = " Tnchechus rosmams'' auct. — founded on a supposed fossil). Odontoiboenus, Suxdevall, Ofvers. K. Vet. Akad. Forh., 1859, 441. .? Trichechodon, Laxkester, Quarter. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond.,xxi, 1865,226,' 111. X, xi (based on fossil tusks from the Red Crag, England). The name Triclieclius^ for so long a time in general use ibr the AValruses, proves not, as long ago shown by Wiegmann,* von Baer, Miiller, Stannins, and later by other writers, to belong at all to these animals, but to the Manatee. The name Triclieclms originated with Artedi in 1738, in a x)osthnmous work f edited by Linne. The characters given were ^^ Denies i^lani in ntraque^ maxilla. Dorsum imi)enne. Fistula . . . . " The cita- tions under Tricliechus embrace no allusion to the Wakus, but relate wholly to Sirenians, or to the Manatee, as the latter was then known.| Artedi's description of the Manatee is quite full and explicit, but includes also characters and references belong- ing to the Dugong. § Trichechtis forms Artedi's " genus LI," and is placed in his "order V, PlayiurV (embracing the Ceta- ceans and Sn-enians, the other genera of this order being Phy- seter, Delj)Mnus, Balcena, 3Io)wdon, and Catodon), and is hence '^ Respecting the jiroper generic name of the Walruses, Wiegmann, in 1838, thus forcibly expressed his views : ' ' Die Gattung Odohemis [von Brisson,1756] hiitte beibehalten werdcu miissen, da der ganz abgeschmackte Name Triche- cJius gar nicht dem Walrosse, sondern iirspriinglich dem Mauati angehort, und von Artedi fiir diesen gebildet war, nm die bei einem Fische oder vielmehr Wallfische auftallende Behaarung zu bezeichnen." — Archiv fiir Natnrge- schichte, v. Jahrg., Band i, 1838, p. 116. t Ichthyologia, 1738, pars i, p. 74; pars iii, p. 79; pars iv, p. 109. In Arte- di's work the name is twice written Trichechtis and twice Thrichechus. On j). 74 of pars i, where it first occurs, its derivation is given, uamely : " Triclw- dius a ■&pi^ criiiis ^' ixdog piscis quia solus inter j>isces fere hirsutus sit." X The references in a general way appear to include all the Sirenians then known. vSE. g., "Dentium duo utrinqne eminent, longitudine spithamte crassitu pollicis." T 16 THE GENUS ODOB^NUS. equivalent to tlie Cefe of Liiine (Syst. Xat., ed. x, 1758). Linue in 1758, first introduced Artedi's genus Triehechu.Sj at wLicli time he placed in it only tlie Manatee, Dugong, and Steller's Sea Cow, leaving the Walruses still in Phoca. His diagnosis of the genus* embraced none of the distinctive characters of the Walrus. In 1766 (12th ed., Syst. :^^at.), he transferred the Wakus from Phoca to Triclieclms^ making it the first species of the genus. The diagnosis, though slightly changed ver- bally, has still little, if any, reference to the chaiactei'S of the Walruses, unless it be the phrase " Laniarii superiores solitarii,"t which is equally applicable to the Dugong, and is not at all the equivalent of "Phoca dentibus canines exsertis, " previously ascribed to the Walrus in former editions, Avhen the Walrusesv were i^laced under Phoca. Hence, to whatever the generic name Trichechus may be referable, it certainly is not peitinent to the Walrus. This being settled, the question arises, What generic name is of unquestionable applicability to the Walruses f Here the real difficulty in the case begins, for authors who admit the inapplicability of Trichechus to this group are not agreed as to what shaU be substituted for it. Scandinavian writers, as Mahngreu (1864) and LiUjeborg (1874), and Peters (1864) among German authorities, have for some yeais employed Odoham^is, a name apparently originating with Liune (as Odohe- nus) in 1735, and adopted in a generic sense by Brisson in 1756. A modified form of it [Odontohwnus) was also employed by Sun- devall in 1859. Gill, in 1866, and other recent American writers, have brought into some prominence the name BosmaruSj first used in a generic sense by Klein in 1751, by Scopoli in 1777, by Pallas I in 1831, andby Lamont§ in 1861; while the great mass of English and Continental ^uaiters stiU cling to Trichechus. The genera Odohenotherium and Trichechodon, based on fossil remains of the Walrus, have also been recently introduced into the literature of the subject, the former by Gratioletin 1858, and the latter by Lankester in 1865 ; but these (especially the first) *"Dentes primores nulla., laniarii superiores solitarii, inolares ex osse rugoso utrinquc inferius duo. Labia gemiata. Pedes posteriores coadunati in pinnam." — Syst. Xat, ed. x, i, 1758, p. 34. tThe second diagnosis of TrichecJms is, in full, as follows: "Dentes primo- res nulli utrinque. Laniarii superiores soUtarii. Molares ex osse rugoso utrinque ; inferius duo. Labia gcniinata. Pedes posteriores compedes co- adunati in pinnam." — Syst. Xat., ed. xii, 17G6, i, i). 48. tZool. Eosso-Asiat., vol. i, 269. § Seasons with the Sea-horses, pp. 141, 167. THE SPECIES OF THE GENUS. 17 appear to be referable to the existing Walruses, and of course become merely synonyms of earlier names. Consequently the choice evidently lies between Odobcenus and Rosmarus. Odobce- nus has sixteen years' priority over Rosmarus^ if we go back to the earliest introduction of these names into systematic nomen- clature. * It is true that Rosmarus was the earliest Latin name appUed to the Wakus, its use dating back to the middle of the sixteenth century, when it was employed interchangeably with 3£ors and Morsus by Olaus Magnus, Gesuer, Herberstain, and others, but only in a vernacular sense. Although used by Klein systematically in 1751, Gill adopted it from Scopoli, 1777, proba- bly because Klein was not a " binomialist." Linneused Odobcenus generically in 1735, as did also Brisson in 1756. The whole question turns on what shall be considered as the proper start- ing-point for generic nomenclature, about which opinion is still divided. If the early generic names of Artedi, Klein, Brisson, and Linne (prior to 1758) are admissible, as many high author- ities believe, then Odobwnus is unquestionably the only tenable generic name for the gToup in question, of which Rosmarus is a synonym, t SPECIES. The existing Walruses have been commonly considered as belonging to a single circumioolar species. A few authors have recognized two, or deemed the existence of two probable, while one appears to have admitted three. Altogether, however, not less than six or seven specific names have been given to the ex- isting species, besides several based on fossil remains of the Atlantic Walrus. In the present paper, the attempt will be made to establish the existence of two ; but before entering farther upon the discussion, it may not be out of place to glance briefly at the views previous authors have held respect- ing the point iu question. Pennant appears to have been the first to caU attention to the probable existence of more than a single species of Walrus, who, in 1792, in speaking of the Walrases of the Alaskan coast, says : " I entertain doubts whether these animals [of " Unalascha, Sandwich Sound, and Turnagain Eiver"] are of the same species * Odobcenus, Linn^, ''Digiti ant., post. 5, j)aLiiiipes. 'Ross Morsus. Dentes intermedii superiores longissimi." — Syst. Nat., 1735 (ed. F6e), 59. — Eosmariis, Klein, Quad. Disp. Brev. Hist. Nat., 1751, 40, 92. t In accordance with custom in similar cases, the name of the family be- comes Odobcenidce, — neither Eosmaridm nor TrichecMdce being tenable. Misc. Pub. l!^o. 12 2 18 THE GENUS ODOB^NUS. with tliose of the Gnlph of St. Laurence. The tusks of those of the Frozen Sea are much longer, more slender, and have a twist and inward curvature."* Shaw, a few years later, thought that the Walrus described and figured in the account of Cap- taiu Cook's last voyage, though perhaps not specifically distinct from those of the Arctic shores of Europe, should be regarded as belonging to a different variety.t He appears, however, to have based his opinion wholly on figures of the animals, and par- ticularly on those given by Cook and Jonston (the latter a copy of Gerrard's, at second-hand from De Laet). Ilhger, in 1811, formally recognized two sx)ecies in his " Ueberblick der Saug- thiere nach ihrer Yertheilung iiber die Welttheile,"| namely, TricJiechus rosmarus, occurring on the northern shores of (West- ern?) Asia, Europe, and North America, and T. ohesus, occur- ring on the northwestern shores of I^forth America and the ad- joining northeastern shores of Asia. While I do not find that he has anywhere given the distinctive characters of those two species, he, in the above-cited i)aper, also named the animal described and figured by Cook, T. divergens. F. Cuvier, in 1825, in describiug the dentition of the "Morses," says : " Ces dents ont ete decrites d'apres plusieurs tetes qui semblent avoir appartenu a deux especes, a en juger du moins par les proportions de quel- ques unes de leurs parties, et non seulement par I'^tendue de leurs defenses, caractere qui avait d6ja fait soui^gonner a Shaw * Arctic Zoology, vol. i, 1792, pp. 170, 171. tHe says: "An excellent representation is also given in pi. 52 of the last voyage of our illustrious navigator, Captain Cook. It is easy to see, liowever, a remarkable diiference between the tusks of tMs last, and tliose of the former kind figured in Jonston, and it clearly appears, that though this difference is not such as to justify our considering them as two distinct species, yet it obliges us to remark them as varieties ; and it should seem, that, in the regions then visited by Captain Cook, viz. the icy coasts of the American continent, in lat. 70, the Walrus is fomid with tusks much longer, thinner, and far more sharp-pointed, in jiroiiortiou, than the common Wal- rus ; and they have a slight inclination to a subspiral twist : there is also a difference in the position of the tusks in the two animals ; those of the variety figured in Captain Cook's voyage curving inwards in such a manner as nearly to meet at the points, while those of the former divarica.te. These differences aj)pear very striking on collating different heads of these ani- mals. Something may, however, be allowed to the different stages of growth as well as to the difference of sex. In order that these differences may be the more clearly understood, we have figured both varieties on the annexed plates ^'—General Zoology, vol. i, 1800, pp. 236, 237, pis. 68, 68*. t Abhandl. der Akad. der Wissensch. zu Berlin, 1804-1811, p. 64. Read before the Academy Feb. 28, 1811, but apparently not published till 1815. THE SPECIES OF THE GENUS. 19 I'existeuce cle deux esp^ces de morses."* Freiaery, in 1831, having before liim a series of eleven skulls, distinguished three species, namely, Tricheehus rosmartis, T. longidens, and T. cooM. The first {T. rosmarus) was principally characterized by having diverging tusks, about as long as the length of the whole head, faintly grooved on the outside, and with two distinct grooves on the inside ; by the possession of five back teeth, the last two very small ; by the lower edge of the nasal opening being but little produced ; by the occipital crest being strongly developed ; and by the great specific gravity of the bones of the skull. The second [T. longidens) was principally characterized by the tusks equalling or exceeding in length two-thu'ds of the length of the skull, with a single deep groove on the inner side ; by having only four back teeth, the last one small; a smaller develop- ment of the occipital crest {except in old animals !) ; and a lighter specific gravity of the bones. The third (T. cooM), considered as a doubtful species, was based wholly on Shaw's plate 68 (from Cook), already noticed, and hence is the same as Illiger's T. divergens. Wiegmann, von Baer, Stannius, and most subsequent writers, have properly regarded Fremery's characters of his T. rosmarus and T. longidens as based merely on ordinary indi- vidual or sexual differences. Wiegmann, and also Temminck, according to Fremery, believed the female to be distinguishable from the male by its longer and thinner tusks, with the crests and ridges of the skidl less developed, while other differences, as the relative prominence of the bony lower edge of the nasal opening, were differences characteristic merely of different indi- viduals.t Stannius, however, in 1842, after passing in review * Dents des Mammif6res, p. 235. t Wiegmann, in commenting upon Fremery's supposed specific differences, observes as follows respecting probable sexual and individual differencea in tbe tusks and skulls of Walruses: "Hr. Fremery fiibrt an, dass Hr. Temminck einen (nacli Deutlicbkeit der Nahte) nock jungen Sckiidel des Eeicksmuseums mit ausgczeichnet langen diinnen Stosszakuen fiir den eines Weibckens gekalten kabe. Ick erinnere mick auck von Gronlands- fakrern gekort zu kaben, dass sick das Weibcken *durck langere, diinnere, dass Manncken durck kurzere, aber viel dickere Stosszakne auszeickne." Tke alleged difference in tke specific gravity of tke bones of tke skull ke be- lieves also to be a sexual feature, as possibly also tke difference in tke num- ber of molar teetk. Eespecting tke prominence of tke lower border of tke nasal opening ke says: "Die mekr oder minder starke HervoiTagung des unteren Eandes der Nasenoffhirng kann ick dagegen nur fiir erne indi^dduelle Versckiedenkeit kalten, da ick sie bei einem Sckadel mit kurzen Stoss- zaknen, der die iibrigen vom Verf. kervorgekobenen Merkmale besitzt, sekr stark, und umgekekrtbei einem alten Sckadel mit langen Stossziiknen kaum merkkck finde." — Archiv fiir Naturgesch., 1838, pp. 128, 129. 20 THE GENUS ODOB^NUS. the characters assigned by Fremery as distinctive of several species, and after mentioning at length other features of varia- tion observed by him in a considerable series of skulls, describ- ing several of his specimens in detail, and arriving at the con- clusion that up to that time aU the supposed species of Walrus constituted really but a single species, added another, under the appropriate name Trichechus duMus. This with subsequent authors has shared the fate of Fremery's species,* being consid- ered as based merely on individual variation. As will be more fuUy noticed later, two nominal species have been founded on the fossil remains of the Walrus, namely, Tri- cliechus mrginiamis, DeKay, 1842, and Odobenotherium larte- tianum of Gratiolet, the former based on remains from Accomac County, Virginia, and the latter on remains from near Paris, France. Lankester, in 1865, added stiU another, based on tusks from the Eed Crag of England, under the name Triclie- cliodon Imxleyi. Dr. Leidy, in 1860, in a paper on fossil remains of the Wal- rus from the eastern coast of the United States, again noticed the differences in the size, length, and curvature of the tusks in specimens from the northwest coast of North America and the common Walrus of the ISTorth Atlantic. He says : "In the course of the i^receding investigations [referring to previous portions of his paper], I was led to examine a specimen, in the cabinet of the Academy of Natural Sciences [of Philadelphia], consisting of the stuffed skin of a portion of the head envelop- ing the jaws of a species of Walrus apparently differing from the true Triclieciis rosmarus^ of which, as characteristic, I have viewed the figures of the skull and skeletons as given by Dau- benton, Cuvier, and De Blainville. The specimen was pre- sented by Sandwith Drinker, Esq., of Canton, China, and was probably derived from the Asiatic shore of the Arctic Ocean. From the worn condition of the upjjer incisor and molars, it appears to have belonged to an old indi\ddual ; and in the case of the lower jaw, the teeth appear to have been entirely worn out. The tusks are very much larger and are narrower than in * Giebel, in 1855, referred to Freraery's and Stanuius's species as still need- ing confirmation : " Die von Fremery nacli der Bescliaffenheit der Ziiluie tuiterscMedenen Arten, Tr. longidens uixd. Tr. CooM; sind liingst als unhaltbar erkannt worden und auch. die von Stannius anf Schadeldifferenzen begriin- dete Art, Tr. du¥ms, entbehrt nocli der weitern Bestiitigung." — Saugethiere, p. 128, footnote. THE SPECIES OF THE GENUS. 21 the T. rosmarus, and they curve downward, outward, and in- ward, instead of continually diverging as in this species. At their emergence from the- alveoli the tusks are two and three- quarter inches apart, near the middle five and a quarter inches, and at their tips only one inch. Their length is twenty-two inches and their diameter at the alveolar border antero-x)osteri- orlj two and a quarter inches, and transversely one and a half inches. Towards their lower part they are twisted from within, forwards and outwardly." After quoting Pennant's remark (ah-eady given, see p. 17) about similar differences noted by him, he adds that "the superior incisor and molar teeth are also very much smaller than in the fossils of T. rosmarus,''^ and he gives measurements showing this difference. He then says : ' ' The hairs of the upxDcr lip of the T. rosmarus are stated by Shaw, to be about three inches long, and almost equal to a straw in diameter.* In the specimen under consideration, the hairs of the moustache are stiff-pointed spines, not more than one line long at the upper part of the lip, and they gradually increase in size until at the lower and outer part of the lip they are about one inch in length." He further adds, in the same connection : " Since presenting the above commimication to the Society, the Academy has received from Mr. Drinker, of Canton, an entire specimen of the Walrus from IsTorthern Asia. In this individual, which measures in a straight line eight feet from the nose to the tail, the tusks are ten inches long, and diverge fr'om their alveoli to the tips, where they are five and a half inches apart, but they are slender, as in the stuffed head above mentioned, and appear as if they would ultimately have obtained the same length and dii-ection. Per- haps the peculiarities noticed may prove to be of a sexual char- acter."! As will be shown later, we have here the more prominent ex- ternal differences characterizing the two species of Walrus for the first time explicitly stated from direct observation of speci- mens. If Dr. Leidy had had at that time good skulls of the two species for comj)arison, the other important cranial differ- ences (noted beyond) could not have escaped him, and he per- haps would have been led to formally recognize the Pacific Wal- rus as a species distinct from the Atlantic Wafrus. I have met with nothing further touching this subject prior to Mr. H. W. EUiott's report on the Seal Islands of Alaska, * "Shaw's Zoology, vol. i, pt. i, p. 234." tTraus. Ainer. Phil. Soc. Phila., vol. xi; pi). 85, 86. 22 THE GENUS ODOBiENUS. publislied in 1873, in wliicb, under the lieading "The Walrus of Bering Sea, (Eosmarus arcticus) " lie says: — "I Avrite 'the Walrus of Bering Sca^, because this animal is quite distinct from the Walrus of the l!^orth Atlantic and Greenland, differing from it specifically in a very striking manner, by its greater size and semi-hairless skin."* This is all he says, however, respect- ing their differences, no reference being made to the really dis- tinctive features. Thus the matter rested tUl, in 187G, Gill for- mally recognized two species in his " List of the Principal Use- fal or Injurious Mammals," t in a catalogiie of a " Collection to Illustrate the Animal Eesources of the United States" in the ex- hibit of the National Museum at the International Exhibition of 1876, held in Philadelphia. This is merely a nominal list, in which appears, under " i^osmarid^ce," the following, which I here ftUly and literally transcribe : Eosmarus obesl\s, (Illiger,) Gill. The [Atlantic] Walrus. Atlantic Coast. EOSJIARUS COOKII, (Fremery,) Gill. TLe [Pacific] Walrus. Pacific Coast. Here is simply a nominal recognition of two species without exiDressed reasons therefor. In an article on the EosmaridWj published in 1877, Dr. Gill again says : " Two species apjiear to exist — one {R. obesus) inhabiting the northern Atlantic, and the other {R. Cookii) the northern Pacific." % Van Beneden, on the other liand, in 1877, distinctly affirms his disbelief in the existence of two species. In referring to the subject he says : " IlTous ne croyons pas que les Morses du de- troit de Behring different specifiquement de ceux de la mer de Baffin on de la Nouvelle-Zemble, et c'est a tout, a notre avis, que Fremery a essaye de les repartir en especes distinctes d'apres les modifications de leurs dents." He further adds the testimony of von Baer as follows : " Von Baer s'est occup6 en 1835 de cette question a 1' Academic de St. P^tersbourg et Pil- lustre naturahste m'ecrivait, pen de temps avant sa mort, au sujet de la difference legere des Morses, a I'Est et a I'Ouest de * Eeport on the Prybilov Group or Seal Islands of Alaska, 1873 (not paged). Also, Eeport on the Condition of Affairs in Alaska, 1875, p. 160. tThis "List" is anonymous, and is hence, perhaps, not properly quotable in this connection, although its authorship is known to the present "nriter. t Johnson's New Universal Cyclopaedia, vol. iii, 1877, p. 1725. SYNONYMY. 23 la iner Glaciale, qii'il regardait les differences comme des mo- difications locales*. Ce n'est pas l'a^ds de Heniy W. Elliot, qui considere le Morse du nord dii Pacifique comme un animal distinct." t In anotlier connection he refers to tlie subject as follows : " n y a des auteurs qui pensent que le Morse du Nord Pacifique est assez different de celui du Greenland, pour en faire une espece distincte. i^ous ne partageons pas cet avis. Les modifications sont assez peu importantes et nous croyons l^ouvoir le mettre sur le comi3te de variations locales." | ODOB^IS'US EOSMAETJS, Malmgren. Atlantic Walrus. "Eosmarus, sen Morsus Norvegicus, Olaus Magnus, Hist, de Gent. Sept. 1555, 757 (figure) " ; also later editions. Eosmarus, Gesner, Hist. Anim. Aqnat., 1558, 249; also later editions. Eosmarus, Wallross, JoxsTOX, Hist. Nat. de Piscibus et Cetis, 1649, 727, pi. xKv (two lower figures ; upper one from Gesner, the lower from De Laet) ; also later editions. — " Klein, Eeg. Anim., 1754, 67." — ''Sco- POLi, Hist. Nat., 1777, — ." — Zimmermann, Spec. Zool. Geograph. Quad, etc., 1777, 330. Equus mar'mus et Hippopotamus falso dictus, Morse or Sea Horse, Rat, Syn., 1695, 191. WaUross, Martens, Spitzb., 1675, 78, pi. P, fig. b. — Egede, Besclir. imd Natur- Gesch. Gronland, 1742, 54 ; 1763, lOG ; Descrix>. et Hist. Nat. du Groenl., 1765, 61 (with a figure).— Crantz, Hist, von Gronl., 1765, 165; Englislied., 1768, 125.— Goethe, "Morphol., 1, 1817, 211"; Act. Acad. Cses. Leop. Carol., xv, i, 1831, 8, j)l. iv (dentition, etc.). — VonBaer, M^m. Acad. St. PiStersb. Matb. etc., vi^ b6v., ii, 1835, 199 (blood- vessels of limbs). — Jaeger, Miiller's Arch, fiir Anat., 1844, 70 (den- tition— Labrador specimens). Walross, Martens, Zoologische Garten, xi, 1870, 283 (etymology). Wallrus sen Mors, Rutsch, Theatr. Animal., 1718, 159, pi. xHv (figure same as Jongton's). Walrus, Worm, Mus. Worm., 1655, 289 (fig. from De Laet). — Wyman, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., iii, 1850, 242 (relation to Pachyderms). — Lea, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1854, 265 (use of the skin). — Wheat- land, Proc. Essex Institute, 1, 1854, 62 (remarks on a skull). — Sonntag, Nar. Grinnell Expl. Exp. 1857, 113 (woodcut — group of Walruses). — Murray, Geogr. Distr. Mam., 1866, 128, map, xxviii* (distribution; in part). — Hayes, Open Polar Sea, 1867, 404 (hunt- ing).— Pacicard, Bull. Essex Institute, i, 1869, 137 (former exist- ence in Gulf of St. Lawrence). — Atwood, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat, * "Les Morses des cotes de Sib^rie ou de I'est de I'Asie ont les dents cani- nes plus fortes que les Morses de Spitzberg et de Greenland, me disait-il dans une lettre " t Ann. du Mus. Roy. d'Hist. Nat. Belgique, pt. 1, 1877, 45. tibid., p. 17. 24 ODOBiENUS EOSMAEUS — ATLANTIC AVALEUS. Hist., xiii, 1870, 220 (remarks on a skull from the Gulf of St. Law- rence).— Turner, Joum. Anat. and Phys., v, 1870, 115 (relations of pericardium). — ExsTf, Danish. Greenland, 1877, 126 (distribution), 248, 252, 272 (chase). Arctic Walrus, Pennant, Synop. Quad., 1781, 335; Arctic Zool., 2d cd., i, 1792, 168 (in part). Fossil Walrus, Barton, London Phil. Mag., xxxii, 1805, 98 (no locality). — Mitchell,' Smith, & Cooper, Ann. New York Lye. Nat. Hist., ii, 1828, 271 (fossil, Accomac Co., Va. — doubtfully referred to the exist- ing species) ; Edinb. New Phil. Journ., v, 1828, 325 (abstract of the last). — Harlan, Edinb. New Phil. Journ., xvii, 1834, 360; Trans. Geol. Soc. Penn., i, 1835, 75; Med. and Phys. Eesearches, 1835, 277 (same specimen). — Lyell & Owen, Proc. Lond. Geol. Soc, iv, 1843, 32 (fossil, Martha's Vineyard, Mass.); Amer. Joum. Sci. and Arts, xM, 1843, 319 (same). La Vache marine, Brisson, E^g. Anim., 1756, 48. ^'Morsch, Gmelin, Eeise durch Eussland, iii, 1751, 165. Morse on Vache marine, Bueeon, Hist. Nat., xiii, 1765, 358, j)l. liv (animal). — Daubenton, Buffon's Hist. Nat., xiii, 1765, 415, pi. Iv (skull). — HOL- landre, Abr6g6 d'Hist. Nat. des Quad. Vivip., i, 1790, pi. xii, fig. 3. — F. CuviER, Diet, des Sci. Nat., xxxiii, 1816, 27; Dents des Mam., 1825, 233, pi. xcv. Morse, Huet, Coll. de Mam. du Mus. d'Hist. Nat., 1808, 59, pi. liii (fig. from Buffon). Sea Cow, Shuldhaivi, Phil. Trans., Ixv, 1775, 249. Phoca, BONNANio, EerumNat. Hist., i, (no date), 159, pi. xxxix, fig. 27 (a poor representation of De Laet's figure, with the young one omitted). Phoca rosmarns, Lin:n:e, Syst. Nat., i, 1758, 38. Tricliechus rosmarus, Linne, Syst. Nat., i, 1766, 49. — MUller, Prod. Zool. Dan., i, 1776, 1. — Schreber, Siiugeth., ii, 1775, 262, pi. Ixxix (from Buffon).— ZiMMERJiANN, Geogr. Geschichte, i, 1778, 299; ii, 1780, 424.— Fabricius, Fauna Grcenl., 1780, 4.— Erxleben, Syst. Eeg. Anim., 1787, 593.— Gsielin, Syst. Nat., i, 1788, 59.— Shaw, Nat. Miscel., 1791, pi. cclxxvi; Gen. Zool., i, 1800, 234 (in part), fig. 68, (from Jonston). — Blujienbach, Handb. derNaturgesch., 1788, 142; 1821, 136; 1825, 112; Abbild. natur. Gegenst., 1796^1810, No. 15, text and plate (from Jonston). — Donndorff, Zool. Beytriige, 1792, 124. — Eetzius, Kong. Vet. Akad. Nya Handl., xv, 1794, 391 ; Fauna Sue- ciciE, 1800, 48. — OzERETSKOVSicr, Nov. Act. Acad. Sci. Imp. Petrop., xiii, (1796), 1802, 371.— Barton, Phil. Mag., xxxii, 1805, 98 (fos- sil; locality not stated). — G. Cuvier, Tableau ^Mment., 1798, 172; Legons d'Anat. Comp., 1800-1805, — ; 2^ 6d., , — ; 3^ 6d., 1837, 207, 257, 293, 329, 398, 472; llhg. Anim., i, 1817, 168; i, 1829, 171; Ossem. Foss., iv, 280; 3« 6d., v, 1« ptie., 1825, 234; v, 2^ ptie., 521, pi. xxxiii (osteology). — Illiger, Prod. Syst. Mam. et Av., 1811, 139 ; Abhandl. der Berliner Akad. (1804-1811), 1815, 56, 61, 64, 68, 75 (dis- tribution).— Desmarest, Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., xxi, 1818, 390; Mam., 1820, 253.— Scoresby, Account Arct. Eegions, i, 1820, 502 (gen- eral history). — ' ' Kerstern, Capitis Trichechi Eosmari Descrip. Ost., 1821,— ."— SCARTH, Edinb. Phil. Journ., ii, 1825, 233 (Orkney); Jar- dine's Nat. Library, Mam., vii, 1838, 219, pi. xx (original figure SYNONYMY. 25 of animal).— Haelan, Faun. Amer., 1825, 114 ; Edinb. New Phil, Joum., xvii, 1834, 360 (fossil) ; Trans. Geol. Soc. Penn., i, 1835, 72 (same) ; Med. and Pliys. Eepos., 1835, 277 (same).— Godjian, Amer. Nat. ffist., i, 1826, 354.— Schestz, Naturg. der Siiugetli., 1827, 169, pi. Ixv (two figures — " Abbildung nacli Blumeubacb und Sclimid")-- Lesson, Man; deMam., 1827, 208.— Eoss, App. Parry's Fourtb Voy., 1828, 192; App. Eoss's Second Voy., 1835, xxi.— Flejitng, Brit. Anim., 1828, 18.— Eapp, Naturw. Abbandl. Wiirtemb., ii, 1828, 107 (denti- tion) ; ''BuU. Sci. Nat., xvii, 1829, 280" (abstract).— Fischer, Synop. Mam., 1829, 243.— Guerik-M^neville, Icon, du Efegne Anim. de G. Cuvier, Mam., 1829-1838, 19, pi. xix, fig. 5 (animal).— Fremert, Bijdragtot de natuurk, Wetenscb., vii, 1831, 384.— Delongchajips, M^m. Soc. Linn, de Normandie, v, 1835, 101 (dentition).- Wil- son, Nat. Hist. Quad, and Wbales, 1837, 145, pi. cccxxxiv, fig. 2 (animal); Encycl. Brit., 7tb ed., xiv, 125.— Bell, Brit. Quad., 1837, 258 (animal and skull; original figures).— Von Baer, M€m. Acad. St. P6tersb. Math., etc., 6« s6r., iv, 1838, 97, pi. xlvu (distribu- tion).—Wiegmann, Arch, fiir Naturgescb., 1838, 113 (dentition).— Hamilton, Jard. Nat. Libr., Mam., viii, 1839, 103, pi. i (animal, and woodcut of skull,— original figure).— Eichardson, Zool. Beecbey's Voy., 1839, 6.— Blalnville, Ost6ograpbie, DesPboques, 1840-51, 19, pi. i (skeleton), pi. iv (skull).— DeKay, Nat. Hist. New York, Zool., i, 1842, 56. — Zimmermann, Jabrb. fiir Mineral., 1845, 73. — Wagner, Scbreber's Siiugetb., vii, 1846, 84, pi. Ixxix.— Giebel, FaimaderVorwelt, 1847, 222 (fossil) ; Saugetb., 1855, 128; Odontog., 1855, 82, pi. xxxvi, fig. 5 (dentition).— Nilsson, Skand. Faun., 1847, 318.— Gervais, Zool. et Pal. Frangais, i, 1848-52, 140.— Gray, Cat. Seals in Brit. Mus., 1850, 32; Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1853, 112 (on attitudes and figures) : Cat. Seals and Wbales, 1836, 36, 367.— Owen, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1853, 103 (anat. and dentition) ; Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., xv, 1855, 226 (fr«m tbe foregoing) ; Cat. Osteol. CoU. Mus. CoUege Surg., 1853, 631 (skeleton); Encycl. Brit., xvi, 1854, 463, fig. 112 (skull) ; Odontograpby, 1854, 510, pi. cxxxii, fig. 8 (dentition); Orr's Circle of tbe Sciences, Zool., i, 1854, 230, fig. 27 (skeleton) ; Comp. Anat. and Pbys. Vertebrates, ii, 1866, 400, 498, 507 ; iii, 1868, 338, 524, 780.— Blasius, Faun. Wirb. Deutscbl., i, 1857, 262, figs. 148-150 (skull).— Van der Hoeven, Handb. Zool. Engl. Ed. ii, 1858, 697. — Von Schrenck, Eeisen im Amur-Lande, i, 1859, 179 (in part only). — Leidy, Trans. Amer. Pbil. Soc. Pbila., xi, 1860, pis. iv, V (in ijart) ; Joum. Acad. Nat. Sci. Pbila., 2d ser., vii, 1869, 416.— Wolf & Sclater, Zool. Sketches, i, 1861, No. 16.— Gerrard, Cat. Bones Mam. Brit. Mus., 1862, 145. — Newton, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1864, 499. — Sclater & Bartlett, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1867, 818, 819.— VonMiddendorfe, Sibirisclie Eeise, iv, 1867, 934 (in part only). — Brown, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, 335, 427 (habits and distribution) ; Man. Nat. Hist. Greenland, 1875, 35. — MuRiE, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, 67 (report on cause of death of speci- men in Zool. Gard., Loud.); 1870, .581; Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond., -^ii, pt. vi, 1871, 411, pis. li-lv (anatomy). — Gilpin, Proc. and Trans. Nova Scotia Inst. Nat. Sci., ii, pt. 3, 1870, 123 (with aplate).— PlEEKS, Zo6I- 26 ODOB^NUS EOSMARUS — ATLANTIC WALRUS. ogist, 1871, 2550 (St. George's Bay, Newfoundlaud). — Heuglin, Eei- sen uacli demNordpolarmeer, iii, 1874, 43 (habits and distribution). — Defrance, Bull. Soc. G6ol., 3« s^r., ii, 1874, 164 (fossil, France). — Gulliver, Proc. Zooi. Soc. Lond., 1874, 580 (size of blood-corpus- cles).— Feildex, ZoiJlogist, 3d ser., i, 1877, 3C0 (distribution and food). — Vak Beneden, Ann. Mus. Roy. d'.Hist. Nat. Belgique, i, 1877, 39 (distribution, general habits, and fossil remains). — Rink, Danish Greenland, its People and its. Products, 1877, 126. Tricheclms longidens, Fremery, Bijdrag tot deNatuurk. Wetensch., vi, 1831, 384. Tricheclms virginianus, DeKat, Nat. Hist. New York, Zool., 1, 1842, 56, pi. xix, figs. 1, a, 1) (fossil, Accomac Co., Va.). ? Triclicchus duUiis, Stannius, Miiller's Arch, fiir Anat., 1842, 407 (without locality). Bosmarus arciicus, Lilljeborg, Fauna ofvers Sveriges och Norges Ryggr., 1874, 674. Bosmarus tricheclms, Lamont, Seasons with the Sea-horses, 1861, 141, 167 (two plates). — Gill, Johnson's New Univ. Cyclop., iii, 1877, 633. Bosmarus ohesiis, Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 13 (in part only); Interna- tional Exhib. 1876, Anim. Resources U. S., No. 2, 1876, 4 (Atlantic Walrus; no description); Johnson's New Univ. CycL, iii, 1877, 1725.— Packard, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., x, 1866, 271; Mem. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., i, 1867, 246 (fossil). — Leidy, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., viii, 1877, 214, pi. xxx, fig. 6 (fossil, South Carolina). Odolenotherium lartetianum, Gratiolet, Bull. Soc. G^ol. de France, 2« s6r., XV, 1858, 624, pi. v (fossil, near Paris, France). Odontohcenus rosmarus, Sundevall, Ofver. K. Vet. Akad. Forh., 1859, 441 ; Zeitsch. Gesammt. Naturw. Halle, xv, 1860, 270. Odolcenus rosmarus, Malmgren, Ofver. K. Vet. Akad. Forh. 1863, (1864), 130 (food and habits), 505, pi. vii (dentition) ; Wiegmann's Archiv f. Naturgeschichte, 1864, 67 (translated from Ofvers. K. Vet. Akad. Forh., 1863, 130 et seq.).— Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1864, 685, 1)1. (dentition) ; Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., (3), xv, 1865, 355 (abstract). — Rink, Danish Greenland, 1877, 430. ? Trichecodon huxleyi, Lankester, Quarter. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., xxi, 1865, 226, pis. X, xi (fossil; Red Crag, England). f Triclicchus manatus, Fabricius, Fauna Grcenl., not Bhytina gigas; see Brown, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, 357, 358. fPhocavrsina, Fabricius, Fauna Grcenl., not Callorhinus ursinus ; seeBEOWN, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, 357, 348. Morse; Vache marine; Cheval marine ; Bete d, la grande dent (French). Bos marinus, RUYSCH, 1. c. Mvalross (Swedish and Danish). Havhesi; Hvalrmis (Norwegian). Morslc (Lapj)). Wallross; Me&rpftrd (German). Walrus; Sea Cow; Sea Horse (English). ' External Characters. — As regards general fornij tlie head, in comparison witli the size of the body, is rather small, squar- EXTERNAL CHAEACTERS. 27 ish iu outline, but mucli longer tlian broad, witb the muzzle abruptly truncated and somewhat bilobed by the depression surrounding the nasal opening. The lower jaw is pointed and narrow anteriorly. The upper lip is heavily armed with thick, strong, pellucid bristles. The nostrils are somewhat crescentic in shape, placed vertically, with the upj)er i^art more expanded than the lower, and hence bear some resemblance to two com- mas placed with their convex surfaces toward each other. The eyes are situated rather high up, about midway between the muzzle and the occiput. The ear is wholly destitute of a pinna, forming merely an orifice on the side of the head in a deep fold of the skin. The most prominent facial character in the adults is, of course, the long protruding upper canines, which extend 12 to 15 or more inches beyond the rictus. The neck is short, being only about as Ipng as the head ; it gradually thickens toward the body, into which it insensibly merges. The body is exceedingly thick and heavy, presenting every where a* rounded outline, and attaining its greatest circumference at the shoulders, whence it gradually tapers i)osteriorly. The tail is scarcely, if at all, visible, being enclosed within the teguments of the body. The fore limbs are free only from the elbow ; as in the Pinnipeds generally, they are greatly expanded, flat, and somewhat fin- like, but with much more freedom of motion than is the case in the Fhocidce. They are armed with five small flat nails, placed at considerable distance from the end of the cartilaginous toe- flap. The first or inner digit is slightly the longest, the others being each successively a little shorter tiU the fifth, which nearly equals the first. The hind limb is enclosed within the tegu- ments of the body nearly to the heel ; the free portion when expanded is fan-shaped, but when closed the sides are nearly I)araUel. The first and fifth digits are considerably longer and larger than the middle ones, the fifth being also rather larger than the first. They are all provided with smaU nails, placed at some distance from the end of the toe-flap. The soles of both fore and hind extremities are bare, rough, and " warty," and the dorsal surface of the digits as far as the proximal phalanges is also devoid of hair. In the young and middle-aged, the body is rather thickly covered with short hak, which, however, is thinner and shorter on the ventral surface of the neck and body and on the limbs than elsewhere. It is everywhere of a yellow- ish-brown color, except on the belly and at the base of the flip- pers, where it x)asses into dark reddish-brown or chestnut. The 28 ODOB^NUS ROSMAEUS ATLANTIC WALEUS. bristles are pale yellow or liglit yellowish horn-color. In old animals, the hair becomes more scanty, and often gives place to nearly bare scarred patches, frequently of considerable area. Yery old individuals sometimes become almost naked, i>resent- ing the same appearance that has been so often observed among very old males of the Alaskan Wab'us. The skin is everywhere more or less wrinkled and thrown into folds, especially over the shoulders, where the folds are deep and heavy. The average length of four adult males examined is about 10| feet, varying from 9J to 11 feet. Authors, hoAvever, commonly give rather larger dimensions, and a length of twelve feet is said to be not infrequently attained. The largest bristles vary in length from 2.25 to 2.75 inches. From Dr. Murie's paper on the general anatomy of a young indi\ndual I add a few further details. Dr. Murie describes the muzzle as callable of great mobility, and the mystacial bristles as curving in different directions according to the muscular tension of the parts to which they are attached. "When the nostrils are relaxed they drop forwards and the bristles inwards. At such times the nares are apart fully 1^ inch ; but when they are con- tracted a septum 0.6 of an inch wide only divides them. Occa- sionally, when ahve, I observed the animal retract its upper lip, as a dog would in snarling; and this caused a deep fiirrow in the facial region. This change in the features gives quite a different exjDression to the physiognomy When seen in front and from above, the face has a most curious expression, recalling to mind that of the cranium of an Elephant rather than the Walrus's ally Otaria. The auricular region then acquires a prominent aspect, as do the orbits. The great breadth of the muzzle also comes out better. The face is entirely hairy to the roots of the bristles On the lower surface of the muzzle and chin, the upper lij) passes one inch beyond the lower hp, and the snout, with its adpressed bristles, one or two inches beyond that. A portion of the upper rosy lip, in this view, is seen thrust upwards or x)uckered outside the canines. These upper canine teeth, which grow to massive tusks in the adult and aged Wal- ruses, in ours had little more than protruded beyond the mandib- ular hps. The chin and anterior portion of the throat are xery haiiy; this diminishes backwards ; and on the throat the almost hairless skin is thrown into longitudinal and parallel narrowish flat-topped rugte." * * Traus. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1872, vol. vii, p. 419. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 29 lu respect to the mystacial bristles, Dr. Murie's figures of the head and muzzle of the young specimen described by him (drawn from i^hotographs, some from the living animal) rep- resent them as quite long, the longest being said to be from 4 to 5 inches in length, and those of the sides of the muzzle as curv- ing inward and nearly meeting beneath the chin. Lamont also speaks of them as being in the adult G inches in length. Ham- ilton describes the Orkney specimen as having the largest nearly 5 inches in length, "and as thick as a Thrush's quill." Dr. Kane says : " The cheeks and Ups are completely masked by the heavy quill-like bristles." The authors of the history of the Swedish expedition to Spitzbergen and Bear Island in 1861 state that they are 4 inches long and nearly a hne thick.* In the four or five adult male specimens I have had the opj)ortu- nity of examining, the exserted portions of the longest bristles were less than 3 inches in length, and when extracted measured scarcely more than 4^, the shortest being mere points projecting through the skin. From Dr. Murie's figures and description of the young, and from other accounts, it would seem that the bristles become shorter in adult life, being perhaps worn off by constant friction. The bristles in the specimens I have seen bore no resemblance to the long curving bristles figured and described by Dr. Murie as existing in the young animal. They were considerably (one-third) longer, however, in the youngest of foui' specimens in Professor Ward's collection than in the oldest, giving support to the opinion akeady stated that they become shorter as the animal advances in age.t As abeady noted, the fore feet are formed much as in other Pinnipeds, more nearty agreeing, however, with those of the Otariidce than with those of the Fhocidce, especially with respect to freedom of movement, haAong the power of pronation and supination to a considerable degree. " In the Wakus," says Dr. Murie, "the humerus, radius, and ulna can be so placed that they meet at an acute angle, the lower limb of which is in a great measure iree. The digits, on the other hand, can together be turned backwards at a sharp angle with the radius and ulna, so that the bones of the limbs altogether form an S -shaped figiu-e. In the Seal the antibrachium and digits bend on each * See Passarge's Germau translation, p. 132. • tin Pallas's figure (in Ms ''Icones") of a young example of the Pacific Wal- rus, the mystffcial bristles are represented as very long, as in the young of the Atlantic species. 30 ODOBiENUS EOSMARUS — -ATLANTIC WALRUS. other more angularly, thus < In tlie act of swimming^ the Walrus evidently can use its fore limb as far as the elbow, with a kind of rotarj^ movement of the manus and antibrachium ; but in the Seal the rotary action takes place only at the wrist, and above that a sort of ginglymoid or back and forward move- ment." "The palmar surface or sole of the manus is not unlike a par- lor shovel in figure. There is a great callous, roughened and warty pad at the proximal end or ball of the hand ; and this, from discoloration incident to use, is of an intense dark brown or almost black colour. From the radial margin, Avhere it is stoutest and roughest, it trends towards the base of the fifth digit. Circumscribed digital i>ads, as in Carnivora, there are none; but furrows and ridges traverse obhquely forwards the pohcial to the opposite side." This "remarkable rough and warty palmar surface," continues Dr. Murie, "affords above everything a stay and firm leverage on shppery ground ; no stocking or wisp of straw used by man to bind round the foot when on smooth ice can equal nature's jjrovision of coarse tegu- mentary papillae." Also, "The angle at which the carpo-meta- carpal joint is set, and the very odd manner of foot-implanta- tion on the ground, namely, semiretroverted, evidently make it an easier task to go forwards or upwards on a smooth surface than to retrograde." * The hind foot (pes) is similarly rough- ened and farrowed. The notion advanced by Sir Everard Home,t that the feet of the Walrus were provided with suc- torial power, like that of the disk of a fly's foot, by which they were enabled to maintain firm footing on smooth ice and rocks, Dr. Murie considers untenable. !N'o one who has ever seen a Walrus walk, says Dr. Murie, could for a moment suppose that its massive weight was sustained by a pedal vacuum, as in a fly's foot. As regards the proportionate size of the limbs, the fore limbs, in an animal 8 to 10 feet long, are stated by Edwards,| to meas- ure from the " shoulder joint to the finger ends, two feet; expan- sion, one foot; the hind limbs measuring twenty-two inches, and extending, when outstretched, eighteen inches beyond the body, with an expansion of two feet." Scoresby says the fore feet are "from two to two and a half feet in length, and being eximnsive * Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond., vol. vii, 1872, pp. 420, 42L tPliil. Trans., 1824, pp. 233-235, pi. iv. tMSS. as quoted by Ricliardson, Suppl. Parry's Sec. Voy., p. 340. EXTEKNAL CHARACTERS. 31 may be stretched to the breadth of fifteen to eighteen inches." The hind feet, he says, have a length of " about two to two and a half feet," the breadth, when fully extended being "two and a half to three feet."* Dr. GiliJinf gives about the same dimensions for a specimen 12 feet long, namely, fore-flippers, length 2 feet; breadth 13 inches; hind flippers, length 22 inches, breadth (when stretched) 2 feet G inches. Dr. Murie gives for a specimen about 7f feet long: from shoulder-joint to extreme end of first digit, 23J inches; extreme length from os calcis to tip of fifth digit, 17^ inches; extreme breadth, when forcibly distended, 13 inches. My own measurements, taken from three unmounted skins of adult males preserved in salt in the collection of Prof. Henry A. Ward of Eochester, are as follows : manus, from carpal joint to end of digits, 14 to 15 inches ; transverse diameter at base, 9^ to 10 inches ; pes, from tarsal joint to end of longest digit, 15 to 18 inches ; transverse diameter at tarsus, about 7 inches. The rigidity of the feet did not permit of ready expansion. In respect to the tail. Dr. Murie says: " Strictly speaking, the Walrus possesses no free tail, as do the Phocidce and Ota- ' riidcB; for a broad web of skin stretches across from os calcis to OS calcis, enveloping the caudal representative. This remarka- ble elastic membrano-tegumentary expansion, reminding one of the more delicate web similarly situated in Bats, has posteri- orly, when the legs are outspread, a wide semilunar border with little if any medio-caudal projection. What appears as a tail when the limbs are approximated is in reality fibroid tissue and skin; for the caudal vertebrae stop short about an inch from the free margin." | The number of mammse is stated by various writers to be four. According to Edwards (as quoted by Eichardson §), these are placed, in the adult, 15 inches apart, in the corners of a quadrangle having the umbilicus in the centre. Owen and Murie give them as " two abdominal and two inguinal." In respect to general size, authors vary greatly in. their state- ments, the length ranging for adults from about 10 to 12 and even 15 or 16 feet, whUe the weight given ranges from 1,500 to 5,000 pounds ! Among what may be termed recent writers. Parry *Account of Arctic Regions, vol. i, p. 503. tProc. and Trans. Nova Scotia Inst. Nat. Sci., vol. ii, pt. 3, p. 123. t Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond., vol. vli, p. 425. § Suppl. to Parry's Sec. Voyage, p. 340. 32 ODOB^NUS KOSMARUS — ATLANTIC WALRUS. gives the weight of a " moderate-sized female," but evidently from his account quite young, as 1,550 pounds. Scoresby says : ^'The Walrus is found on the shores of Spitzbergen twelve to fifteen feet in length and eight to ten in cu'cumference."* Dr. Gilpin gives the weight of a full-grown male as 2,250, while La- mont says a fiill-grown old male will weigh at least 3,000 pounds.t Aside from Dr. Murie's measurements of a young spe- cimen, I have met with no detailed measurements of the Atlan- tic Walrus, except those given by Dr. GUpin,! which are as fol- lows : rt. In. Extreme length 12 3 Lengtli of head 1 5 Breadth, of muzzle 1 0 Distance from nose to eye , 0 8 Distance between eyes 0 9|- Extension of tusk beyond the mouth 1 0 Distance of tusks apart at base 0 4 Distance of tusks apart at tips 0 11 Length of fore-flipper 2 0 Breadth of fore-flipper 1 1 ■ Length of hind-flipper 1 10 Breadth of hind-flipper, distended 2 6 Thickness of skin 0 1 Thickness of blubber 0 1| "Weight said to be 22 cwt. Fleming § gives the length of the Walrus as 15 feet, with a circumference at the shoulders of 10 feet; and the length of the tusks as 20 inches. Hamilton || says an iadividual killed in Ork- ney, in 1825, which he saw, "was about ten feet in length," with the head 13 J inches iti length. From the size of the tusks (ex- serted 8^ inches) it appears to have been far fi:om fully grown. Daubenton gives the length of the specimen he described as 11 J feet, with a circumference at the shoulders of 8 feet. Lamont * Account of the Arct. Reg., vol. i, p. 502. t Mr. Lamont, in his ' ' Seasons with the Sea-horses " (p. — ), gives the weight of an old male as 3,000 pounds, but in his ''Yachting in the Arctic Seas" (j). 89), he says, ''A full-sized old bull Walrus must weigh at least 5,000 lbs., and such a Walrus, if very fat, will produce 650 lbs. of blubber, but seldom more than 500 lbs., which is I think the average amount yielded by the most obese of our victims." He speaks, however, in another place (p. 183), of one that "yielded between 700 and 800 pounds of fat." The weight of the entire animal, as last estimated by Mr. Lamont, is prob- ably much too great, X Proc. & Trans. Nova Scotia Inst. Nat. Sci., vol. ii, pt. 3, pp. 123, 124. $ Hist. Brit. Mam., 1828, p. 18. II British Quad., p. 223. I EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 33 Speaks of having got one day "a very large and fat cow," tlie lengtli of which he gives as 11 feet 5 inches.* My own measure- ments of three adult males from unstuffed (salted) skins are as follows : (1) length (from nose to tail), 10 feet 5 inches ; (2) 9 feet G iaches ; (3) 10 feet 10 inches ; (4) 8 feet 5 inches. The first three were fully adult, while one of them, to judge fi'om its broken, worn tusks and partly naked, scarred skin, was verj' old; the other was not more than two-thirds grown. These may aU have been specimens of less than the average size. Adding, however, 15 to 18 inches for the length of the Mnd limb (not here included), would give a length of about 12 feet for the larger individuals.t Most of the old writers were content with stating it to be as large as an ox and as thick as a hogshead. The accounts of the color are also discrepant ; Fabricius's statement that the color varies with age, the young being black, then dusky, later paler, and finally in old age white, having been quoted by most sub- sequent comi)ilers. Writers who have given the color from actual observation have never, however, confirmed Fabricius's account, they usually describing the color of the hair as " yel- lowish-brown," "yellowish-gray," "tawny," "very light yeUow- ish-gray," etc., some of whom explicitly state that after extended observations they have never met with the changes of color with age noted by Fabricius. Thus, Mr. Eobert Brown says that although he has seen Walruses of all stages, from birth until nearly mature age, he never saw any of a black color, all being of " the ordinary brown color, though, like most animals, they get lighter as they grow old."| Scoresby says that the skin of the Walrus is covered " with a short yeUo wish-brown colored hair."§ Dr. Gilpin states that his Labrador specimen was thinly cov- ered with " adpressed light yellowish-green hair," about an inch in length. He adds that the surface of the whole skin was * Yachting iu the Arctic Seas, p. 77. tl find it to be a nearly universal custom with writers (especially with non-scientific writers), in giving the length of Pinnipeds to measvire from the point of the nose to the end of the outstretched hind flippers, so that "length" must generally be understood as the total length from "point to point," and not merely that of the head and body. Taking, for example, Dr. Gilpin's specimen, and deducting the length of the hind flipper from the "extreme length," would leave 10 feet 5 inches. X Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 428, § Account of the Arctic Regions, vol. i, p. 503. Misc. Pub. No. 12 3 34 ODOB^NUS EOSMARUS — ATLANTIC WALRUS. covered by " scars and bald warty patches," and tliat the skin itself was thrown into " welts and folds " on the neck and shoul- ders. Mr. Brown further says that " the very circumstantial account of the number of mystacial bristles given in some accounts is most erroneous ; they vary in the number of rows and in the number in each row in almost every specimen. They are ele- vated on a minute tubercle, and the spaces between these bris- tles are covered with downy whitish hairs."* Many other writers also note the scars and warty patches and partial absence of hair referred to above by Dr. Gilpin. Mr. Brown, in speaking of those he met with in Davis Straits, says : " I have seen an old Wakus quite spotted with leprous-looking marks consisting of irregular tubercular-looking white carti- laginous hairless blotches ; they appeared to be the cicatrices of wounds inflicted at different times by ice, the claws of the Polar Bear, or met with in the wear and tear of the rough-and- tumble life a Sea-horse must lead in IST. lat. 74°."* Mr. Lamont further adds that in the Spitzbergen seas the "old bulls are always very light-colored, from being nearly devoid of hair 5 their skins are rough and rugose, like that of a Ehinoceros, and tliey are generally quite covered with scars and wounds, inflicted by hari)oons, lances, and bullets which they have escajjed from, as well as by the tusks of one another in fights among themselves."t From these reports, especially that of Mr. Brown, Dr. Murie| has inferred that the Walrus is subject to skin diseases, and that the " glandular spots " thus produced are mistaken " for healed cutaneous wounds." However this may be, it is pretty well established that many of these marks are really scars of wounds. Eespecting other external characters, especially the tusks, and their variations with age, sex, and accidental causes, I transcribe the following from Mr. Lamont's entertaining book, which will be found so fi-eely quoted in subsequent pages: " Old bulls," he observes, " very frequently have one or both of their tusks broken, which may arise from using them to assist in clambering up the ice and rocks The calf has no tusks the first year, but the second year, when he has attained to about the size of a large Seal, he has a pair about as large as *Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud.., 1868, p. 428. t Seasons with the Sea-horses, p. 137. t Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond., vol. vii, 1872, ]}. 422. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 35 the canine teetli of a lion ; the third year they are about six inches long. " Tusks vary very much in size and shape according to the age and sex of the animal. A good pair of bull's tusks may be stated as twenty -four inches long,* and four pounds apiece in weight ; but we obtained several paks above these dimensions, and in particular one pair, which measured thirty-one inches in length when taken out of the head, and weighed eight pounds each. Such a pair of tusks, however, is extremely rare, and I never, to the best of my behef, saw a pair nearly equal to them among more than one thousand Walruses, although we took the utmost pains to secure the best, and always inspected the tusks care- fully with a glass before we fired a shot or threw a harpoon. " Cows' tusks will average fully as long as bulls', from being less liable to be broken, but they are seldom more than twenty inches long and three pounds each in weight. They are generally set much closer together than the bull's tusks, sometimes overlap- ping one another at the points, as in the case with the stuffed specimen at the British Museum. The tusks of old bulls, on the contrary, generally diverge from one another, being sometimes as much as fifteen inches apart at the points." t Mr. Brown observes : " The whalers declare that the female Wakus is without tusks ; I have certainly seen females without them, but, again, others with both well developed. In this re- spect it may be similar to the female Narwhal, which has occa- sionly no ' horn ' developed." I Captain Parry states that Captain Lyon obtained the head of a small Walrus, remarkable on account of its having three tusks, all very short, but two of them close together on the right side of the jaw, and placed one behind the other. § Scoresby gives the length of the tusks externally as from " ten to fifteen inches," and their full length when cut from the skull as from " fifteen to twenty, sometimes almost thirty," and their weight as from " five to ten pounds each, or upward." || The sexual differences described by Lamont were long since * This probably includes their whole length when removed from the sock- ets, of which probably not more than eighteen to twenty inches were ex- posed in life. tLoc. cit., pp. 137-140. tProc. Zocil. Soc. Loud., 1868, p. 429. § Narrative of Parry's Second Voyage, p. 415. II Account of the Arctic Regions, vol. i, p. 502. 36 ODOBiENUS EOSMARUS ATLANTIC WALEUS. suspected by Wiegmann and Stauuius (see antea, p. 19), who believed that the female had longer, slenderer, and more con- vergmg tusks than the male. There is also a specimen in the collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, in which the tusks are very long and slender, and converge to such a degree that their points actually overlaj). In concluding this rather rambling notice of the external char- acters and aspect of the Atlantic Wabus, I append the quaint and very correct description of this animal, written by the mis- sionary Egede as early as 1740. I give it from Kriinitz's Ger- man translation from the origiual Danish : " Der Walkoss, oder das Meerpferd, ist eine Art von Fisch, dessen Gestalt einem Seehunde gleichkommt: jedoch ist es weit grosser und starker. Seiue Pfoten siud mit filnf Klauen versehen, wie die Pfoten des Seehundes ; doch kilrzer von jSTa- geln; und der Kopf is dicker, runder und starker. Die Haut dieses Thieres ist, vornehmlich am Halse, einen Daumen dick, und aUer Orten faltig, und runzlig. Es hat ein dickes und braunes Haar. In dem obern Kinnbacken sitzen zwey krumme Zahne, welche aus dem Munde ilber der Unterhi) j)e hervorragen ; und euien oder zwey Fuss lang, und bisweUen auch wohl noch langer stud. Die Wallrosszahne siud in eben solchem Werth, als die Elephantenzahne. Inwendig sind sie dicht und fest, an der Wurzel aber hohl. Sein Maul ist wie ein Ochsenmaulj unten und oben mit stachhchten Borsten, in der Dicke eiues Strohhalms, besetzt, und diese dienen ihm anstatt eiues Bartes. Oberhalb des Mundes sind zwey l!^aselocher, wie bey dem See- hunde. Seine rothe Augen sehen ganz feurig aus ; und well sein Hals ganz ausserordenthch dick ist, kann er nicht leicht um sich herum sehen ; und dieserhalb dreht er die Augen im Kopfe herum, wann er etwas ansehen will. Er hat, gleich dem Seehimde, einen sehr kurzeu Schwanz. Sein Fleisch hat eine Aehnlichkeit mit dem Schweinenlleische. Es pflegt sich dieses Thier mehrentheils auf dem Else aufzuhalten. Indessen kann es so lange auf dem Lande bleiben, bis es der Hunger nothigt, in die See zu gehen ; indem es sich von denen Fischen und Meer- Insekten unterhalt. Wann es im Zorne ist, britllt es wie ein Ochs. Die Meerpferde siud beherzt, und stehen sich einander bis in den Tod bey. Sie leben in bestiindigem Kriege mit denen Biiren, denen sie mit ihren grossen und starken Zahnen genug zu schaffen machen. Oefters tragen sie den Sieg davon ; und EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 37 wenigstens kampfen sie so lange, bis sie toclt zur Erde uieder- fallen."* Anotlier account of the Walrus, from its being one of the earliest extant, is also of especial interest in the present con- nection. Though repeatedly copied, in part or wholly, by the earher authors, and also by von Baer, I think it deserving of reproduction here. It was written by Prof. A. E. Vorst, and was based on the young specimen taken to Holland in 1G13. It is here copied from De Laet (Descrip. Indite Occident.), by whom it was published in 1633 : " BeUuam banc marinam ^adi, magnitudine vituh, ant canis Britannici majoris, Phocae non dissimilem; capite rotundo, ocu- lis bovillis, naribus depressis ac patulis, quos modo contrahe- bat, modo diducebat, aurium loco utrinque foramina; rictus oris rotundo nee ita vasto, superiori parte aut labro mystaca gestabat setis cartilagineis, crassis ac rigidis constantem. Infe- rior maxiUa trigona erat, hngua crassa bre^dsque, atque os interius dentibus planis utrimque munitnm, pedibus anterioribus posteri- oribusque latis, atque extrema corporis parte Phocam nostratem plane referebat. Pedes anteriores antrorsum, posteriores retror- sum spectabant cum ingrederetm-. Digiti quinque membrana in- tersepiente distinct!, eaque crassa, posterioribus digitis ungues impositi, non prioribus, cauda plane carebat. Postica parte repebat magis quam incedebat. Cute crassa, coreacea, pilisque brevibus ac tenuisibus obsita vestiebatur, colore cinereo. Grun- nitum apri instar edebat, sen crocitabat voce gravi et valida. Eepebat per aream extra aquam, quotidie per semihoram aut amphus doho aqua pleno immittebant, ut se ibi oblectaret. Ca- tulus erat, nt ferebant qui attulerant ex nova Zembla, decern hebdomadamm, dentes sen cornua exerta, ut adultiores, non- dum habens, tubercula tamen in superiori labro percipieban- tur, unde brevi proditura facile apparebat. Ferum et validum aiiimal calebat ad factum, validique per nares spiribat. Pul- mentarium ex avena miliove comedebat lente et suctu magis, quam deglutiendo, herumque gestantem cibum ac offerentem maguo nisu ac grunnitu accedebat, sequebaturque, nidore ejus allectus. Lardum ejus gustantibus hand insuave visum est. * Herrn Hans Egede, IVIissioniirs und Bischofes iu Gronland, Beschreibung luid Natur-Gescliiclite von Grouland, iibersetzet von D. Joh. Ge. Ki-iinitz. Mit Knpfern. Berlin, verlegts August Mylius, 1763. pp. 106-108.— Since transcribing tbe above I have met "witli an early (1768) English translation of this work, in which an English rendering of the above description may be found at p. 125. 38 ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. Conspiciebantur ibidem duo majorum capita, dentibus duobus exertis Elepliautorum instar, longis ac crassis et albicantibus muiiita, qui deorsum versus pectus spectabant. Eoruin coria CCCO aut IC pondo pendisse ferebant Angli qui attulerant. Hisce dentibus rupes ascendere seque sustinere ajebaut, et pro- deiiut ill continentem seu terrain ut sommmn ibi capiant grega- tiin. Pabulum ajebant illis esse folia oblonga ac magna, lierbse cujusdam e fundo maris nascentis. Nee piscibus vivere aut carni- vorum esse. Yidi ibidem penem ejusdem animalis osseum, ro- tundum, cubitum et amplius longum, crassum, ponderosum ac soMum, in fine prope glandem longe crassiorem ac rotundiorem. Hujus pulvere ad calculum pellendum Moscovltse retuntui-." * A still earlier description of the Walrus is given byPurcliast in bis account of the first voyage "into the Nortb Seas," by William Barents, a Dutch navigator, who met with Walruses on Orange Island, in 1594, translated fi^om the Dutch by W. Phihp. The account says they "went to one of those Islands [of Orange], where they found about two hundred Walrashen, or Sea-horses, lying upon the shore to bast themselves in the Sunne. This Sea-horse is a wonderful strong Monster of the Sea, much bigger than an Oxe, which keeps continually in the Seas, having a skin like a Sea-calfe or Scale, with very short hayre, mouthed like a Lion, and many times they lye upon the Ice ; they are hardly kiUed unlesse you strike them just upon the forehead, it hath foure Feet, but no Eares, and commonly it hath one or two young ones at a time. And when the Fisher- men chance to find them upon a flake of Ice with their young ones, shee casteth her young ones before her into the water, and then takes them in her Armes and so plungeth up and downe with them, and when shee wiU revenge her-selfe upon the Boates, or make resistance against them, then shee casts her young ones from her againe, and with aU her force goeth towards the Boate thinking to overthrow it They have two teeth sticking out of their mouthes, on each side one, each being about half an EU long, and are esteemed to bee good as any Ivory or Elephants teeth, especially iii Muscouvia, Tartar ia, and thereabouts where they are knowne, for they are as white, hard, and even as Ivorie." Sexual Differences. — The subject of sexual differences in the Wab-uses has received very little attention at the hands of *Novus Orbis sen Descriptio ludise Occidentalis, pxi. 38, 39, 1633. tHis Pilgrimes, vol. iii, p. 476. SEXUAL DIFFEEENCES. 39 systematic writers, who liaye, indeed, no positive information to offer, and very little can be gleaned from other sonrces. All that I have met with, after pretty extensive research, has already been incidentally given in the foregoing acconnt of the external char- acters. All that can be gathered is that in the female the tusks are smaller and thinner, and the general size of the animal may be inferred to be somewhat smaller than in the male. In fact,^ the external characters in the adult animal of the species under consideration have never as yet been given with much detail^ the few naturalists who have met with it in life seeming to take it for granted that an animal so long known, and so familiar to them, must be well known, thereby rendering a careful and de- tailed description unnecessary. The very good descrii)tion given by Dr. Gilpin (see antea, pp. 31, 32, 33) of an adult is about all that I have met with in the way of detailed descriptions of the adults of either sex. The figures and descriptions given of the young, especially those recently published by Dr. J. Murie,* leave httle to be desired as regards the external characters in early life. The absence of references to any strongly marked sexual differences in the adult might perhaps be taken as negative evidence that none exist ; but on the basis of analogy with the other Pinnipeds, especially with the Otariidce, we should hardly expect their absence. Even in the case of the skulls, few sexed specimens appear to have come under the observation of specialists. We here and there, however, meet with references to supposed sex- ual differences in the size and character of the tusks, and also in respect to the size of the skull and the density" and weight of the bones in those of supposed females as compared with those of supposed males. Thus, Wiegmann, in 1832, in referring to the species described by Fremery, in 1831, says, in remarking upon Fremery's " Trichechus CooJcii,''^ that he remembers having heard from a Greenland traveller that the female Wabus has longer and slenderer tusks than the male, and states, on the au- thority of Fremery, that a young specimen in the Eoyal Museum of HoUand, having long, slender tusks, was regarded by Tem- minck as a female. He also considers, on the gTound of analogy, that the greater or less development of the occipital and other crests of the skull, as well as the relative weight of the bones, * " Researches upon the Anatomy of the Pinniipedia. — Part I. On the Wal- rus (Tiichechus rosmarus, Linn.)." — Trans. Zool. Soc. LoncL, vol. vii, 187'2, j)p. 411-464, with -woodciits, and ijlates li-lv. 40 ODOB^NUS EOSMARUS ATLANTIC WALEUS. to be only clLfferences of a sexual character.* Stamims,t ten years later, cited the views of Teinminck and Wiegmann (as above given) respecting sexual diiferences in Walruses, but adds nothing new to the subject. Lamont (see antea, p. 35) states that the " tusks vary very much in size and shape according to the age and sex of the animal." "Cows' tusks," he says, "will average fully as long as bulls', from being less liable to be broken, but they are seldom more than twenty inches long and three pounds each in weight. They are generally set much closer together than the bull's tusks, . sometime overlai)ping at the points, as in the case with the stuffed specimen at the British Museum." He gives the length of tusks in the male as 24 inches, and the weight as 4 i^ounds each. A skeleton, marked as that of a female, in the Museum of Oomparative Zoology, collected in the Greenland seas by Dr. Kane, has the bones very light, soft, and porous, as compared with those of male specimens. The skull (see figg. 1-3) is much smaller, with the crests and ridges very slightly develoi^ed, and the tusks long and slender, and overlapping at the points. This skull, though of a rather aged individual, is 2 to 2| inches shorter than male skulls of corresponding age, and about 2 inches narrower; but these figures S(;arcely express the real difference between them, owing to the very much weaker devel- opment and slighter structure of all parts of the slcull, which certainly has not one-half the weight of average adult male skulls. The weaker structure is especially marked in the lower jaw. The tusks, on the other hand, are several inches longer than in any male skulls of the Atlantic species I have yet exam- ined, but they are so much weaker and slenderer that their weight is more than one-half less. The same difference of light- ness and smaller size extends throughout all the bones of the skeleton, indicating that the size of the animal in life was far less than that of ordinary males. The very great length of the * Says Wiegmann : " Hr. Fremery fiilirt an, dass Hr. Temminck einen (nach Dentlichkeit der Niilite) uocli jungen Scliiidel des EeicJismnseums mit aus- gezeiciinet laugen dlinnen Stosszalmen fiir den eines Weibchens gelialten habe. Icli erinnere micli aucb. von Gronlandsfabron gebort zu baben, dass sicb das Weibcben diu'cb liiugere, diinnere, das Miinnclien durcb. kiirzere, aber viel dickere Stosszlibno auszeicbne. Die geringere Entwickluug der Hinter- hauptleiste, die geringere Scbwere der Knocben, selbst das Zuriickbleiben des hintersten Backenzabiies im Oberkiefer konnte, wenn es wixklicb nur sexu- elle Verscbiedenbeit sein sollte, mit Analogien belegt "werdeu." — Arch, fur Nahmjescli., 1832, pp. 123, 129. tMuIler's Arcb. fiir. Anat., 1844, p. 392. SEXUAL DIFFERENCES. 41 tusks (see fig. 1) is doubtless abnormal, and is doubtless owing to their unsymmetrical development and overlapping at tbe points, whicli must have interfered to some extent witli their use, and hence have preserved them from wearing. Fig. 1. — Odobccnus rosmarus, 5 . In the National Museum at Washington a,ve also four skulls, which, though unmarked as to sex, are unquestionably those of 42 ODOB^NUS ROSMAEUS ATLANTIC WALEUS. females.* They agree witli tlie one already described as to small size, the absence of well-developed crests and ridges for muscular attachment, small, slender tusks, and general weak- ness of structure, as comj)ared with male skulls of correspond- ing age.t The closed sutures show that they belonged to aged individuals, but in other respects might be iiresumed to be skulls of young animals, for which such skulls are doubtless usually mistaken. Fig. 2. — Odoicenus rosmarus, $ . From these data it seems fair to conclude that there are well- marked sexual differences among Wah-uses, manifested espe- cially in the inferiority of size of the female, in the comi)aratively weak development of the bones of the skull, the smaller size of the bones of the general skeleton, and in the size and form of the tiTsks. These differences are, in short, just such as, from analogy, one would naturally expect to exist, and confirm the * This I inferred from their small size aud light strncture, and was pleased to have my determination confirmed by so comi^etent an authority as Dr. Emil Bessels, who pronounced them to be unquestionably those of females. Dr. Bessels's judgment, it is perhaps needless to say, is based on j)ersonal experience while on the Polaris Expedition, during which ho secured and prepared numerous specimens of both sexes, Avhich were lost with the ill- fated vessel. t In the National Musemn there is also a female skull of the Pacific Wakus that presents corresiionding differences as compared with male skulls of the same species. VARIATIONS DEPENDENT UPON AGE, ETC. 43 conjectures of Wiegmanu and Temminck. Wliat other differ- ences obtain, especially in external characters, can as yet be only conjectured. It is to be hoped, however, that we shall not have long to wait for detailed accounts of the external characters of the adults of both sexes. Fig. 3. — Odobamus rosmarus, 9 • Indxyidual Vaeiations, and Yariations dependent UPON Age. — That a wide range of individual variation obtains in this species is sufficiently evident from an examination of even a limited series of skulls. These differences have been noted in considerable detail by Fremery, Wiegmann, Stannius, and Jaeger, as will be presently noticed more in detail in pre- senting the general history of the species. StiU greater differ- ences, of course, result from differences of age. These collect- ively, as win be noted later, have formed the basis of several nomiual species. AU the Pinnipeds appear to be subject to a wide range of variations of this character, and none more so than the Wakuses. These affect to a considerable extent the general proportions of the skull, and especially thfe form and relative development of different bones. These latter differences are best seen in comparatively young skuUs, since most of the sutures close at a rather early age. Among these variations are especially noteworthy those of the nasal bones, the iuter- maxiUaries, and the frontals, and to a less degree those of the base of the skull. The crests and ridges for muscular attach- 44 ODOB^NUS EOSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. ment of course greatly increase with age, and vary considerably in resi)ect to direction, position, and relative development in different individuals. The bony crests at the junction of the intermaxillaries below the anterior nasal opening are especially variable with age, becoming gradually obhterated in adult life by the general thickening of the bones of the skull. They are certainly less prominent in old age than in youth, and the same is true of the incisive border of the intermaxillaries. The in- termaxillaries, as a rule, only meet the nasals in their upward extension, but in occasional sijecimens there is a narrow exten- sion of them posteriorly between the nasals and maxillaries, reaching for one-half to two-thirds the length of the nasals. This variation is seen in the skulls figured by Goethe* and by Blainville,t and has been noted in two skulls by Stannius.f In other cases the intermaxillary rises to the surface between the nasals and maxillaries only in the form of narrow isolated areas, as is seen in a skull figured by Goethe,§ and in two skulls I have myself examined. Hence Blain^aLle, when he says, " . . . . et le pr6maxillaire, epais, remonte jusque entre le nasal et le maxillaire, de maniere a circonscrire avec le premier I'orifice nasal . . . . ,"|| describes the exceptional instead of the normal condition. The nasals vary gTeatly in breadth and in length in different specimens, and even in the same specimen one is sometimes much wider than the other. The concavity and width of the bony palate is also subject to much variation, in this respect hardly two siDecimens being found to agree. In some, the con- cavity is nearly one-fourth greater than in others. *Act. Acad. Cses. Leop. Carol., xi, pt. i, pi. iv, fig. 2. t Ost^ograpMe, Des Phoques, pi. i. t Says Stannius : "Bisweilen aber, wie bei den Kieler Scbadehi a tmd c, tritt nocb eine diiime Leiste dieses Fortsatzes zwiscben die das Oberkiefer- bein und das Nasenbein verbindende Langsnabt uud trennt eine Strecke weit diese Ivnocben. So sieht man es aucb auf der in dem Blainville'scben "Werke befindlicbcn Abbildung. Indem diese Leiste an einigen StelJen starker, an anderu Stellen weniger stark oder gar nicbt nacb aussen bervortritt und zu Tage kommt, bat es bisweilen den Anscbein, als fanden sieb isoliite Knocben- stiickcben in der eben genannten Nabt. Wirklicb erwabnt de Fremery eines zwiscben Nasenbein und Oberkieferbein vorkonunenden Ossiculum Wormi- anum bei seinem aus Labrador stammenden "Walross-Scbiidel." — Mullei''a ArcMv fur Anat., 1842, p. 401. §Act. Acad. Ca3s. Leop. Carol., Bd. xv, pt. i, 1831, pi. iv, fig. 1. 11 Ost6ograpbie, Des Pboques, p. 20. VARIATIONS DEPENDENT UPON AGE, ETC. 45 The frontals vary greatly in form at their posterior border, especially in respect to their interparietal extension. Tliis por- tion has sometimes a breadth eqnal to that of the nasal bones, and terminates quite squarely ; at other times, it has less than half this breadth, and is rapidly narrowed posteriorly. The tusks vary considerably iu length, size, and form, and more especially in direction, in specunens of the same age and sex. They become much larger in old age than in middle life, but are then more or less abraded and broken at the points. The grooving on the sides varies more or less with each indi- vidual, and even in the two tusks of the same animal. The tusks generally widely diverge, but are sometimes nearly par- allel, but apiDear to be very rarely convergent, while in the female they are frequently more or less convergent, and some- times touch at the points, or even overlap. In regard to external characters, considerable changes result fi?om age, especially in respect to the size and amount of abra- sion of the tusks, and through the loss of the hair incident to old age, and the shortening of the mystacial bristles. The following table of measurements (given in millimeters) shows to some extent the variations that occur in the general size and form of the skull. 46 ODOB^NUS EOSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. O CO o o 5Q ^ Adult. Adult. Young. Old. Middle-aged. Adult. Young. •esaooid ptouojoo 'VB !>qSpq 'j^^'bC J9.M.01 00 O CT CO c- t- t- o CO CO •q^SuQ^ '.ii'Bf I9jii.01 «0 CO o ^ tH (M O CO * cq (M (M CO CO CO •^jedB oou'Bijsrp 'ejospm joddji CI CO 05 00 C<) t- O O I:~ l> CO •j^oni (js^x ffB 9:>Bxt!d JO q^pi^ii 00 O (M CO o CO CO CO ca (M CO •S9U98 ULiojTiBXOUi jaddu JO q^xiai lO CO Oi CO t^ to O lO O CO l> •sdi:} '^•« g9Sp9 x^u -J9^X9 U99Ai(J9q 90UC^Sip 'eautUBO 00 -^ O 00 00 CO o O -* IM O t~ CO LO tH 1— t I— i 1— i I— 1 I— ( I— < ■9SBq %"e 9on9j;9jiuLiojio 's9nniB3 o o o t^ t- o o C^l 05 t- 05 C- t- (M rM i-H 1-1 t-i •(eiBxoui JO guBxd Tuoif) q-jSugx 'sguniBO -* t~ CO O O 00 t- m CO c» CO lo »-H CO (M (M CO CT -* (M •o:jt'it;d JO x^na Joria:>sod 0% eexxixBtoja^m JO japioq joija^uy CO O CO CO ITS CO l> C- t- to CO O 00 CO LO o o> t- o 00 •saesaoojd pto:^eBU^ %v q^p-Baag; c- o -* CO -^ Ol M (N CO 00 £ ) S c c c •jgquiuu ouSoxB^jBQ O LO O tH o LO ■* I- (M (M r-( CO LO t> t- t^ -^ O tH t-H « 5^ ;' .4- H- -- +-► 3 a o . -*-» ai O c3 pa ^ - 13 CO • o P §.£; i ^^& P S 2 ©so M Cm iM 1^ O O o o d> DENTITION. 47 Dentition. — The dentition of Walruses, for various reasons, lias been a perplexing subject, and lias engaged the attention of many eminent writers. In the adult stage it iiresents many abnormalities, and, besides, is subject to much indi\ddual varia- tion, both in the temporary and adult series. For a long time its deviations from the normal type were not well understood, and even now leading authorities do not aj)pear to be quite in harmony in respect to the i)roper notation. As previously stated, the incisors of both jaws, except the outer j)air in the upper, disappear soon after birth, and before middle life is reached the last tooth of the molar series on each side in both jaws also usually disappears. A brief history of the principal investigations, and opinions held at different times respecting the dentition of the Atlantic Walrus (for the investigations respecting the dentition of this group appear to have been based almost wholly upon this species), is herewith appended as form- ing a highly interesting chai)ter in the technical history of the species. In this historical sketch will be found noted many facts relating to the general subject, given by the authors whose liapers are here briefly summarized. The dentition of the Atlantic Wakus has been discussed in greater or less detail by Eapp, von Baer, Wiegmann, Fremery, Stannius, Jaeger, Owen, Malmgren, Peters, and various other writers. Wiegmann, in 1838, pretty fully presented the early history of the subject, noting the almost total lack of informa- tion respecting the matter shown by Linne, who evidently paid little attention to the references to the subject made by previ- ous writers. The credit of first giving any definite statement respecting the number of the teeth and their character is due to Anderson, who, in 1734, gave the number of molars as four above and three below. Brisson, in 1756, gave the number as four both above and below; while Crantz, in 1765, again gives four above and three below, and quite fauiy describes the nor- mal dentition of the adult.* In the same year, Daubenton gave also again foiu" below on each side as well as four above. * I append iu full Crantz's description : ''It liad no sharp incisores in its moutli, and none at all before, but only four teeth on each side ; on the right side of the nnder-jaw tliree pretty broad concave grinders The two long tusks or horns growing out of its face above the nose, and bending down over its mouth, so as almost to barricade it up, seem to be more an impediment than a help to it The right tusk is about an inch longer than the left, and its whole length 48 ODOB^NUS EOSMARUS— ATLANTIC WALRUS. No author prior to Sclireber (1775) appears to have met witli deciduous incisors, who found two such upper incisors on each side in a young skull in the Museum of Erlangen. These he correctly conjectured were temporary, disappearing at a later stage of life.* To Goethe, however, is given the credit of recognizing the true character of the first tooth of the upper molariform series. Says Camper (as quoted hy Wiegmann) : "Es ist der Hr. Gothe, sachsenweimarscher Geheimer Eath, der mir zuerst die ossa intermaxillaria des Wallrosses iind der Schneideziihne desselben hat kennen lernen, indem er mir eine vortrefiiiche Abhandlimg mit schonen Zeichnungen dieser Knochen ver- schiedener Tliiere zugeschickt hatte." Camper, in criticising and four molars above and five below (^Ei) (or sometimes only four below). The observations of Sclireber, Goethe, and Cam- per appear to have been generally overlooked by subsequent writers, so that it was left for G. Cuvier to discover anew the presence of deciduous incisors in the young Walrus. Between the canines he recognized two incisors similar to the molars, which he says the majority of observers had overlooked, because they are not fixed in the intermaxillary, and between these again two pointed small ones in young individuals. He gave the number of molars as four on each side, above and below, and stated that there are neither incisors nor canines in the is 27 inclies, 7 of wMcli are grafted into tlie scull ; its circumference is 8 tuclies. They stand about three inches asunder in the head, and at their extremities 9 inches apart, bent a little downwards."— ffistory of Greenland^ etc., English translation, London, 17G7, p. 126. * Schreber's account is as follows: " . . . . Die erste Gattung, das iu- sonderheit sogennante Wai-lkoss, hat zwar, ob gleich kein Schrifsteller etwas davon sagt, zween Vorderzahne in der obern Kinnlade; sie sind aber sehr klein, ragen wenig aus ihren Holen hervor, und werden allem Ansehen nach auserhalb dem Zahnfleische nicht zu bemerken scyu, zumal da sienicht am Eande der obern Kinnlade, sondem mehr hineinwiirts stehen. Ich finde sie an eiuem zur Naturaliensammlung hiesiger UuiversitLit gehorigen Wall- rossschiidel ; vind da derselbe, besage seiner Grosse, von einem juugen Thiere ist ; so glaube ich beynahe gar, dass sie bey zuuehmendem Alter des Thieres ausfallen und nicht wieder wachsen. Sie kouimen also hier in keine weitere Betrachtung, als dass sie dem Systematiker eineu Wink geben, dis Thier nicht zu weit von dem Eobbengeschlechte zu entfeTiien."—S(iiigetldere, Th. ii, p. 260. tl quote the French edition of Camper's works (OEuvres, torn, ii, p. 480, Paris, 1803), the only one accessible to me. DENTITION. 49 lower jaw.* F. Cuvier gave later also the same dental formula. He deemed tliat tlie peculiar or anomalous dentition of the Wal- ruses indicated that they were an isolated group, having affini- ties, on the one hand, with the Carnivora, and, on the other, Avith the Euminants ! t According to Wiegmami, Eudolphi| (in 1802) recognized the first of the series of loiccr grinding teeth as a canine. § Thus, as Wiegmann long since observed, the subject remained tiU Eapp was so fortunate, in 1828, as to have opportunity to examine a foetal specimen. In this exami)le, he found six inci- sors in the ui^per jaw and five in the lower (|^). He also expressed it as his belief that the first lower molar should be regarded as a canine, because (1) it was somewhat further removed from the rest than the others were from each other; because (2) of its greater length and thicliness in the adult ani- mal ; because (3) it stands close to the temjiorary or milk inci- sors, and shuts against the outermost of the upper incisors ; and because (4) it lacks the transverse depression seen on the inner side of the crown of the back-teeth. The dental formula recognized by him for the Walrus may be considered as ^- 3_37 ^' 1_17 -^'^' 3 — 3" Fremery, in 1831, also made reference to the dentition of the Walruses ; but his paper bears mainly upon the question of whether there are one or more species of these animals, and will be further noticed in another connection. He notes partic- ularly the presence, ia some of his skulls, of two smaU molars above, behind the large ones. Wiegmann, II in 1838, contributed facts additional to those aheady recorded, but his memoir is largely devoted to a discus- sion of the obsers^ations of preceding writers. He assents to Eudolphi's and Eapp's interpretation of the homological rela- tion of the first large tooth of the lower jaw; refers to finding *Regne Animal, torn, i, 1817, p. 168. t Dents des Mam., p. 234. t Anatomiscli-pliysiologisclie Abhandlungen, j). 145. ^ Wiegmann says : "... . Ueberdies ist Rudolplii cler erste, der die uuteren Eckziihue erkennt. Er Lemerkt niimlicli, dass der erste Backenzalin des Unterkiefei's sich von den iibrigen durch seine Grosse auszeicbne, und wenn auch der Form nach einem Backenzaline ahnlicli, docli seiner Grosse nach beinahe flir einen Eckzalm zn lialten ware, was spiiter durcli Rapp, dem indessen diese Notiz unbekannt blieb, ausser Zweifel gesetzt ist." — Arch, fur Naturg., 1838, pp. 119, 120. II ArcMv flir Natiirgesch., 1838, pp. 113-130. Misc. Pub. No. 12 4 50 ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. traces of alveoli of six incisors both above and below, and to the early deciduous character of the last (fifth) upper molar, and the frequent disappearance of the fourth. He concludes that the normal number of the back- teeth is ^^, and that in early life the dentition of the Wakus is not widely different from that of other Pinnipeds. The same year (1838), MacgiUivray* considered the normal dentition of the Wabus to be 1. 1=|; C. ]f^: Pm.+ M. |^ ■ 5 2—2' 0—0? -t Q =^ = 32. His conclusion was based on the examination of a quite young specimen, of which he speaks as follows: "The normal dentition of the Walrus is shoAvii by the skull of a young indi^ddual in the Museum of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons. In the upper jaw there are on each side three incisors, the first or inner extremely small, the second a httle larger, the third or outer disproportionately large, being equal to the larger grind- ers. The socket of this tooth is placed in the intermaxillary bone, but towards its mouth it is partly formed by the maxillary. The small incisors have deep conical sockets. The canine tooth is displaced, being thrust outwards beyond the hue of the other teeth, and causing the i^ecuhar bulging of the head. The lateral incisor is on the level of its anterior margin, and the first grinder is opposite to its middle. There are five grinders, having conical obtuse sockets, and consequently single roots ; the first smaller than the last incisor, the second and third largest, the fourth much smaller, the fiith very small, all shortly conical, and blunt, with enamel on the tip only. The canine tooth is also at first enamelled at its extremity. In the lower jaw* there are two very small conical incisors on each side 5 the canine tooth is wanting; five grinders, with single con- ical compressed roots, and short compressed conical crowns, enamelled at the point; the first, second, and third nearly equal, the latter being a little larger, the fourth nnich smaller, and the fifth very small. The tusks, or enormously develox)ed canine teeth of the upper jaw, are compressed, conical, a little curved backward, directed downwards and a little forwards, and somewhat diverging, but in some indi\'iduals, when very long, they again converge towards the points. In adults, the incisors are obMterated, excepting the lateral pair of the upper jaw; the fifth grinder in both jaws has also disappeared, and sometimes the fourth in one or both jaws." * British Quadi-upeds, 1838, pp. 220, 221. DENTITION. 51 Stannius. in 1842, further contributed to the subject by adding observations respecting variation in the number of the teeth resulting from age, describing in detail the incisive dentition of a series of four skulls of different ages. In two young skulls, the outer temi^orary incisor of the upper jaw on either side remained; the alveoli of the second pair were still distinct, while the alveoli of the middle pair were nearly oblit- erated. In another, the alveoli of the inner pair of incisors were wholly obliterated ; those of the second pair were barely recog- nizable, while those of the outer pair were distinct, the teeth having faUen later. He was also able to recognize the alveoli of six incisors in the lower jaws of the skulls just mentioned, and states that he thought Eapp's view of the homology of the first lower back-tooth (considered as a canine) was probably correct. He further takes exceptions to the value of the char- acters assumed by Fremery as the basis of several species of Walruses.* He adds, in respect to the tusks, that in old age they become wholly solid to the base. In regard to the upper molars, he notes the i^resence of five in several instances, and fmds that, as a rale, the fourth disappears before the fifth, or, at least, that its alveolus becomes sooner obliterated. He also confirms the statement previously made by Wiegmann, that the alveoli become fiUed by depositions of bony matter in concentric layers at the bottom and on the sides. *These alleged specific characters lie notices in detail, and considers them as dependent upon age. He says: "Das Missliche dieser Cliaraktere erliellt sclion aus dem Umstande, dass dieselben nur fiir vollig ausgewachsene Thiere, nicht aber fur junge anwendbar sind, denn das stiirkste Wacbsthuni der Eckziihne fiillt erst offenbar iu eine spiitere Lebensperiode in -welcher namentlicli die beiden innersten Scbneidezaline und die beiden letzten Back- ziihne jeder Seite der oberen Kinnlade schon gescliwunden sind. Hierzu kommt noch der Umstand, dass aucb die Eckzaline bei sebr alteu Thieren an der Spitze bedeutend abgeuutzt sind, demnacli in spateren Lebenssta- dien an Lange wabrscbeinlicli wieder abnebmen. Endlich scbeint es ja selbst, alsob die Lange dieser Zabne je nacb den Geschleclitem verscbieden ware. "Eben so weuig Gewicbt mocbte ich auf die Furcbungen dieser Zabne legen. Ikrer Zabl, wie ibrer Starke nacb sind sie bei verscliiedenen iibri- gens nicbt von einander abweichenden Individuen versfbieden, wie icb micb durcb Vergleicbung einer grossen Anzabl von Walrossziibnen iiber- zeugt babe; ja diese Furcben sind bisweilen an beiden, bisweilen nur an Einem dieser Ziibnc spurlos verscliwunden." Respecting Trichechus cookl, be adds: ''Aucb an einem Scbiidelfi-agmente des Kieler Museums finde icb etwas convergirende Eckzabne, mocbte aber zweifeln, ob dieser Umstaud eine Artunterscbeidung recbtfertigt." — Muller's ArcMv fiir Anatomie, etc., 1842, pp. 398, 399. 52 ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. Jaeger,* in 1844, described the dentition of tliree rather young WahTis skulls from Labrador. In the youngest skull (8^ inches long, 6| inches broad, Paris measure), which had the canines about two inches long, he notes that the last upper molar had already fallen from the right side, but still remained on the left, behind which, as well as behind the alveolus of the foiu?th molar on the right side, was a little shallow pit, in which, dur- ing foetal life, a tooth had perhaps stood. In tront of these beforementioned teeth were three molars on each side, and in front of these a conical incisor, and the alveoli of the others were traceable, although akeady filled with a spongy substance. In the lower jaw, there were five teeth on each side, with traces of three already fallen fcetal incisors on one side and of two on the other. The second skull (9f inches by 7§) was somewhat older, the canines being about five inches long. There were present in this skull three upper molars on each side, and a filled-up alveolus behind them. Of these teeth (as also in the iother skull), the middle one was the largest and most worn.f In front of these, and somewhat distant trom them (5'"), was an incisor on each side, and in addition to these another pair of small conical incisors. In the lower jaw of this skull were, on each side, four teeth homologized as C. 1 — 1, M. 3 — 3; Jaeger thus recognizing, as had Eudolphi, Eapp, Wiegmann, Fremery, and Stannius, the first of the lower-jaw series as a canine. Behind these were traces of the alveoli of the fourth pair of molars. In the third skuU (length 12^ inches, breadth lOi), still older, with tusks a foot long, were three upper " back-teeth " on each side, close together, the middle one being the largest, and in front of these a cutting-tooth. The lower jaw had also four teeth on each side, homologized as before. In this skull, there remained no trace of tlie middle incisors. Another still older skull had the same dental formula as the last. Owen,| in 1853, gave the following formula for the deciduous dentitionof the Wabus: I. 1^; C. i^^; M. |^2=18. This was based on the examination of a young animal, which had died in the Zoological Gardens of London, He, at the same time, proposed? the following as the formula of the normal or func- tional dentition of the Walrus: I. }E^', 0. ^J; Pm. |^3=18. " MiiUer's Arch., 1844, pp. 70-75. t In the young skulls described by Stannius, the middle molar is mentioned as being uniformly the largest and most "worn. t Proc. Zool. Soc. Lend., 1853, pp. 105, 106. DENTITION. 5 o Professor Owen, in referring to instances of deviation from this formnla, dependent on differences of age and sex, stated ''that occasionally a small tooth was fonnd anterior to the normal series of four, and more commonly in the upper than the lower jaw ; and that, more rarely, a small tooth was superadded behind the nor- mal four, in the upper jaw, and still more rarely in the lower jaw ', the formula of the dentition of such varieties, in excess, being,— 1.|^2> ^- J~S? P™. |^, M. j^J=26." Owen here makes no reference to the literature of the subject, and evidently gave a very erroneous interx^retation of the dental formula. In his later references to the subject he gives an entirely different in- terpretation, and one more nearly agreeing with that now com- monly accepted. In his latest reference to the subject,* he writes : " In the Walrus ( Tricliechus rosmarus) the normal incisive formula is transitorily represented in the very young animal, which has three teeth in each premaxillary and two on each side of the fore part of the lower jaw ; they soon disappear except the outer paii* above, which remain close to the maxil- lary suture, on the inner side of the sockets of the enormous canines, and commence the series of small and simple molars which they resemble in size and form. In the adult there are usually three such molars on each side, behind the permanent incisor, and four similar teeth on each side of the lower jaw; the anterior one passing into the interspace between the upper incisor and the first molar The canines are of enormous size Their homoty]_)e below retains the size and shape of the succeeding molars." The formula of the normal dentition apparently here recognized is : 1. 1^ ; 0. J^J j M. |5|=j|=26. Giebeljt in 1855, gave six incisors both above and below as the number existing in the young before and for a short time after birth. Of these, the lower are said to soon fall out, their alveoli then becoming fiUed with a bony deposit. Of the upper inci- sors, the inner pair first disappear, and soon after them also the middle pair, leaviug only the outer pair, which begin the mola- riform series, and to which they are often referred, this outer pair persisting till late in life. The upper canines, he says, are never cast. | In the lower jaw, the first permanent tooth is regarded as a canine, because it is thicker and rounder than the posterior teeth, and lacks the cross-ftirrow that marks the oth- * Anatomy of Vertebrates, vol. iii, p. 338. tOdoutog., p. 82,. pi. 36, fig. 7; Saugeth., p. 129. X They are, however, as shown by Malmgren (see beyond), preceded in the embryo by temj^orary teeth. 54 ODOB^NUS EOSMAEUS ATLANTIC WALEUS. ers. The young animal has five npx)er molariform teeth (" Back- zahue"), the last two of which are smallest and early disapi^ear, and also later the third, leaving only two behind the canine, and an anterior molariform incisor. In the lower jaw there are onty four "Backzahne" on each side, of which the last and smallest very soon falls away. The dental formula given is as foUows:"(|5j) + I + (^)" = temporary dentition : I. |e|, 0. fei, M. 1=1; adult dentition : I. ^, C. i^-J, M. '—?. AYhile Giehel accepts the first jiermanent tooth of the molariform series of the upper jaw as an incisor, and the first in the lower jaw as a canine, he recognizes only two persistent molars on each side, above and below. Malmgren,* in 1864, figured the dentition from a foetal speci- men, and pubhshed an elaborate paper on the dentition of the Walrus, in which he reviewed at some length the history of the subject, noticing quite fully the writings of the early authors, from Crantz to the Cuviers, and the papers of Eapp, Owen, Wiegmann, Mlsson, and other later writers. The formula he presents as that of the permanent dentition is : I. q-^, C. —^j M. |^=j=18; and for the deciduous dentition: 1. 1^, C. ^-^, M. t^^=i^=32. t 4 — 4 Id The specuuen figured shows both the permanent and decidu- ous dentition. The deciduous teeth are most of them separately figured, of natural size, as minute, slender, spindle -rooted teeth, with short, thickened crowns. The permanent teeth are abeady in place, although even the upi)er canines had probably not pierced the gum. The middle pair of incisors of both jaws had already disappeared, leading only then- distinctly recognizable alveoh. His specunen appears to have had but a single cadu- cous molar behind the permanent series, from which he assumes the number of upper molars to be 4 — 4 instead of 5 — 5. The following year, Peters | referred to Malmgren's paper, publishing a plate illustrating the dentition as existing in a some- what older skull (received from Labrador) than that figured by Malmgren. Peters here takes exception to IMalmgren's assumed nuijiber of back-teeth, which, in accordance with the views of Eapp and Wiegmann, Peters believed should be |5|, instead of J^^. * Ofversigt af Kougl. Vet.-Akad. Forliaudl., 1^63, pp. 505-522, pi. vii. t Tlie paper being xmblislied iu Swedish, I am unable to follow Mm in bis discussion of tbe subject. t Monatsb. K. P. Akad., 1865, pp. 685-687, pi. facing p. 685. DENTITION. 55 According to Peters, Malmgren, from not finding more tlian four ni)per back-teeth in any of the many skulls of various ages he had examined, concluded that when a fifth is j)resent it is abnormal. The young skull figured and described by Peters, however, has in the uj)per jaw the fourth and fifth back-teeth still in place on the right side, and the foiuth on the left side, with an alveolus of a fifth. This Peters considered as affording new proof of the correctness of Wiegmann's formula. As already noticed, five molars have been recognized by Fremery, Eapp, Giebel, and Owen, and, though perhaps not always pres- ent, are frequently to be met with. The dental formula of the Walrus, as determined by Eai^i) and Wiegmann, has been adoi^ted hj Yan der Hoeven * and Blasius, t as well as by Peters, and essentially by Giebel. Gie- bel, however, gives only four deciduous lower incisors, instead of six. Owen, in his later works, agTees in this point with Gie- bel, but takes apparently no cognizance of the deciduous fourth and fifth molars, to which he refers, however, in his earlier papers. Gray, | in 1866, although quoting the formula given by Eapp, adopts the following : " Cutting teeth -f in young, ^ in adult ; gTinders |^ in adult, truncated, all single-rooted ; ca- nines, upj)er very large, exserted." He, however, quotes Eapp's formula, and also that given by Owen in his " Catalogue of the Osteological Series of the Museum of the Eoyal College of Sur- geons " (1853, p. 630). Professor Flower, § in 1869, gave a diagram of the dentition of the Walrus based on many observations made by himself and on "those of others, especially Professor Malmgren," in which both the temporary and permanent dentition is indicated as fol- lows : Milk dentition : I. |^, 0. ^£^, M. ^^ ; permanent denti- tion: I. j~, C. ^5^, M. |=|. He adds that " it is probable that an anterior rudimentary incisor is developed in the upper if not in the lower jaw," making the temporary incisors hypothetically 1^. " I beheve," he says, " that the rudimentary millv teeth never cut the gum, and are absorbed rather than shed. This process commences before birth, The rudimentary teeth, however, in front of and behind the large teeth are not * Lelu'bucli der Zoologie, 1856, p. 738, Englisli ed. t Siiugctliiere Deutsclilands, 1857, pj). 261, 262. t Cat. Seals and Wliales, p. 35. ij Journ. Anat. and Pliys., iii, p. 272. 66 ODOB^NUS KOSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. nnfreqnently persistent to extreme old age, altlioiigli commonly lost in macerated skulls. Tliese rudimentary teetli are usnallj* described as 'milk-teeth'; even the posterior ones are some- times so called, but it api^ears to me an open question whether they do not rather represent i)ermanent teeth in a rudimentary- or aborted condition." Huxley, in his "Anatomy of Vertebrated Animals" (pp. 3G0, 361), published in 1872, adopts the following as the dental for- mula of the Wakuses : " I. ~^, C. ^^, p. m. m. |^| + j3^»" He says : " The dentition of the Wahiis is extremely peculiar. In the adult, there is one simi)le conical tooth in the outer part of the premaxilla, followed by a huge tusk-like canine, and three, short, simple-fanged teeth. Sometimes, two other teeth, which soon fall out, lie behind these, on each side of the upx)er jaAv. In the mandible there are no incisors, but a single short canine is followed by three similar, simple teeth, and by one other, which is caducous." * Both here and in the formula no reference is made to the deciduous incisors, although the caducous molars are recognized. In the foregoing resume, we have seen how vague was the information bearing on this subject i)ossessed by all writers prior to about the beginning of the present century ; how the earlier notices of the existence of incisors in the young were overlooked and rediscovered by later writers, as well as how slowly the first permanent tooth of the molariform series of the upper jaw came to be generally recognized as a true incisor and not a molar ; how, later, the number of incisors in the young was found to be six ui the upper jaw and six in the lower jaw, with, as a rule, two small caducous molars on each side in the upper jaw, and one on each side in the lower behind the permanent grinding teeth; that the first i)ermanent molariform tooth of the lower jaw was a canine and not a molar ; and that by dif- ferent writers the number of incisors recognized in the lower jaw has been sometimes four and sometimes six, and the cadu- cous upper molars regarded sometimes as one and sometimes as two. Finally, that the true formula of the full dentition of the Walrus is I. |5|; C. ]-~l', Pm. M. J5|=:|=34. It hence appears that the dentition of the Walruses is peculiar and some- what abnormal in four features, namely, (1) the early disap- pearance of all the incisors except the outer pair of the upper * Auat. Vertebr. Auim., pp. 360, 361. FOSSIL EEMAINS. 57 jaw, (2) the enormous development of the ni>per canines, (3) the slight specialization of the lower canines, and (4) the caducous character of the two posterior pairs of molars of the upper jaw and the posterior pair in tlie lower jaw. The early dentition of the Walrus differs mainly from that of most other Pinnipeds in having six lower incisors instead of four, the incisive formula of other Pinnipeds, as generally recognized, being usually |^, fre- quently 1^, and sometimes (as in Macrorhinus and Cystophora) 1^, — never, at least in the permanent dentition, |^, but I am far from siu^e this number may not sometimes appear in the deciduous dentition. In the Sea Otter [Enliydris), there are said to be six lower incisors in the yoiuig, while only four are present in adult life. The middle pair of lower incisors so early disappear that even in very young specimens they are some- times wanting. Eapp found in a foetal specimen three on one side and only two on the other, and quite a number of promi- nent writers on the subject have recognized two pairs of lower incisors as the normal number. In many specimens, the alveoli of three pairs have been found, and, in addition to the instances akeady given, I may add that there is a young skull in the Museum of Comparative Zoology that shows decided traces of three i)airs, the outer incisor on one side being still in place. In view of all that is at jiresent known respecting the sub- ject, I adopt the following formulai as being well-estabhshed, — premising, however, that they are substantially in accord with the view of the case presented by Professor Flower in 1869 : — Temporary dentition: I. |^; ^-i^; ^I- j5l = il = 32. Permanent dentition : I. ^J; 0. J-^^j M. ie| = j| = 26; the last two upper molars and the last lower one on each side being rudimentary and often absent, Fossil Eematns. — Eemains of the Atlantic Walrus, in a fossil state, have been found at various i)Ouits along the Atlantic coast from Maine to South Carolina, and in Europe as far south as England and France. The first noticed Irom American locali- ties was thus mentioned by Barton in 1805, but the locality is not given. He says: "The bones of one of these large animals have been found. These appear to have belonged to a species of fricJieclms; perhajis to the tricJicchus rosmarvs or morsc.''^* Messrs. Mitchill, Smith, and Cooper described, in * London Pliil. Mag., vol. xxxii, 1805, p. 98. 58 ODOBiENUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. 1828,* a specimen consisting of the anterior portion of a skull, found on the sea-beach in Accomac County, Virginia. The same specimen was also described later by Harlan.f These writers all (considered it as bearing the closest resemblance to the corre- sponding i^oriion of the skull of the existing Walrus, to which they doulitfidly referred it ; but later it was regarded by DeKay as representing a distinct species, to which he gave the name Triclieclius virgmianus.X In 1844, Lyell described a tusk ob- tained from the Tertiary Clays of, Gardiner, Maine, Avhich Owen regarded as x)robably belonging to an extinct sijecies.§ Lyell 1 1 also refers to a skull he obtained at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. He desciibes this skull as " differing from skulls of the existing species [Tricheehus rosmariis, Linn.), with which it was comi)ared by Professor Owen, in having only six molafs and two tusks, whereas those of the recent have four molars on each side, besides occasionally a rudimentary one. The front tusk is rounder than that of the recent Avalrus." ^ In 1857, Dr. Leidy** described and figured a skull found on the sea-beach at Long Branch, Monmouth County, New Jersey, where it was obtained by Prof. J. F. Frazer in 1853, and refers to another specimen (consisting of the facial portion of a skidl) discovered at the same locality by Prof. Geo. H. Cook. The first-named specimen, says Dr. Leidy, " has lost a x^ortion of the cranium proper, and the exserted portion of one tusk, but other- wise, excex)t being a little water- worn, is in a good state of preservation. It is unchanged in texture, and nearly so in colour; and it belonged to an old individual, as all the sutures are completely obliterated. The form of the facial jiortion of this specimen (corresponds with that of the si^ecimen from Vir- ginia, [described by DeKay and preceding writers,] above men- tioned ; and the entire skull closely resembles that of the recent Walrus, Trichechns rosmarus, as represented in the figures of Daubenton, Cmder, and De Blainville ; and its measurements are also sufficiently near those given by the first-named author to recognize it as the same species. *Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist. New York, vol. ii, 1828, p. 271. tEdiub. New Phil. Jouru., vol. xvii, 1834, p. 300. tNat. Hist. New York, Zoology, pt. i, 1842, p. 56, pi. xix, figs. 1, a, h. $See Packard, Mem. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. i, 18G7, p. 24C. II Amer. Journ. Sci. and Arts, vol. xlvi, 1844, p. 319. If As is well known, the existing Walrus lias occasionally only iLe nninlier of teeth found in the Martha's Vineyard specimen. **Trans. Am. Phil. Soc, vol. xi, 1857, p. 83, \>]s. iv, v, tig. 1. FOSSIL REMAINS. 59 " The tusks in tlie fossil curved clownwarcUy in a diverging manner, and were about four iuclies distant from each other at their emergence from the alveoli, and ten inches at their tips. The remaining tusk in the specimen is thirteen inches long from its alveolar border, and in this latter x)osition it is three inches in diameter antero-posteriorly and one and three quar- ters inches transversely . . . ." The other specimen, from New Jersey, mentioned above, he says is also "unchanged from its original texture, but is brown from the infiltration of oxide of iron. It also belonged to an old individual, as all the sutures are obliterated, and the third molars together with the greater part of their alveoli are gone. In its anatomical de- tails the specimen agrees with the corresponding x)ortion of Professor Frazer's specimen, except it is an inch and a half broader in the position of the canine alveoli, and the antero- posterior diameter of the tusk is rather less."* Of both these specimens, Dr. Leidy gives figures, and they agree entirely mth corresponding parts of the existing North Atlantic species. Dr. Leidy, however, notes differences between these specimens and those of the Walrus of the North Pacific. Dr. Leidy adds : " An important question now arises in rela- tion to the age or geological i)eriod to which the three Wah-us skulls, thus discovered on the coast of New Jersey and Virginia, belong. As they appear to be of the same species as the recent Tricheclms rosmarus, which once lived in great numbers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, they are most probably the remains of individuals that Avere once floated upon fields of ice southerly, and left on the present United States coast. Or, perhaps they may be the remains of the same species which probably during the glacial period extended its habitation very far south of the latitude in which it has been found in the historic period.'*! In view of the now well-known former extension of the habitat of the Moose, Caribou, Eeindeer, Musk Ox, and other northern mammals, southward to Kentucky, the latter hypothesis seems the more probable one, and that the species in glacial tmies inhabited the eastern coast of the United States southward to Virguiia, if not even beyond this i)oint. More recently. Dr. Leidy has announced the occurrence of Walrus remains in the phosphate beds of Ashley River, South Carolina, and has described and figured a tusk from that locality. * Trans Amer. Phil. Soc, vol. xi, pj). 83, 84. t Ibid., p. 84. 60 ODOBiENUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. "Tliis specimen," lie says, "is as black as ebony, dense, heavy, and brittle, and is nearly complete, except at tlie tliin border of the pulp cavity. The curvature is slight, and it indicates the tooth to be of the left side." He gives its dimensions or length externally, following the curvature, thirteen inches ; near the root it has an antero-posterior diameter of three and five-eighths inches, and a transverse diameter of one and three-fourths inches, and at the middle the transverse diameter is two and one-eighth inches, while the antero-posterior diameter is about the same as at the base. "In robust character," he adds, "the tusk quite equals those of the largest mature recent skulls which have come under my observation, but is much shorter and more ab- ruptly tapering. The specimen looks like what we might sup- pose the tusks of the living animal would be were they broken oft' near the middle and then worn away little more than one- fourth the length in a curved line deflected from the course of the anterior longitudinal convexity to the tip. The comparative bre^dty of the tusk and its worn condition at the end may per- hai^s have depended upon just such an accident and subsequent wear. In a mature skull from the shore of Sable Island, and preserved in the Museum of the Academy, the tusks, which are of the usual size, are worn in the same manner as the Ashley si)ecimen for more than half their length." After describing in detail the fluting of the tusks, and the variatio]! noticeable in this respect in different skuUs of the liv- ing Wakus, he concludes that, while the fluting differs some- what in the fossil tusks from that usually seen in the tusks of the existing animal, these differences cannot be considered as having specific value. In referring to DeKay's " Trichechus vir- ginianus^^^ he says: "ISTo remains of an undoubtedly extinct species known to me have been discovered anywhere." He finally adds, respecting the Ashley fossil, that "it is an iater- estiug fact to have learned that this [the li%ing] or a closely re- lated species formerly existed so far south as the Ashley River, South Carolma."* The discovery of the greater part of the skeleton of a Walrus, including the skull, with the tusks over five inches long, and all the teeth except two, in the Quaternary Clays at Portland, Me., was made dm^ing July of the present year (1878). It was found in excavating for the foundation of the new "Boston & Maine" transfer station, at about seven feet from the surface. *" Jouru. Acad. Nat. Sci. PMla., 2cl ser., vol. viii, 1877, pp. 214-216, pi. XXX, fiii;. C). FOSSIL REMAINS. 61 " It was i)artially imbedded iu a layer of blue clay a foot in thick- ness, overlaid by a layer of lighter clay two feet two inches thick, containing" casts and shells of 3Iya arenaria, Maconia suhulosa, Mytylus edulis, Cardium (Serripes) grcenlandicum, Astnrte tnm- cata, Saxicava distorta. Nucula antiqna, Leda tenuis ulcata, L. truncata, Natica clausa ajidjmsilla, and Balamis. The skeleton is in the Museum of the Portland Society of ISTatural History."* In Europe, Walrus remains were reported by Cuvier t as found at Angers, France, but Geryais \ found later that the only por- tion of those remains accessible to him belonged not to the Walrus, but to the Salitherium. In 1858, however, a part of a cranium was described by Gra- tiolet, from the dilu^dal deposits of Montrouge, near Paris. He, however, considered it as distinct from the existing species, even generically, and gave it the name Odohcnotlierium lartetianum.^ In 1874, a nearly entire skull was described by Defrance, from similar deposits near the vUlage of Sainte-Menehould, Marne, which he not only considered as identical with the living species, but also referred the fragment previously described by Gratiolet to the same species. Eespecting these specimens he says : "En comparant entre eUes les tetes du Tricheclms rosmarus de nos mers, de VOdobenotherium Lartetianum et du THchechus de Sainte-Menehould, on leur trouve une ressemblance aussi com- plete que possible, sauf en ce qui concerne la forme et le vo- lume de Tajiophyse mastoide, point qui i^resente des differences assez sensible. On salt que dans le T. rosmarus cette apophyse est tr^s-grande, presque verticale, et saillante la partie infe- rieure du crane; celle de VOdohenotJierium, egalement tres- volumineuse, se prolonge presque horizontalement en arriere, sans depasser le crane inferieurement ; ceUe du Triclieclms de Sainte-Menehould i)r6sente un volume plus considerable encore que dans les deux autres, sans se i)rolonger en arriere comme dans VOdohenotherium, mais inferieiu^ement comme dans le THchechus actuel. Ces nuances legeres indiquent 6videmment une (Stroite parente entre ces trois individus ; aussi est-il diffi- cile de comprendre que Gratiolet ait voulu ^tabKr un nouveau genre sur des particularites pen accentuee que celles que lui l)resentait la portion de crane dont il etait possesseur, et qui ne * American Naturalist, vol. xii, \). 63o, Sept., 1878; see also Portland (^lAva.Q) Argus, of July — , 1878. tOssem. Foss. t Zool. et Pal(?out. Fraugaises, 1859, j). 88. §Bull. Soc. G(5ol. de France, 2^ s^r., xv, 1858, p. 624. -62 ODOB.ENUS EOSMARUS — ATLANTIC WALRUS. sont (I'ailleur.s que des particularit6s relatives pour la plupart ^ I'age et an sexe, ainsi qiTe I'a etabli M. Gervais." * Van Beneden f refers to Gratiolet's specimen at some length, giving its fnll history and exposing its true character. He says : " On a trouv6 a Montrouge, pres de Paris, il y a quelques an- uses, un crane dont on s'est heauconp occui)6 et que Gratlolet a d^crit sous le nom d'' Odohenothere. Lartet I'avait remis h Gratio- let. Nous avons examine cette tete avec tout le soin n^cessaire et nous partageons completement Favis que M. Paul Gervais a exprime a son sujet dans la Zoologie et la FaUontologie frangaises (j). 88), c'est-a-dire, que ce crane fractur6 et qui a subi Paction du feu, n'est autre chose qu'un crane de Morse vivant qui 6t6 rapporte du IsTord. ^^ Nous avons etudi6 cette pi^ce avec M. Paul Gervais, ayant devant nous tons les 616ments de comparaison que possede le Museum et c'est apres avoir serieusement h^site si POdobe- nothere est un Morse on non, que nous nous somme range de Pavis de notre savant confrere. " Cet Odobenothere repose sur un fragment de crane dont la cavite cerebrale a ete utilisee j)our un usage quelconque et qui aura ete apporte dans cet etat par quelque pecheur du Nord. C'est le cote droit et non le cote gauche qui est conserve. " Celui qui se trouve devant ce fragment de crane et qui a devant lui un choix de sections des diverses regions de la tSte, comprend aisement comment a pu se tromper. '' L'importance que Le Hon a attach6e a la presence de cette tete dans le Diluvium rouge, tombe ainsi completement ; a propos de la periode glaciaire, Le Hon avait accorde une grande valeur a cette x)retendue decouverte de gratiolet."! Lankester, in 1865, described fossil tusks, from the Eed Crag of England, of an animal evidently closely allied to the Wabus. He enumerates no less than twelve or fifteen specimens of these remains, mostly fragments, collected from various locahties, all from the so-called " Eed Crag " formation of England, or its equivalent. The principal locahties are Sutton, Felixstow, and Bawdsey, in England, but he refers also to their occurrence at different points in Belgium. The majority of the specimens of the tusk obtained, writes Mr. Lankester, " are its pointed ^Bull. Soc. Ge, 1835, pp. 199-212. 88 ODOBiENUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. racters, were quite fully and satisfactorily treated by Dr. J. Murie* in 1872. nUger, in 1811, in a paper on the geographical distribution of tlie mammals of the Northern Hemisphere (see anted, p. 18), first nominally recognized the Pacific Walrus as a species distinct from the Atlantic animal, while Fremery, in 1831, recognized three species, and Stannius, in 1842, admitted two,t but, as already noticed, only one species of Walrus has been commonly recognized. The matter of variation dependent uj)on sex, age, and individual peculiarities, has received, as already noticed (see antea, pp. 38-43), special attention at the hands of Wieg- mann, Stannius, Jaeger, and other writers. Unquestionably, the most important paper relating to the lit- erature, geographical distribution, and habits of the Walruses is the well-known and justly celebrated memoir by "s^on Baer,| * Trans. Lond. Zool. Soc, vol. vii, pp. 411-462, 8 woodcuts, and pll. li-lv. t For a notice of the literature of this part of the subject see anted, pp. 17-23. t Anatomische und zoologische Untersuchungen iiber das Wallross ( Triche- chus rosmarus) und Vergleichung dieses Thiers mit andem See-Saugethieren. Von Dr. K. E. v. Baer. Gelesen den 6. Nov. 1835. <^M6m. de I'Acad. Im- p(5r. des Sciences de Saint-P6tersbourg, vi™" ser., Sc. math., phys. et nat., tome iv™", pp. 96-236. [Mit einer Tafel.J Pnblid par ordre de 1' Academic. En F^vrier, 1837. The paper has the following contents : I. Zoologische Abtheilnng. Cap. I. Veranlassung und Inhalt dieser Untersuchungen (pp. 97-100). $ 1. Veranlassung. ^ 2. Anatomische Untersuchung. ^^ 3. Zoologische Nachforschungen. § 4. Alter des lebend beobachteten Thiers. Cap. II. Geschichte der Kenntniss des Wallrosses und kritische Muste- rungderbisher geliefertenAbbildungen (pp. 100-130). § 1. Urzeit und Alter- thum. §2. Mittelalter. §3. Vom Schlussedesfunfzohnteu Jahrhundertsbis auf LLQn6 und Buffon. § 4. Von LinncS und Buifon bis jetzt. § .5. Uebersicht der bisher gelieferten Abbildungen vom WaUrosse. Cap. III. Beobachtungen an dem lebenden Thiere (pp. 130-148). ^ 1. Frii- here Falle von der Anwesenheit lebender Wallrosse in mittleren Breiten. § 2. Allgemeiues Ansehen des Tliiers. § 3. Der Kopf. ^ 4. Die Beweguugen. § 5. Blasen oder Ausspritzen von Wasser. ^ 5 [ftis]. Wartung des jungen Wall- rosses. § 6. Geistiges Naturel des Thiers. § 7. Bildsamkeit und Anhang- lichkeit. Cap. IV. Allgemeine Betrachtungen iiber die Bildsamkeit der See-SJiuge- thiere und iiber die Anhiinglichkeit der Individuen Einer Art unter einander (j)p. 148-171). § 1. Aufgabe. ^ 2. Geziihmte Wallrosse. ^ 3. Geziihmte Rob- ben. § 4. Wahre Cetaceen. § .5. Gesellschaftliches Leben. ^ 6. Liebe der Aeltem zu den Jungen und der Jungen gegen die Aelteru. ^ 7. Gatten- Liebe. § 8. Allgemeine Begriindung dieser Verhaltnisse. Cap. V. Verbreitungder Wallrosse (pp. 172-204). §1. Sie wohnen in zwei getrennten Verbreitungs-Bezirkon. 'J 2. Ocstlicher Verbreituugs-Bezirk. GENERAL HISTOEY. 89 published in 1837. This ehihorate memou-, so often already cited in the present article, gives a general summary of nearly all papers, references, and figures relating to the Wah-uses that appeared prior to 1835, the date of its presentation to the Impe- rial Academy of Sciences of Saint Petersburg for publication. It also contains many original biological and anatomical ob- servations, based on a young living si)ecimen brought to Saint Petersburg in 1828, which, sur\iving for only a week after its arrival, soon fell into his hands for dissection. * Von Baer, after a few preliminary remarks respecting the occasion and objects of his paper, and a few words on the anatomy of the Walrus, devotes some thirty pages to a critical and exhaustive historical resume of the literature relating to the general subject. Then follow some eighteen pages detailing his observations on the living animal, in which he gives some account of the few young individuals that had, up to that time, been taken alive to Middle Europe ; also a detailed account of the external appearance of the specimen he had examined in life. He notes especially its attitudes, movements, and Umb- structure, and compares it in these points with the Seals. After describing the position and character of the limbs in the Seals, and the restriction of their movements on land to a wriggling movement, with the belly lying on the ground, he refers to the freer use of the extremities i)ossessed by the Walrus, which he found was able to truly stand upon its four feet, and says that, ^ 3. Westlicher Verbreitungs-Bezirk. § 4. Periodisclie Waoderungen der Wallrosse. § 5. Physisclie Verhaltnisse, welche die Verbreitung der Wall- rosse bedingen. Cap. VI. Ehemalige Verbreitung der WaUrosse (pp. 20.V228). § 1. Mei- nungen hieriiber. § 2. Veranderungen im Vorkommen der Wallrosse in den drci letzten Jatuhuuderten. ^ 3. Ob an den Orkadisclien Inseln Wallrosse bis ins 16te Jabrhundert sich aufgebalten haben ? $ 4. Beweiss, dass, so weit Listoriscbe Nachrichten zuriickgehen, kein Wallrossfang an der Kiiste von Lappland getrieben worden ist. § 5. Ob die Wallrosse im Mittelalter bei Island biiufig waren. ^ 6. Verbreitung der Wallrosse zur Zeit der Romer und Griechen. § 7. Ehemaliges Vorkommen an der Nordkiiste der Conti- nente. Cap. VII. Paarung (pp. 228-230). Cap. VIII. Nahrung der Wallrosse (pp. 231-233). Cap. IX. Stellung des Wallrosses im Systeme, oder Verwandtschaft mit -andern Thieren (pp. 234, 235). * He seems, however, to have never published in full the results of bis observations upon its anatomy, he apparently reserving the anatomical part of his memoir in the hope of j»erfecting it through the study of addi- tional material. 90 ODOBiENUS EOSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. in respect to the use of its limbs, it occupies an intermediate place between tbe Pinnipeds and the ordinary four-footed Mam- mals, among which latter its less ijliant feet give it the appear- ance of a cripple. If we should call, he says, the Seal a crawler or slider, we should have to term the Walrus a waddler, since in walking it throws its plump body to the right and left. Here we have fairly described, for the first time, the flexibility of the ex- tremities,— the bending of the hind feet sometimes forward, sometimes backward, and the free turning of the fore feet, — although an allusion was made to this by Vorstius* two centu- ries before, yet the fact of flexibility remained generally unre- cognized till 1853, when a young living specimen reached London. Von Baer points out the fallacy of Sir Everard Home's notion that the feet of the Walrus are provided with suction -discs, and the " blowing " of the Walrus mentioned by Martens, v^ho de- scribed it as throwing water from its nostrils like a whale. Following this chapter on its external features, movements, temperament, behavior, etc., is an interesting dissertation of some twenty or more pages on the domesticability of the marine mammals in general, which is devoted largely to a history of the behavior of the Seals in captivity, with a short notice of the different examples of the Walrus, the Sireniaus, and the smaller Cetaceans that had been observed in confinement. The next thirty pages are given to a discussion of the geograph- ical distribution of the Walruses, the treatment of which subject is marked by the same x)ains-taking research that characterizes- the other parts of this learned monograph. He shows that Walruses are confined to two widely separated habitats, and not, as previously supposed, found all along the Arctic coasts. He describes them as limited to two regions, an eastern and a western, the first including the northwestern coast of jSTorth America from the Peninsula of Aliaska northward, and the corresponding parts of the neighboring Asiatic coast. To the eastward he could trace them only to the vicinity of Point Bar- row, and to the westward only to a few degrees beyond East Cape. The western region, he affirmed, embraces only the Arctic coast of Europe eastward to the mouth of the Jenesei Eiver, * "Pedes anteriores antrorsum, posteriores retrorsuin spectabant cnm in- grederetur," says Vorstius as quoted hj De Laet (see antea, p. 37). The Mnd feet are also represented as turned forward in Hessel Gerard's figure, pub- lished in 1613 (see jwsfea). GENEEAL HISTORY. 91 and, on the other side of the Atlantic, the shores of Greenland and Arctic America westward to the western shores of Hudson's Bay and Fox Channel. There is thus left between these two regions nearly the whole of the coast of Asia bordering on the Polar Sea on the one hand, and almost the whole of the coast of North America formed by the Arctic Sea on the other. In the later portion of his chapter on the distribution of the Walruses he devotes a few pages to a consideration of their migrations, and the physical causes which limit their distribu- tion. Their migrations, he beheves, are very imperfectly known^ but he inclines to the opinion that they only periodically visited such points in their former range as Sable Island and other southerly lying islands. The causes which limit their range he considers to be mainly temperature, since he finds the southern boundary of their distribution is deflected northward and south- ward in accordance with the curves of isothermal Unes. The former range of the Walruses is also considered at length, to which subject are devoted nearly twenty-five pages. A short account is given of their reiiroduction and food, the paper clos- ing with an inquiry into their systematic relationship to other animals. The map accompanying his memoir shows not only the distribution of the Walruses as at that time known, but indicates also the region over which they are known to have formerly occurred, and also the habitat of the Bhytina, or Sea- cow of Steller. The reception in London, in 1853, of a young living Walrus gave rise to a paper by Owen* on its anatomy and dentition, and another by Gray,t " On the Attitudes and Figures of the Morse." A short paper was contributed by Sundevall| in 1859 on its general history. Leidy, in 18G0, published an important paper on the fossU remaius of Walruses found on the eastern coast of the United States, whUe Gratiolet, Defi?ance, Lankester, and Yan Beneden have also written about those that have been met with in France, England, and Belgium.§ Malmgren, iu 1864, in a paper on the Mammalian Fauna of *Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1853, pp. 103-106. tlbid., pp. 112-116, figs. 1-10. tOm Walrossen, Ofversigt K. Vet. Akad. Forh. (Stockh.), s\i, 18.59, pp. 441-447 ; also translated in Zeitsclir. gesammt. Natur^v. Halle, x\', 1860, pp. 270-275. iJSee anted, pp. 61-65. 92 ODOB^NUS EOSMAEUS ATLANTIC WALEUS. rininark and Spitzbergen,* published many interesting notes relating to its habits and food, and later a special paper on its dentition (noticed antea., p. 54.) Malmgren's observations on their habits, distribution, etc., also appear in the history of the Swedish Expedition to Spitzbergen and Bear Island in the year 1861,t together with a somewhat detailed and very interesting general history of the animal, with several illustrations. Brown, in 1868, in his "Notes on the History and Geograph- ical Eelations of thePinnipedia frequenting the Spitzbergen and Greenland Seas,"| devotes several pages to the Wakuses (pp. 427-435), in which he considers especially their habits and food, geographical distribution, and economic value. In addition to the special papers cited in the foregoing pages, their general history has been more or less fully presented in several general works treating of the mammalia, and in several faunal pubIications.§ Much information respecting their general history may also be found in the narratives of various Arctic explorers, as Parry, Wraugell, KeiUiau, Kane, Hayes, Lamont, and others, whose contributions will be more fully noticed in the following pages relating to the habits of the Walruses. 2. Figures. — As von Baer facetiously remarks, no animal has had the honor of being depicted in such strange and widely diverse representations as the Walrus. These, as has been previously stated, began with Olaus Magnus, about the middle of the sixteenth century, who opened the series wit^i half a dozen phantastic figures, based apparently upon this animal, only one of which, however, bore the name Rosmarus (Bosma- * lakttagelser och anteckningar till Finmarkens ock Spetsbergens D;igg- djiirsfauna. Ofversigt af Kongl. Vetensk.-Akad. Forhandl. 1863, (1864), i^p. 127-155. [Walruses noticed, pp. 130-134. ] Also republished iu German in Wiegmann's Arch, fiir Naturgesch., 1864, pp. 63-97. tl have seen only Passarge's German translation, entitled ''Die schwe- dischen Expeditionen nach Spitzbergen und Baren-Eiland ausgefiihrt in den Jahren 1861, 1864, und 1868, unter Leitung von O. Torell und A. E. Nordenskiold. Aus dem Schwedischen iibersetzt von L, Passarge. Nebst 9 grossen Ansichten in Tondruck, 27 lUustrationen in Holzschnitt und einer Karte von Spitzbergen in Farbendruck. Jena, Hermann Costenoble, 1869." See pp. 131-143 (general history), 147, 151, etc. XFtoc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1808, pp. 405-440. § See, among others, Macgillivray, British Quad., 1838, pp. 219-224 ; Ham- ilton, Amiihib. Garni vora, etc., 1839, pp. 103-123; Nilsson, Skaud. Faun., i, 1847, pp. 318-325; Giebel, Siiugethiere, 1855, pp. 127-129; Lilljeborg, Fauna Sveriges och Norges Diiggdj., 1874, j)p. 654-(i67; etc., etc. FIGURES. 93 rus seu Morsus N'orvegicus).* This figure! represents an animal standing- lialf erect, resting against a rock, having four feet, Fig. 4. — "Eosmarus seu Morsus Norvegicus, Olaus Magnus, 1568, p. 789." a long, thick, cylindrical tail, terminating abruptly in an irreg- ular expansion, with a low dorsal spiny crest, and two rather long porcine tusks projecting downward from about the middle of the mouth. Another, | a prone figure, called For cm mon- Fig. 5. — "Forcus manstrosus Oceani Germanici. Olaus Ma^ ii>. ir-v.)-', p. 788." strosus Oceani Germanici, has a thick, short body, a fish-like tail, and a swine's head, ears, and tusks; the latter i)laced only in the lower jaw and directed upward. Behind the prom- inent pointed ears are two horns. The body is covered with heavy scales, among which are placed three eyes. The back is crested with large, somewhat recurved, spines of irregular size, and the feet are webbed and fin-like, especially the anterior. Another, called Vacca marina, represents the head of an ox, with a long beard on the chin. A fourth represents a dolphin- like body, with four feet, a fish's tail, a pair of long, ascending, *My remarks resj)ecting Olaus Magnus's figures are based on Gesuer's (Hist. Animal, Aquat., 1558, pp. 247-249), and Gray's copies of tliem (Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1853, p. 113), Olaus Maguus's -work not being accessible to me. The figures berewith given (Figs. 4-12) are from electros of Gray's figures. t See Fig. 4, coj)ied by Gray from Olaus Magnus. I See Fig. 5, copied by Gray from Olaus Magnus. 94 ODOBJLNUS llOSMAKUS ATLANTIC WALEUS. curved tusks near the posterior angle of tlie mouth, and long spines from the chin, throat, head, and back. * A tifth t is a Fig, 6.—"I}osma)-iis. Gesncr, Adtleuda, 3G8, 1C<, 1560. (Rcdnced one- iiintli.)" creature having a swinish head, with long, ascending ,tusks in the lower jaw, four short, clawed feet, and a rather long, cylin- FtG. 7.— "Vacca marina. Gesuer, Addenda, p. 369, 1560." drical body wrapped in armor ! Another is a monstrous sea animal, with a circle of long spines around the head, and tufts of spines from the nostrils and chin, four feet, the *anterior only with claws, a forked tail with the points laterally recurved, and * See Fig. 6, copied by Gray from Gesner. tSee Fig. 7, copied by Gray from Gesner. FIGURES. 95 two great tusks in the upper jaw, but no otlier resemblance to the Walrus.* The figures published by Olaus Magnus were, according to von Baer, all faithfully copied by Gesner, t who added to them Fig. 8. — " Eosmarus. Gesner, Icones Animalium, 1560, p. 178. De Cetis, Old. sii. (Reduced two-thirds.)" another, which he received from Strassburg. This| represents, as von Baer terms it, the " morphological paradox" of a verte- brate with two pairs of feet, a pair of wings or floats (" Flossen"), and a fish's tail. The head has considerable resemblance to that of a Walrus, with the large tusks properly situated in the upiDCr jaw, and the ej'es and nose are passably represented. The feet are all directed backward, in a swimming posture, and armed with strong claws. The Seal-like body has engrafted upon . tail of a fish, while at the shoulder is seen a sort of wing 11 vo appendage. The figure of the head is said to have been d ^t.^f i in Strassburg from an actual specimen afterward sent by the bishop of Drontheim to the Pope, but to this was added a wholly imaginary figure of the body. Gesner's figure was sev- eral times copied, among others by Ambrosinus in 1642, in his Addenda to Aldrovandus's work,§ and also by Jonston|| in 1657. In 1598, De Veer, in a work entitled " The Navigation into the North- Seas," ^ gave an illustration entitled "The Portrait- ure of our boats and how we nearly got into difficulty with the Seahorses." In this picture are depicted several Seal-like ani- "This figure Is not included in Gray's series. t Icones Animalium, 1.^53, and Historia Animalium, 1558. t See Fig. 8, copied h v Gray from Gesner. § " Paralipomena, etc., adnexa ad Aldrovandi Historiam Monstrorum, p. 106," according to von Baer. II De Piscibu8. pi. xliv. IT Amsterdam, 1598; translated and republished in London in 1609, and a'ei>rinted from the London edition by the Haklnyt Society in 1853, the last- named being the edition hiere quoted. 96 ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. mals standing on tlie ice, witli long tusks and an arclied body^ sux>i)orted on a decurved bifurcate tail and the fore limbs, while the heads of several others are seen in the water. They are represented as having distinct pointed ears and no hind feet, unless the tail-like ending of the body may be supi^osed to rep- resent the hind limbs.* An explanation of the inaccuracy of Fig. 9.— "Sea Horse, 1609." these figures is evidently afforded by the context (pp. 218-219 •of the Hakluyt edition), in which we find the following: "And passing along by it ["Admiralty Island"], we saw about two hundred, seahorses lying upon a flake of ice, and we sailed close by them and draue them from there, which had almost cast us doun ; for they being mighty strong fishes [Zee-mon- sters, the editor says is the term used in the original Dutch], and of great force swam towards us (as if they^ would revenge on us for the despight that we had done them) round about our scuts [boats] with a great noyse, as if they would have de- voured us 5 but we escaped from them by reason of a good gale of wind ; yet it was not Avise of us to wake sleeping wolves." r^f»£'j*r^:^r. Fig. 10. — ' ' Wah-uss. Ad viviim delineatum ab Hesselo G. A. 1613. (Reduced four-sevenths. ) " In 1G13 a very correct and in many ways admirable repre- sentation of the Walrus was published by Hessel Gerard t (or * One of these figures has been cojiied by Gray (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1853, p. 114, fig. 6), but omitting the ears and somewliat reduced in size. Gray's figure is here reproduced (see Fig. 9). t " Histoire de Spitsberghe," as cited by Gray. Blumenbach and von Baer cite doubtfully "Descrijttio ac delineatio geographica detectionis freti, s. transitus ad occasum supra terras Americanas in China atque Japonem duc- turi, etc." Von Hessel Gerard. Amsterdam, 1613. 4°. FIGUKES. 97 Gerrard, as also written), drawn from life from a young animal, which, with the stuffed skin of its mother, arrived in Holland in 1612. This representation consists of two figures, one of a full- grown animal, the other of a 5 oung one a few months old.* The hind i)ortion of the larger animal is partly hidden by the figure of the smaller one. The general form of the body, the tusks, and extremities are all faithfully portrayed, the hind limbs being turned forward in their natural position, — the first figure, and the onlj^ one for the next two hundred and fifty years, in which the hind limbs are placed in a natural position. This figure has been many times copied, — first by De Laett in 1633, and sub- sequently from De Laet, by WormiusJ in 1665, by Jonston,§ Shaw,|| Schinz,^ Gray,** and doubtless by many others. Most of the early authors, as Wormius, Jonston, and others, copied, not directly fi'om Gerard, but from De Laet, while Shaw copied from Jonston, and Schinz from Blumenbach, in several cases these second and third hand representations doing great injus- tice to Gerard's original figure. Blumenbach, ft through the kindness of his friend Forster, was enabled to take his from Gerard's original imprint, and it is a much finer illustration than that afforded by De Laet, the one usually copied. Yon Baer|| also refers to a colored copy of Gerard's figure, which he obtained, with a collection of natural-history illustrations, from a bookseller in Leipsic, in which the coloring was truthfully executed, agreeing closely with the color of the young animal he saw alive in St. Petersburg. §§ Gerard's often-copied drawing * See Fig. 10, copied by Gray, and here reproduced. t Nevus Orbis, seu Descrip. Ind. Occident., 1633, p. 38. tMus. Worm., p. 289. § De Piscibus et Cetis, 1649, pi. xliv (also in subsequent editions). II General Zool., i, 1800, pi. Ixviii*. U Naturgesch. und Abbild. der Siiuget., pi. ixv, lower figure. **Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1853, p. 115, fig. 9. Gray's figure is here given (see Fig. 10). ft Abbild. naturbist. Gegenstande, 1796-1810, No. 15 (plate and text). ttLoc. cit.,p. 129. §$ Von Baer's account of this important early figure is as follows : " Diese vortrefflicbe Zeicbnung wiirde in Kupfer gestocben und einigen Exemplaren von dem Abdrucke der Descriptio ac delineatio geographica detectionis freii, 8. transitus ad occasum supra terras Amerieanas in Chinam atque Japonem ducturi etc., der von Hessel Gerard in Amsterdam 1613, 4°. besorgt ist, beigegeben. In diesem Buche wurde der Originalkupfersticb von Forster gefunden und Blumenbacb mitgetbeilt. Da er sich, wie Blumenbach sagt, in keiner an- dem Ausgabe desselben Werkes und auch in dieser mtr in den wenigsten Exemplaren findet, so ist wohl wahrscheinlich, dass er gar nicht zu dem Misc. Pub. No. 12 7 98 ODOB^NUS EOSMARUS^^ATLANTIC WALRUS. was well worthy of repetition, being incomparably better than any other made prior to those taken from the living specimen received at the Zoological Gardens in London in 1853. Pnrchas, in his " Pilgrimes,"* gives some very interesting, and in many respects excellent, representations of the Wahiis, to which I find no reference in the writings of von Baer or Gray, or, in fact, anywhere. In the principal of these figures, the general form of the Walrus is more correctly delineated than in any figure, except Gerard's, that appeared prior to 1857. Barring its facial expression, and the presence of what seems to be a mane, it is excellent. The general outhne of both the body and the limbs are surprisingly truthful, as is likewise the attitude. The hind feet are turned forward, and the size and position of the tusks are correctly represented. The face, how- ever, has a most ludicrous half-leonine, half-human expression, which is heightened by the addition of an ear having the gen- eral form of a human ear. In addition to this, the creature is Werke geliort und nur von dem Herausgeber oder von den Kaufern einigeu Exemplaren beigebimden ist. Icli habe nicbt Gelegenbeit gebabt, das bier genannte Werke zii seben und darnacb zu bestimmen, ob das Kupfer zu dem Bucbe gebort, Termutbe aber eines Tbeils aus der augegebenen Seltenbeit seines Vorkommens und andem Tbeils aus dem.Umstande, dass die Figur in mebreren Werken des 17. Jabrbunderts wiederbolt wurde, dass sie damals bekannter war, als im 18ten. Ja, icb besitze selbst ein colorirtes Blatt, das icb in einer Sammlung naturbistoriscber Abbildungen in Leipzig aus dem Nacb- lasse eines Naturalienbandlers kaufte und welcbes, zwar nicbt der Original- Kupfersticb, docb eine Copie desselben ist. Die Farbe, welcbe beide Tbiere auf meinem Blatte baben, ist ganz iibereinstimmend mit der Farbe des jungen Wallrosses, das bier zu seben war. Da nun die erwacbsenen Wall- Tosse in der Regel beller sind, so ist es mir wabrscbeinlicb, dass aucb die Coloriruug damals nacb dem jungen Tbiere gemacbt ist." — VoN Baer, I. c, pp. 128, 129. Gray says : "In a small quarto tract, called tbe ' Histoire du Pays nomm6 Spitsbergbe, ^crit par H. G. A., Amsterdam, cbez Hessel Gen-ard A.', 1613, a plate at page 20 contains an excellent figure of tbe Morse and its young, ' ad "vivum delineatum ab Hesselo G. A.' Tbis figure was repeated in De Laet's 'Amer. Descript.', p. 28, 1633, by Jonston, 'Pisces', t. 44, in 1657, and by Sbaw, 'Zoology', t. 68*, from Jonston." Gray copies tbis figure witb tbe following title: "Fig. 9. Walniss. Ad vivum delineatum ab Hesselo G. A. Histoire de Spitsbergbe, by H. G. A., 1613. Anotber edition, same date. (Reduced foux-seventbs. ) " — Proc. Zool. Soc. Land., 1853, p. 115. It would tbus appear tbat eitber Gerard's figure was publisbed simulta- neously in several different works, since tbat mentioned by Gray is not tbe fOne cited by von Baer, or else tbat, as von Baer suspected, and as seems more jirobable, tbe xilate did not really belong to tbe work von Baer cites, but merely bappeued to be bound witb it. *Vo]. iii, pp. 472-473 bis. FIGUEES. 99 represented as having a lieavy mane, extending from tlie liead to the middle of the back. The fignre bears the quaint legend, ^^The Seamorce is in quantity as Mgg as an oxeP Another illustra- tion on the opposite page shows " The manner of killing y<^ Seamorces," and represents a small herd of Walruses attacked by a party of hunters armed with lances. The Walruses are all headed toward the water, the men being between them and the sea. The Walruses are depicted in the attitude of walking, all having the hind feet turned forward, these figures giving apparently a correct idea of the Walrus's manner of progres- sion on land. These two illustrations form f)art of a series that embellish a map of " Greenland" ( Spitz bergen), the others rep- resenting different scenes in Whale-fishing and " the manner of killing Beares." Zorgdrager,* in 1720, gave a figure of a Walrus which has a Seal-like head with two long tusks in the upper jaw, and the general body-contour of a Walrus. The posterior third of the body and hind limbs are fortunately, to judge by the rest of the figm-e, left to the imagination, being hidden behind the figure of a Seal ("Zee Eob"); the fore limbs bear no resemblance to those of a Walrus. In 1741, Egedet gave a Seal-hke figure of a Wakus,/with its calf, confronting a Polar Bear. The open mouth displays a series of long sharp teeth, looking even less like Walrus tusks than the general form of the animal does like the outline of a Wah-us. This figure of the Walrus is surj)risingly jjoor, con- sidering the excellent descrixDtion Egede gives of the animal. In 1748, Ellis I further enriched the iconographic literature of the Walrus by furnishing a figure, respecting which he says: ^'I shall not detain the Eeader with an Account of a Creature [" Sea Horse"] so often described, but refer him to the Cut, in which he will find it very truly represented."§ The figure, how- ever, is one of the worst imaginable, considering the oppor- tunity Ellis evidently had for observation. In some respects it bears some resemblance to that given by De Veer. EUis's figure combines a Lynx-like face with Lion-like fore limbs, short, * Bloeyendc Opkoiuft der Aloude eu Hedeudaagsclie Groenlandsclie Vis- scliery, 1720, plate facing j). 162, upper left-liaud figure. t Besclireiljung nud Naturgescliiclite you. Grouland, 1763, p. 106, pi. vi, lower left-hand figure, Kruuitz's German translation. The work appeared in Danish as early as 1741. X Voyage to Hudson Bay, pi. facing p. 134, middle figure. §Loc. cit., J). 236. 100 ODOB^NUS EOSMARUS ATLANTIC WALEUS. round, prominent ears, small, pointed, inward- cur\ing tusks, no Mnd feet, and a body tapering to a doubly emarginate fish-like tail, possibly intended to represent liind limbs. Pontoppidon, in Lis ISratm-al History of jSTorway, published in 1751, gave a figure of the Walrus in which the resemblance consisted mainly in the presence of two huge tusks in the upjDer jaw. Only the head, neck, and upx)er portion of the body are represented; but the general outline, as far as seen, is sug- gestive of the animal it was intended to represent. Houttuyn,* in 17G1, gave a very fair figure of the skull and os j)enis of a Walrus. As P. L. S. Miiller, in 1773, used Houttuyn's plates in his " Natursystem," these figures are there again called into service, to which was added a noteworthy reiDresentation of the animal.t This represents an apparently young Walrus as lying jiartly on the side, with the diminutive hind feet Fig. 11.—" Wall-Boss, Marten's Spitzbergen, &c. 1675, t. P, fig. 6. (Reduced tliree-tenths. ) " turned fortmrd. The general outline of the body indicates the obese form of the Walrus; but the head, with its small, short tusks, has scarcely the faintest resemblance to the head of that animal. * Natuurlyke Historie of uitvoerige Beschryving der Dieren, Planten en Mineraalen, volgens liet Samenstel van den Heer Linnaeus. Met naaw- keurige Af beeldingen. Eerste Deels, tweede Stuk, 1761, pi. xi, figg. 1, 4. t Des Ritters Carl von Linu6 Koniglicli Schwedisclien Leibarztes, &c. &c. vollstandiges Natursystem nach der zwoKten lateinisclien Ausgabe und nacb Anleitung des hollaudisclien Houttuyniscben Werks mit einer ausfiibrliclien Erkliiruug ausgefertiget von Philipp Ludwig Statins Miiller, etc. Erster Tbeil. Niiniberg, 1773. PI. xxix, fig. 2. Tbis is one of tbe few original plates added by Miiller to Houttuyn^s series FIGURES. 101 lu 1765, a most wretclied and ludicroiTS caricature of the Walrus was contributed by Martens.* In this figure, the much- abused Wahnis is represented as having an enormously large and shapeless head, in which the small tusks are set widely apart; it has small Seal-like fore feet, and no hind limbs, or, if present, they are directed backward, and look more like a fish's tail than distinct limbs. The tusks alone give the figure any suggestion of what it was intended to represent. The next figure of which I have knowledge was published by Buffon,t also in 17G5, and soon after copied by Schreber.| This Fig. 12.— "Zc Morse, Buffon, xiii, t. 548, 1765. (Reduced two-fiftlis.)" was evidently drawn from a stuffed specimen, to which the taxi- dermist had given the attitude and general form of a common Seal. In 1827, a very fair figure of the head (the animal being supposed to be in the water, with only the head visible) was published in Grifidth's Animal Kingdom (vol. ii, lA. v), which was later repeated by Hamilton,§ and also elsewhere. In 1836, a very fair, colored figure (evidently from a stuffed specimen), barring tiie posterior direction of the hind Umbs, appeared in the ' ' Disciples edition " 1 1 of Cuvier's Eegne Animal, copied from Pal- * Spitzbergiscbe Reisebeschreibiuig, i)l. P, fig. h. This fig. is also repro- duced by Gray (1. c, fig. 7), and is bere copied as Fig. 11. tHistoire Naturelle, t. xiii, pi. liv. + Sauget., pi. Ixxix. § AmpMbious Carnivora, p. 106, in Jard. Nat. Library, Mam., vol. viii. II Le Rfegne Animal, etc., par Georges Cuvier. ''Edition accompagu^e des planches grav6es, .... par une reunion de disciples de Cuvier," etc. Paris, 1836 et seq. The Walrus is figured in "Mammiferes," pi. "xliv. The history of the figure is given as follows: "Figure dessin^e d'apres cello qu'a domi6e Pal- las dans la Zoographia Eosso -Asiatica, et r^form^e, pour le pose, d'apres un croquis in6dit de Choris; au vingtieme environ de la grandeur natureUe." The only copy of Pallas's "Icones" accessible to me is imperfect, and has not the figure here copied. There is, however, a quite different one, which will be noticed later in another connection. Whether Pallas's figiu-e here copied represents the Atlantic or the Pacific species cannot well be deter- mined. 102 ODOBJSNUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. las. Anotlier much like it was published soon after in Macgil- livray's British Quadrupeds, * and still another, also quite simi- lar, in H^imilton's Marine Carnivora.t The vignette-titlepage of the last-named work also represents a "Walrus hunt," in which a boat's crew are depicted as attacking a group of five old Wal- ruses. The plate in Hamilton's "Amx)hibious Carnivora" pur- ports to have been drawn from a specimen in the Edinburgh Eoyal Museum, and seems to be essentially the same as that in Macgillivray's British Quadrupeds, with a somewhat altered j)ositiou and different background. In each of these jDlates are represented two other distant figures of the Walrus. In each, the tusks are long, and seem to represent the Pacific rather than the Atlantic species, as is also the case in the "Dis- ciples edition" of the Eegne Animal. In all these last-named figures, the hind limbs are directed posteriorly, but in other respects they are fair representations. Dr. Kane, I in 185G, gave several illustrations of the animal, and also of its breathing-holes, and of the implements emi^loyed by the Innuits in AValrus-hunting. In Sonntag's "Narrative of the Grinnell Exploring Expedition," § published in 1857, a * Jardine's Nat. Library, Mam., vol. vii, 1838, pL xx. tibid., vol. viii, 1839, pi. i. t Arctic Exploration, vol. i, pp. 141 ("Walrus Sporting"), 142 ("Walrus- hole), 419 ("portrait"); vol. ii, jilate facing p. 214 ("Walrus Hunt off Pi- kantlik" — a nearly full figure. ^ This curious and ajjparently little known brochure, by the eminent astronomer of the Exj)edition, is well worthy of attention, notwithstanding the ludicrously sensational character of the titlepage affixed by the en- terprising publishers. The titlepage, transcribed in full, is as follows : "Professor Sonntag's Thrilling Narrative of the Grinnell Exploring Expe- dition to the Arctic Ocean, in the years 1853, 1854, and 1855, in search of Sir John Franklin, under the command of Dr. E. K. Kane, U. S. N. Con- taining the History of all previous explorations of the Arctic Ocean, from . the year 1618 down to the present time ; showing how far they advanced northward, what discoveries they made and their scientific observations. The present whereabouts of Sir John FrankUn and his party, if they are still alive. A statement of the only i>racticable method by which the North Pole may be reached; the reasons why all exploring expeditions have hitherto failed to penetrate the icy barriers of the Polar Regions. Highly important astronomical observations, proving that there is no such thing as apparent time at the Nortli Pole ; sufferings of Dr. Kane's exiiloring party; how they were buried- for tAvo years in the ice, enduring a degree of cold never experienced by any human being before; their miraculous escapes and unprecedented hardships; their abandonment of the ship ; and perilous journey of four hundred miles over the ice. With nearly one hundred splendid engravings. By Professor August Sonntag, Astronomer to the FIGUEES. 103 group of four old Walruses is figured (full-page woodcut, p. 113). The animals are disposed in various attitudes, and represent admirably the grim visage, postures, and uncouth proportions of the Atlantic Walrus. The figure in the foreground is pre- sented in i^rofile, with both fore and hind limbs in a natural position; behind this are two old veterans seen in half-profile, and behind these a third lying on its back with the hind limbs thrust upward. Tiiis illustration, evidently a study from life, is by far the best representation of the adult Atlantic Walrus with which I am acquainted. In 1857, Dr. Gray reproduced, as pre- viously detailed {antea, pp. 93-100), a series of the early figures from Glaus Magnus, Gesner, Jonston, Gerard, Martens, Buffon, and Cook. The next original figures of the Wabus with which I am acquainted were drawn from the living specimen in the Gar- dens of the Zoological Society of London by Mr. Wolf, and appear in Wolf and Sclater's " Zoological Sketches,"* published in 1861. In plate xviii is represented a group of Walruses in various attitudes. Those in the foreground are young and tusk- less, with a heavy array of long mystacial bristles, and much thinner necks and shoulders than the Walrus is commonly repre- sented as having, doubtless owing to the very emaciated condi- tion of the living original. At about this date (1861), some very good pictures of groups of Walruses were published by Mr. Lamont in his entertaining and instructive book entitled " Seasons with the Sea-horses." In a spirited plate (called " Chase of the Walrus"), facing the titlepage, is portrayed a group of Walruses in the sea, attacked Expedition, formerly of the Royal Observatory at Vienna, and late of tlie U. S. National Observatory, Washington City, D. C. Philadelphia, Perm. : Jas. T. Lloyd & Co. Cincinnati, Ohio : Jas. T. Lloyd «& Co." No date. Large 8vo, pp. 176, paper. Copyright dated 1857. The linblishers state: "The undersigned having purchased Professor Sonntag's Narrative of the Grinnell Expedition, some months since, have used their best judgment and abilities in preparing this thrilling narrative for the press, to make it as acceptable to the reading public as possible," etc. The name of the author is alone sufficient guaranty of the trustworthy and instructive character of the work, which, desi)ite the dime-novel aspect of its exterior, is a valuable contribution to the history of the Arctic Re- gions. Pages 80 to 85 are devoted to a general account of the Walrus. At page 83 is a sketch of a "Desperate attack of Walruses on the English Boat," based apparently on Captaiin Beechey's account of an adventure with these animals. *Vol. i, j)l. xviii. 104 ODOB^NUS EOSMAEUS ATLANTIC WALEUS. by a boat's crew, one of the poor animals having been already harpooned. Another plate, facing page 72, entitled " Walruses on the Ice," represents a herd on the ice in various attitudes, most, but not all, of which have the hind feet extended back- ward, in the manner of Seals. In his later work, " Yachting in the Arctic Seas," he has given (plate ojiposite p. 56) a very fine side-view of the head, and on p. 221 a large vignette figure of the head seen in front. Mr. Brown also refers to " the excellent figures of the Wal- rus taken by the artist of the Swedish Expedition," namely, a "chromolithograph and head, both drawn by Herr von Yhlen," — "under the direction of such well-informed naturalists asTorell, Malmgren, Smith, Goes, Blomstrand, &c.," in which "the fore flippers are represented as rather doubled back, and the hind flippers extended." This work ("Sveuska Expeditioner til Spetsbergen ar 1861, i^p. 168-182, i>l. facing j). 169, and head p. 308 ") I have been unable to see, but presume the figures are the same as those in the German translation of this work, which ai)peared in 1869. * The frontispiece of tliis work repre- sents a group of four old Walruses resting on the ice, with a fifth in the water in the foreground. A woodcut of the head of a young, or more probably a female, is given on p. 132, and on p. 136 a hunting-scene. In 1867 appeared figures of the second living specimen received at the Zoological Society's Gardens. According to Dr. Murie t these were published in " The Field," " Land and Water," " Illustrated London News," and elsewhere. The figure origi- nally appearing in " The Field" (drawn by Mr. Wood) is repub- lished by Dr. Murie in his " Memoir on the Anatomy of the Walrus " I from the original wood-block. This is a rather more robust figure than those published by Wolf and Sclater, but is likewise tuskless (being also that of a very young animal), and shows similarly the long, descending, curved mystacial bris- tles. In 1870, Dr. Gilpin figured a male Walms killed in March, 1869, in the Straits of Belle Isle, Labrador. In this figure, the general form of the body is very well represented, but the hind * Die scliwedisclieii Expeditionen nacli Spitzbergen xind Baren-Eiland, ausgefiihrt iu den Jakren 1861, 1864 iind 1868, etc. (for full tra.u8cript of the titlepage see antea, j). 92). t Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond., vol. vii, 1872, p. 413. t Loc. cit., p. 416. FIGURES. 105 limbs are turned backward, as iu the common Seals. A view of the muzzle forms a second figure, and the form of one of the fore limbs is given in outline. Wells, in Ms "Gatewaj^ to the Polynia,"' published in 1873, gives a plate (facing page 201) in illustration of the Walrus. The figure in the foreground represents an individual flat on its belly with all the limbs directed posteriorly. Other figures represent other individuals reposing in various attitudes. The above-enumerated figures of the Walrus embrace all the original figures of the Atlantic species thus far known to me, and all to which I have seen references, so far as figures of the entire animal are concerned. In recapitulation, it may be stated that Gesner's fignire, published in 1558, is the first that had an actual foundation in nature, all the preceding (the mythical ones of Olaus Magnus) being purely fictitious or based on erroneous conceptions. Gesner's, as already noticed, was a curious combi- nation of reality with myth, the head only being drawn from nature, and a fanciful body added ! The first really drawn from nature (" ad vivum ") was Hessel Gerard's excellent figure pub- lished in 1613. Subsequently ai)peared numerous figures in the works of travellers, drawn apparently either from memory or by artists who had never seen the animal they so confidently attempted to depict. The first representation based on a museum specimen appears to have been Buffon's, in 1765, which has been aptly described as being merely a common Seal with tusks. Other figures fol- lowed later, as those in the so-called " Disciples edition" of Cu- vier's Eegne Animal, and in the two already cited volumes of Jardine's Naturalist's Library, drawn also from stuffed speci- mens, in which the hind limbs were always placed in a wholly false attitude, though in other res]Dects passably fair figures. Not until a li\dng specimen reached London, in 1853, did the cor- rect attitudes of the animal and the natural position of the hind limbs become generally known to naturalists, and not until then was the truthfulness of Gerard's early figure duly recog- nized and appreciated, notwithstanding that von Baer, nearly twenty years earlier, testified to its excellence, and correctly described the flexibility of the bmbs. Now, through the two living specimens seen and figured in London, and through excellent recent figures of the Pacific Walrus, the attitudes and external bearing of few of our marine mammalia are better known than those of the Walruses. 106 ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. In addition to the above-described ligm-es of tbe general ani- mal, representations of various anatomical details, both of the osteology and the soft parts, have been from tune to time pub- lished. As early as 1761, the skull, as previously stated, was figured by Houttuyn, and again by Daubenton* in 1765, these being the earliest figures of the skull to which I find reference. Goethe, in his "Morphologic" (see antea, P-^S), gave important figures illustrative of the dentition and structure of the ante- rior xjortion of the skull. Home, t in 1824, published a series of excellent figures of the extremities and stomach. G. Cuvier, X in 182.j, figured skulls and the skeleton, his figures of the skull being also reproduced in the "Disciples" edition of Cuvier's Eegne Animal. § Pan- der and d' Alton, in 1826, in their " Vergleichende Osteolo- gie,"|| gave an excellent figure of the skeleton and detail illus- trations of the skull and limbs. In the figure of the skeleton, the hind feet are turned forward in a plantigrade i^osition, and the fore limbs are given their natural pose. Von Baer,^ in 1835, figured the blood-vessels of the limbs, and, in 1810, De Blainville** figured the skeleton and the skull. Gray, ft in 1850, gave a view of the skull, the same figure being re- peated in some of his later works. || Owen, in 1845, figured! the dentition in his "Odontography" (pi. cxxxii, fig. 8), the' skull and dentition in 1854, §§ and gave another figure in 1868. 1 1 1 1 In 1857, Walrus skulls were figured by Blasius, ^fl and Leidy *** the same year figured a fossil skull from Monmouth County, New Jersey. Later, as already noticed {antea, p. 54), the milk dentition was figured by Malmgren, and also by * Buffon's Histoire Nat., tome xiii, pi. Iv. An artistically much improved (but unaccredited) copy of Daubenton's figures appears in Hamilton's "Am- phibious Carnivora" (Jardine's Naturalist's Library, Mam., vol. viii, pp.. 100, 101). tPhil. Trans., 1824, pp. 235-241, pll. iv-viii. t Ossem. Fossiles. ^S Mam., pi. xliv. II Lieferung xi, Die Robben und Lamantiue, pll. i, ii. H M6m. de I'Acad. St. P6tersb., Sci. Nat., vi^e s,6v., 1835, t. iii, pi. — . ** Ost6og., Des Phoques, pll. i (skeleton) and iv (skull) ; eight figures^ tt Cat. Mam. Brit. Mus., p. 31, fig. 11 (small woodcut). n Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, p. 35, fig. 12. ^^ Eucycl. Brit., article Odontography, p. 4G3, fig. 112. II II Comp. Anat. and Phys. Vertebr., vol. iii, p. 338, fig. 265. 1I«ff Fauna Wirbelth. Deutschl., pp. 261, 262, figg. 14.S-150. ***Traus. Amer. Pliil. Soc. Phila., (2), vol. xi, pll. iv, v. HABITS AND THE CHASE. 107 Peters. Dr. Murie, in 1874, gave numerous figures illustrative of its external characters, myology, dentition, generative, di- gestive, and vocal organs, based on a dissection of the young Walrus that died in the Garden of the Zoological Society of Lon- don in 1867, these being the only figures, so far as known to me, devoted to the general anatomy. Doubtless other figures of the skull, and possibly of the dentition, have appeared that are not here noted. Habits and the Chase. — The Walruses are at all times more or less gregarious, occurring generally in large or small comi)a- nies, according to their abundance. Like the Seals, they are restricted in their wanderings to the neighborhood of shores or large masses of floating ice, being rarely seen far out in the open sea. Although moving from one portion of their feeding-grounds to another, they are said to be in no true sense a migratory ani- mal.* They delight in huddling together on the ice-floes or on shore, to which places they resort to bask in the sun, pressing one against another like so many swine. They are also said to repair in large herds to favorable shores or islands,! usually in May and June, to give birth to their young, at which times they some- times remain constantly on land for two weeks together, with- out ever taking food. | They are believed to be monogamous, and to bring forth usually but a single young at a time, and never more than two. The period of gestation is commonly be- lieved to be about nine months. The young are bom from April to June, the time probably varying with the latitude. Malm- gren states that the pairing of the Walruses takes place about the end of May or the beginning of June ; that the female gives birth to a single young in May or June ; and that the period of pregnancy lasts probably for a year. He states that Dr. A. von Goes found a month-old foetus in the uterus of a female on the 8th of July, in latitude 80° N., but adds that females with ma- ture young in the uterus have been taken as late as the end of * See Brown, Proc. ZoiJl. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 433. _ t Says Zorgdrager (writing in 1750), as quoted by Buffon, in referring to tliis habit : '' Auciennemeut & avaut d'avoir €i€ pers6cut6s, les morses s'avau- goient fort avaut dans les terres, de sorte que dans les hautes marees ils ^toient assez loin de I'eau, & que dans le tenqjs de la basse mer, la distance dtant encore beaucoup plus grande, on le abordoit ais6ment." — Hist. Nat., tome xiii, p. 306. X See Sbuldham, Phil. Trans., vol. Ivi, 1777, p. 249, quoted antea, p. 67. 108 ODOBiENUS EOSMAEUS ATLANTIC WALEUS. June or July. The females, he believes, suckle their young for two years, and that hence not less than three years elapse be- tween each birth. The females with their newly-born young are said to keep aloof from the society of other Walruses, and that females are never found to be pregnant diu-ing the year following the birth of their young. Females in the second year of suckling their young collect in large herds and live apart from the full-grown males. Of thirty full-grown Walruses killed by Malmgren's harpooner in Henlopen Straits, in the month of July, not one was a male. Where the full-grown males were at this time was unknown, but they were believed by the hunters to be " on the banks," remote from the land, while the females with their young sought the bays and open sea near the shores, the two sexes thus living in separate herds.* Notwithstanding the explicitness of Malmgren's account, who no doubt correctly details his own experience in the matter, there is much rebutting testimony, most observers reporting that both sexes and the young occur in the same herds, t The only detailed account of the i3airing and repro- ^ See further Malmgren's paper, as translated in Arch, fiir Naturgesch., 1864, pp. 70-72. t Says Dr. Kane : " The early spring is the breeding season, ... at which time the female with her calf is accompanied by the grim-visaged father, surging in loving trios from crack to crack, sporting around the berg- water, or basking in the sun." — Arctic Ex])loration, vol. ii, p. 131. Dr. Hayes, referring to a herd upon which he made an attack, thus ob- serves : " Besides the old bulls, the group contained several cows and a few calves of various sizes — some evidently yearlings, others but recently born, and others but half or three quarters grown. Some were without tusks, while on others they were just sjirouting ; and above this they were of vari- ous sizes uj) to those of the big bulls, which had great curved cones of ivory nearly three feet long." — Open Polar Sea, p. 406. Lamont also refers to the presence of young and old, males and females, in the same herd, and to the custom of the Walrus-hunters of striking a young one in order to detain the herd, which, through sympathy, join con- certedly in its defense, thus aifording the hunters opportunity for further slaughter. — Seasons with the Sea-horses, pp. — . Through the kindness of Prof. Henry A. Ward, of Eochester, N. Y., I am in receipt, in answer to inquiries respecting the ha.bits and reproduction of the Walrus, of the following information from the pen of Captain Adams, of the whaling-steamer "Arctiirus," from Dundee to Baffin's Bay. Caj)tain Adams, writing from long experience in Walrus-hunting, says: "I am of opinion that the female Walrus prefers low flats of land on which to bring forth her young. The time is in mid-spring. In early May I have seen very young Walruses on the ice with their mothers. I have also seen afterbirths on the ice, but atill think that low flat land is preferred when attain able. I do HABITS AND THE CHASE. 109 diiction of the Walrus is that long since given by Shuldham, based on observations made a century ago at the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (see antea^ p. 07), to which he says they repair " early in spring " and immediately bring- forth their young. Captain Parry states that he met with females accomj)anied by their young in Fox Channel, July 13, and Mr. Lamont speaks of meeting with young accompanied by their parents at the same season (July 15) in the vicinity of Spitzbergen. Captain Hayes refers to meeting with " calves newly born " as early as July 3 in Frobisher's Bay. Captain Parry says that Walruses killed by the Esquimaux in March (in the years 1822 and 1823) were observed to be with young. * When repairing to the land or to the ice-floes to rest, those first arriving are described as generally composing themselves for a nap at the place where they first land, but their comrades still in the water having a strong desire to land at the same spot, the latter force those already on shore higher up, while they in turn are pushed forward by later comers, their habits in this, as well as in many other respects, resembling those of the Sea Lions and Sea Bears. The Wakus, like the common Seals, is said to have its breath- ing-holes in the ice. These are described by Dr. Kane as being similar to those of the Seals, having "the same circular, cleanly- finished margin," but made in much thicker ice, with the " radi- ating lines of fracture round thein much more marked." The ice around the holes is much discolored, while near them are numbers of broken clam-shells, and in one instance Dr. Kane found " gravel, mingled with about half a peck of coarse shin- gle of the beaeh. " t Kane says the Walrus often sleeps in the water between the fields of drift-ice. " In this condition," he relates, "I frequently surprised the young ones whose mothers were asleep by their sides." | Other writers refer to the same habit. not tliink tliat the females and young live in separate herds from males, but the males herd alone in early spring. In the middle of summer both sexes herd together ; then the males are very wild. I have seen many females alone in the autumn. I do not think the females nurse their young over twelve months." — Communicated iy Prof. H. A. Ward in a letter of date March 31, 1878. * Narrative of Parry's Second Voyage, p. 415. t Arctic Exploration, vol. i, 185G, pp. 141, 142. On page 142 is a figure of a "Walrus hole." Mr. Eohert Brown gives a similar account (Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1868, j). 429), usiug, in fact, in part the same phraseology. X Ibid., vol. i, p. 141. 110 ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. The voice of the Wah-us is a loud roaring or "hucking," and can be heard to a great distance, often giving notice of the pres- ence of a herd long before they can be seen. " Like some of the higher order of beings to which he has been compared," says Dr. Kane, he "is fond of his own music, and will lie for hours list- ening to himself. His vocalization is something between the mooing of a cow and the deepest baying of a mastiff: very round and fiill, with its bark or detached notes repeated rather quickly seven to nine times in succession." * Other writers speak of the roaring of a herd as being distinguishable at the distance of several miles. The Walrus, unless molested, is represented as inoffensive and harmless, but as exhibiting when attacked great fierceness, and even ^dndictiveness, proving a powerful and often dan- gerous antagonist. Their strong affection for theu" young and their sympathy for each other in times of danger are strong traits in their character, in which qualities they are rarely ex- ceeded by any members of the mammalian class. When one of their number is wounded, the whole herd usually join in an intelligent and concerted defense. With their enormous size and threatening tusks it is little wonder that they inspired the early voyagers with terror, and that their iiowers and ferocity were to some degree overestimated. Their aspect is, in short, as affirmed by recent intelligent observers, little less than ter- rible. That the accounts given by the early navigators of the fierce attacks made upon them by the " Sea Horses," as they commonly termed them, are not to be by any means wholly attributed to the superstitious fears so prevalent respecting sea-monsters in the early times, is evident from the trustworthy accounts given us of these creatures by the intrepid exi)lorers of the Arctic region in our own times, as will be shown by the copious testimony presently to be given. That there is much in his aspect that is truly formidable is evident from Mr. Lament's graphic description, who says : "The upper lip of the Walrus is thickly set with strong, transparent, bristly hairs, about six [?] inches long, and as thick as a crow-quill; and this terrific mustache, together "vvith his long white tusks, and fierce- looking, blood-shot eyes, gives Rosmarus trichecus altogether a most unearthly and demoniacal appearance as he rears his head above the waves. I think it not unlikely that the old fable of the mermaid may have originated by their grim resemblance to * Arctic Exploration, vol. i, 1856, i*. 410. HABITS AND THE CHASE. Ill the head of a hmnan being when in this position."* 'the confounding, in early times, of the Enssian name Morss by the peoples of Western Europe with the Latin word Mors and the German word Tod, as akeady alluded to {anted, p. 81), finds its explanation doubtless in exaggerated accounts of its terrible aspect and power. The Walrus, either through confidence in its own power, or through ignorance of the character of its human foes, is generally not easily alarmed, and permits a near approach before manifest- ing uneasiness or fear, sometimes, indeed, treating its human visitors with quiet indifference. When found reposing on land, it is, in fact, easily dispatched, unless it has been previously subjected to repeated attacks, when it profits by dearly -bought experience and makes a timely retreat to the water, and thus commonly escapes its pursuers. With due caution, however, the Walrus-hunters succeed in cutting off their retreat to the sea, when hundreds of the then helpless creatures fall victims to the hunter's rapacity. Says Zorgdrager, as translated by Buffon : " On marchoit de front vers ces animaux pour leur cou- lter la retraite du cote de la mer ; ils voyoient tons ces prepara- tifs sans aucune crainte, & souvent chaque chasseur en tuoit un avant qu'il put rengagner I'eau. On faisoit une barriere de leurs cadavres & on laissoit quelques gens a I'assut x)our assom- mer ceux qui restoient. On en tuoit quelquefois trois on qua- tre cents On voit par la xjrodigieuse quantite d'os- semens de ces animaux dont la terre est jonchee qu'ils out ete autrefois tres nombreux."t This manner of attack was also well described a little later by Lord Shuldham, his detailed ac- count of their destruction at the Magdalen Islands during the last century being fully corroborated by scores of modern ob- servers at numerous other localities. According to Lord Shuld- ham, the hunters allowed them to come on shore to the number of several hundred, and then cautiously approaching them from the seaward, under cover of the darkness of night, would en- deavor, by the aid of Mell-trained dogs, to cut off their retreat to the water and drive them further inland. These attacks were sometimes so successful that fifteen or sixteen hundred have been killed in a single attack.^ A similar wholesale de- ^ struction of Walruses was carried on by the English in the * Seasons witli tlie Sea-horses, pp. 141, 142. tBafifon's Hist. Nat., torn, xiii, pp. 366, 367. t For Lord Sliuldham's acconut in full see anted, p. 67. 112 ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. early part of the seventeentli century at Clierie or Bear Island^ as already related {cmtea, pp. 73-78). Mr. Lamont, in his " Sea- sons with Sea-horses," gives a similar account of their recent destruction in the Spitzbergen Seas, where he says, by a similar mode of attack, two ships' crews killed nine hundred in a single day.* The habits of the Walruses as met with in their native waters, — their strong afiection for their young and for each other, inducing the whole herd to join in defense of a wounded comrade, and their power and courage in the water in repelling the attacks of man, — I have chosen to detail in the language of actual observers, believing the vivid portrayal of a few scenes from real life, by trustworthy eye-witnesses, to be far preferable to any epitomized account of the subject, however well and carefully elaborated. The i)ersonal incidents involved and the circumstances of jDursuit are necessarily imj^ortant accessories to a correct appreciation of the scenes described. As stated in several of the earliest accounts of these animals, they are always more or less wary, and at times difficult to ap- proach, usually keeping a sentinel on guard while the herd is asleep. Eespecting their habits at such times, Mr. Eobert Brown observes as follows : " On the tioes, lying over soundings and shoals, the Walruses often accumulate in immense numbers, and he huddled upon the ice. More frequently, in Da\ds's Strait and Baffin's Bay, they are found floating about on pieces of drift ice, in small family i^arties of six or seven ; and I have even seen only one lying asleep on the ice. Whether in large or small par- ties, one is always on the watch, as was long ago observed by the sagacious Cook : the watch, on the approach of danger, wiU rouse those next to them ; and the alarm being spread, presently the whole herd will be on the qui viveJ^f Mr. Lamont thus describes a scene in the Spitzbergen waters r "At 3 a. m. this morning [July 13, 1859], we were aroused by the cheering cry of 'Hvalruus paa Ysen' (Walruses on the ice). We both got up immediately, and from the deck a curious and exciting spectacle met our admiring gaze. Four large flat ice- bergs were so densely packed with Walruses that they were sunk awash with the water, and had the ai)pearance of being solid islands of Walrus ! "The monsters lay with their heads reclining on one another's *Mr. Lamoiit's account will be given later in full. (See p. 114.) t Robert Brown in Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 429. HABITS AND THE CHASE. 113 backs and sterns, just as I have seen Ehinoceroses lying asleep in the African forests : or, to use a more familiar simile, like a lot of fat hogs in a British straw-yard. I should think there were about eighty or one hundred on the ice, and many more swam grunting and spouting around, and tried to clamber up among their friends, who, like surly people in a full omnibus, grunted at them angrily, as if to say, ' Confound you, don't you see that we are full ? ' There were plenty more good flat icebergs about, but they always seem to like being packed as closely as possible for mutual warmth. These four islands were several hundred yards apart, . . . ."* Mr. Lamont thus refers to the number seen on another occa- sion, and incidentally to their watchfid habits: "We had a pleasant row of four or five miles over calm water quite free of ice, and were cheered for the latter half of the distance by the sonorous bello^^'ing and trumpeting of a vast number of Wal- ruses. We soon came in sight of a long line of low flat icebergs crowded with Sea-horses. There were at least ten of these bergs so packed with the Walruses that in some places they lay two deep on the ice. There can not have been less than three hun- dred in sight at once ; but they were very shy and restless, and, although we tried every troop in succession as carefully as pos- sible, we did not succeed in getting within harjiooning distance of a single Walrus. Many of them were asleep 5 but there were always some moving about who gave the alarm to their sleep- ing comrades by flapping them with their fore feet, and one troop after another manage to shuffle into the sea always just a second or so in time to avoid a deadly harpoon." t "With reference to the Walrus," says Captain Hall, "Mr. Eogers told me that one day, when out cruising for Whales, he went, with two boats and crews, half way across Frobisher Bay, and then came to an iceberg one hundred feet above the sea, and, mounting it, with a spy-glass, took a look all around. Whales there were none 5 but Walrus — 'Why', to use his figu- rative but expressive words, ' there were millions out on the pieces of ice, drifting with the tide — Walrus in every direc- tion— millions on millions'."! While these numbers are not, doubtless, to be taken literally, they certainly imply an immense number of Walruses. The context states that while the whalers * Seasons witli the Sea-horses, p. 72. tibid., pp. 80, 81. t Arctic Researches, etc., p. 234. Misc. Pub. i^o. 12 8 114 ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALKu... in Frobislier's Bay had met with no Whales, " Wakus in any numbers could be obtained, and many had been secured for their skins and tusks." The Walruses in the Spitzbergen waters, according to Mr. Lamont, usually congregate in August ui great numbers on land, '' sometimes to the number of several thousands, and all lie down in some secluded bay or some rocky island, and there remain in a semi-torpid sort of state, for weeks together, with- out moving or feeding." They do not usually do this, he adds, tUl near the end of August, or some mouths later than they were found to do in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on the shores and islands of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This is possibly owing to the difference in the climate, although it seems hardly probable that this can be the whole cause of the difference. Mr. Lamont, in this connection, makes no reference to the time of bringiug forth of the young, and does not give this as one of the reasons for their visiting the land. He alludes, however, to their sudden disappearance at this time from the ice-floes. He says the Walrus-hunters consider themselves fortunate if they find one of these resorts, as then they can kill in a few hours a " small fortune's- worth of them." His account of these " trysting-places," however, is mainly at second hand, and possibly the date is not carefully given.* Mr. Lament's account of the great havoc the himters often make with the then helpless beasts, destroying many hundreds in a few hours, is quite similar, so far as the destruction of life is concerned, to the account given by Lord Shuldham of their destruction a century and a half ago at the Magdalen Islands. Eeferring to one of the southwesternmost of the Thousand Islands, Mr. Lamont says: ''It seems that this island had long been a very celebrated place for Walruses going ashore, and great numbers had been killed upon it at different times in by- gone years. In August, 1852, two small sloops saihng ia com- pany ilj)proached the island, and soon discovered a herd of Wal- ruses, numbering, as they calculated, from three to four thousand, reposing upon it. Four boats' crews, or sixteen men, proceeded to the attack with spears. One great mass of Walruses lay in a small sandy bay, with rocks enclosing it on each side, and on a little mossy flat above the bay, but to which the bay formed the only convenient access for such unAvieldy animals. A great many hundreds lay on other jjarts of the island at a Uttle dis- * Seasons with the Sea-horses, pp. 173, 174. HABITS AND THE CHASE. 115 tance. The boats landed a little way ofi", so as not to frighten them, and the sixteen men, creeping along shore, got between the sea and the bay full of Walruses before mentioned, and im- mediately commenced stabbing the animals next them. The Wab'us, although so active and fierce in the water, is very un- wieldy and helpless on shore, and those in front soon succumbed to the lances of their assailants ; the passage to the shore soon got so blocked up with the dead and dying that the unfortunate wretches behind could not pass over, and were in a manner bar- ricaded by a wall of carcasses. Considering that every thrust of a lance was worth twenty dollars, the scene must have been one of terrific excitement to men who had very few or no dol- lars at all ; and my inforrnant's eyes sparkled as he related it. He said the Wakuses were then at theu" mercy, and they slew, and stabbed, and slaughtered, and butchered, and murdered until most of their lances were rendered useless, and them- selves were drenched with blood and exhausted with fatigue. They went on board their vessels, ground their lances, and had their dinners, and then returned to their sanguinary workj nor did they cry 'Hold, enough!' until tliey had killed 7iine hundred Walruses, and yet so fearless or so lethargic were the animals, that many hundreds more remained sluggishly lying on other parts of the island at no great distance. . . . When I visited the island six years afterward, there still remained abun- dant testimony to corroborate the entire truth of the story. The smell of the island was perceptible at several miles' dis- tance, and on landing we found the carcasses lying as I have described them, and in one place two and three feet deep. The skin and flesh of many remained tolerably entire, notwithstand- ing the ravages of Bears, Foxes and Gulls. So many Wal- ruses have been killed on this island at different times that a ship might easily load with bo?ies there. . . ."* The worst feature of this wholesale slaughter was the fact that their small vessels, akeady partly loaded, could carry away only a small portion of the spoil. A subsequent attempt to reach the island later in the season for the purpose of securing the rest failed, owing to its being surrounded by impenetrable ice. Eespecting the parental affection displayed by the Walruses, Mr. Lament relates the following : " I never in my life witnessed anything more interesting and more affecting than the wonder- ful maternal affection displayed by this poor Wakus. After she " Seasons witli the Sea-horses, pp. 175-177. 116 ODOB^XUS ROSMAEUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. was fast to the harpoon and was dragging the boat furiously through the icebergs, I was going to shoot her through the head that we might have time to follow the others ; but Christian called to me not to shoot, as she had a ^ junger ' with her. Al- though I did not understand his object, I reserved my fire, and upon looking closely at the Walrus when she came np to breathe, I then i)erceived that she held a very young calf under her right arm, and I saw that he wanted to harpoon it ; but whenever he poised the weapon to throw, the old cow seemed to watch the direction of it, and interposed her own body, and she seemed to receive with pleasure several hariDoons which were intended for the young one. At last a well- aimed dart struck the calf, and we then shortened uj) the lines attached to the cow and finished her with the lances. Christian now had time and breath to explain to me why he was so anxious to secure the calf, and he proceeded to give me a practical illustration of his meaning by gently 'stirring up' the unfortunate junger with the butt end of a hari30on shaft. This caused the poor little animal to emit a peculiar, plaintive, grunting cry, eminently expressive of alarm and of a desire for assistance, and Christian said it would bring all the herd round about the boat immediately. Unfor- tunately, however, we had been so long in getting hold of our poor decoy duck that the others had all gone out of hearing, and they abandoned their young relative to his fate, which quickly overtook him in the shape of a lance thrust from the remorseless Christian. " I don't think I shall ever forget the faces of the old Walrus and her calf as they looked back at the boat ! The countenance of the young one, so expressive of abject terror, and yet of con- fidence in its mother's power of protecting it, as it swam along under her wing ; and the old cow's face showing such reckless defiance for all that we could do to herself, and yet such terrible anxiety as to the safety of her calf! " This plan of getting hold of a junger and making him grunt to attract others is a well-known 'dodge' among hunters; and, although it was not rewarded on this occasion, I have several times seen it meet with the full measure of success due to its humanity and ingenuity." * When in the water, to again quote from Mr. Lamont, " the herd generally keep close together, and the simultaneousness with which they dive and reapjjear again is remarkable ; one moment * Seasons witli the Sea-liorses, pp. 70, 71. HABITS AND THE CHASE. 117 you see a himdred grisly heads and long gleaming white tusks above the waves; they give one spout* from their blow-holes, take one breath of fresh air, and the next moment you see a hundred brown hemispherical backs, the nest a hundred i)air of hind flippers flourishing, and then they are all down. On, on, goes the boat as hard as ever we can pull the oars ; up come the Sea-horses again, pretty close this time, and before they can draw breath the boat rushes into the midst of them : whish ! goes the harpoon : hirr ! goes the hne over the gunwale : and a luckless junger on whom Christian has kept his eye is 'fast': his bereaved mother charges the boat instantly with flashing €yes and snorting with rage ; she quickly receives a harpoon in the back and a bullet in the brains, and she hangs lifeless on the line : now the junger begins to utter his plaintive grunting bark, and fifty furious Walruses are close round the boat in a few seconds, rearing up breast high in the water, and snorting and blowing as if they would tear us all to pieces. Two of these auxiliaries are speeddy harpooned in their turn, and the rest hang back a little, when, as bad luck would have it, the junger gives up the ghost, owing to the severity of his harpoonmg, and the others no longer attracted by his cries, retire to a more pru- dent distance. But for the ' untoward ' and premature decease of the junger, the men tell me we should have had more Wal- ruses on our hands than we could manage. We now devote our attention to ' i)olishing off' the two live Walruses — well-sized young bulls — who are still towing the heavy boat, with their two dead comrades attached, as if she were behind a steam-tug, and struggling madly to drag us under the icebergs : a vigor- ous application of the lances soon settles the business, and we now, with some difiiculty, tow our four dead victims to the near- est flat iceberg and fix the ice-anchor, by which, with the pow- erful aid of block and tackle, we haul them one by one on the ice and divest them of their spoils. . . . "■ While we were engaged in cutting up these Walruses, there were at least fifty more surrounding the iceberg, snorting and bellowing, and rearing up in the water as if smelling the blood *It is, perhaps, almost needless to say that the "spouting" here referred to is merely the spray thrown upward by the forcibly expelled breath as they rise to the surface, although a " spouting from their blow-holes" has occa- sionally been attributed to them since the time of Martens, who says they " blow water from their nostrils like a whale." See on this point von Baer (1. c, pp. 139-147), who has discussed the matter at length in his above- cited memoir on the Walruses. 118 ODOB^NUS ROSMAEUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. of their slaugliterecl friends, and curious to see wliat we were doing to them now. They were so close that I might have shot a dozen of them ; but, as they would have been sure to sink be- fore the boat could get to them, I was not so cruel as wantonly to take their lives. When the Walruses were all skinned, we followed the herd again with success ; and when we left off, in consequence of dense fog suddenly coming on, we had secured nine altogether — a very fair morning's bag we thought. ... During this morning's proceedings I realized the immense advantage of striking a junger first, when practicable. This curious clannish iiractice of coming to assist a calf in distress arises from their being in the habit of combining to resist the attacks of the Polar Bear, which is said often to succeed in kill- ing a Walrus. If, however. Bruin, pressed by hunger and a tempting opportunity, is so illadvised as to snap a calf, the whole herd come upon him, drag him under water, and tear him to pieces with their long sharj) tusks. I am told this has been seen to occur, and I quite believe it."* Capt. WilUam Edward Parry, in his narrative of his second voyage for the discovery of a northwest passage, makes frequent reference to the Walrus, and his report of encounters with them shows that serious and even fatal consequences sometimes re- sult to the boats' crews who ventui-e to attack them. "In the course of this day [July 15, 1822, in Fox Channel] the Wahnises," says Captain Parry, "became more and more numerous every hour, lying in large herds uijon loose pieces of drift-ice ; and it having fallen calm at one P. m., we despatched our boats to endeavor to kill some for the sake of the oil they aiford. On approaching the ice our j)eople found them huddled in droves of from twelve to thirty, the whole number near the boats being perhaps about two hundred. Most of them waited quietly to be fired at, and even after one or two discharges did not seem to be greatly disturbed but allowed the people to land on the ice near them, and, when api^roached, shewed an evident disposition to give battle. After they had got into the water, three were struck with harpoons and killed from the boats. When first wounded they became quite furious, and one, which had been struck from Captain Lyon's boat, made a resolute attack upon her, and injured several of the planks with its enor- mous tusks. A number of the others came round them, also repeatedly striliing the wounded animals with their tusks, with * Seasons with the Sea-liorses, pp. 81-83, 84. HABITS AND tHE CHASE. 119 the intention of either getting them away or else of joining in the attack upon them. Many of these animals had young ones which, when assaulted, they either took between their fore-flip- pers to carry off, or bore away on their backs. Both of those killed by the Fury's boats were females, and the weight of the largest was fifteen hundred-weight and two quarters nearly; but it was by no means remarkable for the largeness of its dimensions. The peculiar barking-noise made by the Wak-us, when irritated, may be heard, on a calm day, with great dis- tinctness at the distance of two miles at least. "We found mus- quet-balls the most certain and expeditious way of despatching them after they had been once struck with the harpoon, the thickness of the skin being such, that whale-lances generally bend without penetrating it. One of these creatures, being accidentally touched by one of the oars of Lieutenant Mas's boat, took hold of it between its flippers and forcibly twisting it out of the man's hand, snapped it in two."* Again, says the same writer, " The Heckla's two boats had one day a very narrow escape in assaulting a herd of these ani- mals [Walruses] ; for several of them, being wounded, ^ade so fierce an attack on the boats with their tusks, as to stave them in a number of places, by which one was immediately swami)ed and the other much damaged. The Fury's being fortunately in sight prevented any further danger ; two of the Walruses were kiUed and secured, and the damaged boats lightened and towed to the shore, from which they had been several miles dis- tant."! In addition to the foregoing testunony respecting the power and courage of these animals when in the water, I add the fol- lowing : Mr. Lamont states that " a boat belonging to a sloop from Tromsoe had been upset two or three days before, in our immediate vicinity, and one of the crew killed by a Walrus. It seemed that the Walrus, a large old bull, charged the boat, and the harpooner, as usual, received him with his lance full in the chest ; but the shaft of the lance broke all. to shivers, and the Walrus, getting inside of it, threw himself on the gunwale of the boat and overset it in an instant. While the men were floun- dering in the water among their oars and tackle, the infuriated animal rushed in among them, and, selecting the unlucky har- pooner, who, I fancy, had fallen next him, he tore him nearly * Narrative of Parry's Second Voyage, j). 268. tibid., p. 469. 120 ODOB^NUS EOSMAEUS ATLANTIC WALEUS. into two halves with his tusks. The rest of the men saved them- selves by clambering on to the ice until the other boat came to their assistance. "Upon another occasion I made the acquaintance of the skyp- par of a sloop who had been seized by a bereaved cow Wabus, and by her dragged twice to the bottom of the sea, but without receiving any injury beyond beiug nearly drowned, and having a deep scar plowed in each side of his forehead by the tusks of the animal, which he thought did not wish to hurt him, but mis- took him for her calf as he floundered in the water. "Owing to the great coolness and expertness of the men fol- lowing this pursuit, such mishaps are not of very frequent oc- currence, but still a season seldom passes without two or three lives being lost in one way or another."* Among the numerous writers who have described a " Walrus hunt," no accounts that I have seen more vividly j)ortray the scene, or give more information respecting the nature and habits of the Atlantic species, than Dr. 1. 1. Hayes, for which reason I deem no apology is necessary for transcribing his lengthy .account in fidl. Under date of July 3, 1861 (the scene being in Frobisher's Bay), he says: "I have had a Wakus hunt and a most exciting day's sport. Much ice has broken adrift and come down the Sound, during the past few days ; and, when the sun is out bright and hot, the Walrus come up out of the water to sleep and bask in the warmth on the pack. Being upon the hilltop this morning to select a place for building a cairn, my ear caught the hoarse bel- lowing of numerous Walrus ; and, upon looking over the sea, I observed that the tide was carrying the pack across the outer limit of the bay, and that it was alive with the beasts, which were filling the air with such uncouth noises. Their numbers appeared to be even beyond conjecture, for they extended as far as the eye could reach, almost every piece of ice being covered. There must have been, indeed, many hundreds or even thou- sands. "Hurrjing from the hill, I called for volunteers, and quickly had a boat's crew ready for some sport. Putting their rifles, a harpoon, and a line into one of the whale boats, we dragged it over the ice to the open water, into which it was speedily launched. "We had two miles to pull before the margin of the pack * Seasons with tlie Sea-horses, pp. 84, 85. HABITS AND THE CHASE. 121 was reached. On the cake of ice to which we first came, there were perched about two dozen animals ; and these we selected for the attack. They covered the raft almost completely, lying huddled together, lounging in the sun or lazily rolling and twisting themselves about, as if to expose some fresh part of their unwieldy bodies to the warmth — great, ugly, walloping sea-hogs, they were evidently enjoying themselves, and were without apprehen sion of approaching danger. We neared them slowly, with muffled oars. "As the distance between us and the game steadily narrowed, we began to realize that we were likely to meet with rather formidable antagonists. Their aspect was forbidding in the extreme, and our sensations were perhaps not unhke those which the young soldier experiences who hears for the first time the order to charge the enemy. We should all, very possibly, have been quite willing to retreat had we dared own it. Their tough, nearly hairless hides, which are about an inch thick, had a singularly iron-plated look about them, peculiarly suggestive of defense ; while their huge tusks, which they brandished with an appearance of strength that their awkwardness did not diminish, looked like very formidable weapons of offense if apphed to a boat's planking or to the human ribs, if one should happen to find himself floundering in the sea among the thick- skinned brutes. To complete the hideousness of a facial expres- sion which the tusks rendered formidable enough in appearance, Natiu-e had endowed them with broad flat noses, which were covered aU over with stift' whiskers, looking much like porcu- pine quills, and extending up to the edge of a i)air of gaping nostrils. The use of these whiskers is as obscure as that of the tusks; though it is probable that the latter may be as well weapons of offense and defense as for the more useful jmrpose of grubbing up from the bottom of the sea the mollusks which constitute their principal food. There were two old bulls in the herd who appeared to be dividing their time between sleeping and jamming their tusks into each other's faces, although they appeared to treat the matter with perfect indifference, as they diro- XJortions of a prize pig. What struck us in watchhig its singu- lar dexterity was that there could be any difference of opinion as to the hiiid-flippers of the Walrus being used in conjunction with the forepaws after the ordinary method of quadrupeds for walking on land or ice. ' Tommy ' also exhibited a marvellous knack in climbing, or rather wriggling, his sui)ple carcase up on to casks and packages in the hold." Later two others werecai)- .tured, and the three were kept in a jDen together. The unlucky fate that finally befell "Tommy" is thus related : "'Tommy',, the first young Walrus picked up at ]l:^ovaya Zemlya, a month ago, to the great grief of every one except ' Sailor ' and the cook, was found dead, with his face immersed in a x)ail of gruel and one of the others lying on top of him — clearly suffocated. Thej" were confined in a pen forward well out of the way ; for they lately had become a great nuisance, crawling about the deck, always in sordeone's way, and had taken to roaring like bears down the companion at night. A few nights before his death this little beast had fallen down the hatchway ; this might have had something to do with his untimely end. Xothing was found on examination but a total absence of fat, the rest of the dis- section was reserved for the anatomical rooms of the University of Edinburgh, our late companion and x)laymate being duly salted and packed in an old pork-barrel." * Of the fate of the others I find no record, but they evidently did not live to reach England. " Taking into consideration," says Mr. Lamont, on an early page of his work last cited, "the facility with which a Walrus cub may be captured, it seems strange that they are not more often met with in the zoological gardens of Europe." After alluding to previous attempts to take them to European cities, he says : " Until some special vessel, with cows on board,, * Yaclitiug in the Arctic Seas, pp. 47, 48, 62, 218. DOMESTICATION. 145 or plenty of Swiss preserved milk, visits the Walrus haunts and thus solves the difficulty of weaning, it will not be easy to import a young Walrus in good condition, and many of the interesting habits and traits of this animal will remain unknown. Although the calf of the previous season frequently accompanies the dam with her more recent offspring, at that age the ' half- Walrus ' is too unwieldy a beast to be captured alive ; if this were prac- ticable, there can be no doubt its nutrition would be a simple matter." * From the foregoing accounts of the survival for a considera- ble period in captivity, and from the hardships we are told the third London (1867) specimen t survived during its long voyage to London, it is evident that with a sufficient supply of proper food, and due arrangement for the comfort of the captives dur- ing transportation, coupled with a speedj^ voyage, as by steam- ship, young Walruses might easily be taken in numbers and brought safely to southern ports. Whether, however, they could long endure the great change of climate they would be thus forced to experience is a matter of more uncertainty, yet they in all probability would not suffer more than the Polar Bear, or the Sea Lions and Sea Bears, which have of late been frequently seen in different zoological gardens. A Sea Lion, as is well known, not only survived a voyage from Buenos Ayres, " Yachting in the Arctic Seas, p. 82. tThis specimen was captured in Davis Strait, August 25, "by a noose swung over his head and one fore limb from the ship and hauled on board. For some days the captive was kept tied to a ring-bolt on deck, and refused food altogether. Subsequently he was induced to swallow thin strips of boiled pork, and was thus fed until the vessel reached the Shetlands, when a supply of fresh mussels was provided for its use. A large box with openings at the sides was fabricated ; and the animal, secured therein, was brought safely to Dundee on the 26th ult. [October]. From that port to London the Walrus had been conveyed in the steamer 'Anglia' under the care of the society's superintendent." — Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1867, p. 819. Mr. Bartlett further says, in referring to the specimen : " As regards the present animal, I may state that on my arrival at Dundee, on the 29th of October, I found the young Walrus in a very restless state, and, as I thought, hungry; it was being fed upon large mussels ; about twenty of these were opened at a meal, and the poor beast was fed about three times a day. [f] I immediately told the owners that I thought the animal was being starved. Stevens at once agreed and a codiish was procured from the neighborhood, and by me cut into long thin strips. On offering these pieces of cod to the animal, he greed- ily devoured them. Since that time I have fed the Walrus upon^s/f, mussels, lohclks, clams, and the stomachs and intestines and other soft parts of fishes cut small ; for I find that it cannot swallow anything larger than a walnut." — Hid., pp. 819, 820. Misc. Pub. 1^0. 12 10 146 ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. across the tropics, to London, but lived there for more than a year,* and finally died " from natural causes." Since writing the above I have met with the following from the pen of Mr. Alfred Newton, respecting the feasibility of ob- taining living specimens of the Walrus for the Gardens of the London Zoological Society. Referring to the specimen taken to London in 1608, Mr. i^ewton says: "Now surely what a rude skipper, in the days of James I, could without any preparation accomplish, this Society ought to have, no difficulty in effecting ; and I trust that the example may not be lost upon those who control our operations. From inquiries I have made, I find it is quite the exception for any year to pass without an opportu- nity of capturing alive one or more young exami)les of Triche- clius rosmarus occurring to the twenty or thirty ships which annually sail from the northern ports of Norway, to pursue this animal in the Spitsbergen seas. It has several times happened that young Walruses thus taken are brought to Hammerfest j but, the voyage ended, they are sold to the first purchaser, gen- erally for a very trifling sum, and, their food and accommodation not being duly considered, they of course soon die. Lord Dufferin brought one whi.ch had been taken to Bergen, and succeeded in bringing it alive to Ullapool ;t and Mr. Lamont mentions another which he saw in the possession of Caj^tain Erichson. | In making an attempt to place a live Walrus in our Gardens, I do not think we ought to be discouraged by the bad luck which has attended our efforts in the case of the larger marine Mammalia. Every person I have spoken with on the subject corroborates the account given by honest Master Wel- den of the 'strange docilitie' of this beast; and that in a mere financial point of view the attemi3t would be worth undertaking is, I think, manifest. To the general public i^erhaps the most permanently attractive animals exhibited in our Gardens are the Hijppopotamuses and the Seals. What then would be the case of a species like the Wakus, wherein the active intelli- gence of the latter is added to the powerful bulk of the for- mer ?"§ Since Mr. Newton wrote the above, another specimen has reached London, as ab-eady detailed, but this was ten years * See Murie, Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond., vol! vii, 1872, p. 528. t "Letters from Higli Latitudes, pp. 387-389." t " Seasons with the Sea-liorses, pp. 26, 27." § Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1864, p. 500. ODOB^NUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALRUS. 147 ago. What efforts liave been made, if any, since that date, I know not, but the skill, energy, and money which, some fifteen years ago, placed a White Whale {Beluga catodon) in the Aquarial Gardens of Boston, and has recently safely brought another to jS'ew York, and has taken others alive into the inte- rior nearly to Cincinnati (the latter dying, however, before quite Teaching that city), ought certainly, if directed toward securing living specimens of the Walrus for public exhibition, meet with easy success. As to the influence of a change from an Arctic climate to mild temperate latitudes, it may be well to recall the fact that not many centimes since the natural habitat of the Walrus extended to the southern shores of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. ODOB^NUS OBESUS, {III.) Allen. . ' Pacific Walrus. *'Wallross, Steller, Beschxeib. von dem Laude Kamtscli., 1774, 106." JSea Horse, Cook's Third Voyage, ii, 1784, 456, jA. lii; ibid., abridged ed., iii, 40. Tricheclnis rosmarus, Shaw, Gen. ZooL, i, 1800, 234 (iupart), fig. 68* (from Cook). — Vox SCHRENCK, Ecisen im Amur-Lande, i, 1859, 179, (in part). — Leidy, Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc, xi, 1860 (in part). — VoN MiDDENDORFE, Sibirische Eeise, iv, 1867, 934 (in part). Also in part of most recent authors. Trichechus obesus, Illiger, Abhandl. d. Berlin. Akad. (1804-11), 1815, 64, 70, 75 (distribution). Trichechus cUvergetis, Illiger, Abhandl. d. Berlin. Akad. (1804-11), 1815, 68 (based on Cook's description and figure of the Pacific Walrus). Rosmarus obesus, Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 13 (in part only). — Dall, Alaska and its Resources, 1870, 503, 577. — Scammox, Marine Mam., 1874, 176 (figure of animal). Trichechus cookii, Fremery, Bijdrag. tot de uaturkuund. Wetensch., vi, 1831, 385. Bosmarus cooM, Gill, Intern. Exh., 1876, Anim. Resources U. S., No. 2, 1876, 4 ("Pacific Walrus"; no description); Johnson's New Univ. CycL, iii, 1877, 1725 (no description). Bosmarus arcticus, Pallas, Zool. Rosso-Asiat., 1831, 269, "i)ls. xxviii, xxix." — Elliott, Cond. of Afiairs in Alaska, 1875. 121, 160 (Prybilov Islands). Bosmarus trichechus, Gill, Johnson's New Univ. Cyclop., iii, 1877, 633 (in part only). External Characters and Skeleton. — Similar in size (or possibly rather larger) and probably in general contour (though commouly depicted and described as more robust or thicker at the shoulders) to the Odohcenus rosmarus, but quite different in its facial outline. The tusks are longer and thinner, 148 ODOB^NUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALEUS. generally more convergent, with much greater inward curva- ture; the mystacial bristles shorter and smaller, and the muzzle relatively deeper and broader, in correlation with the greater breadth and depth of the skull anteriorly. The Pacific Walrus has been supi)osed to further difi'er from the Atlantic species by the more naked condition of the skin; but this seems to be merely a feature of age, baldness being more or less common in old age to both species. The color of the hair is nearly the same in both. A large old male in the Museum of Comparative Zool- ogy, Cambridge, collected at the Prybilov Islands by Capt. Charles Bryant, is entirely destitute of hair, except around the edge of numerous old scars, and on the breast and ventral sur- face where here and there are patches very thinly clothed with very short hair, hardly suflBcient in amount to remove the gen- eral impression of almost complete baldness. The longest mys- tacial bristles are scarcely more than an inch in length, while the greater part barelj^ project beyond the skin. There is an- other similar specimen in the collection of the National Museum, A much younger specimen (a female) in the collection of Prof. H. A. Ward, of Rochester, is as well clothed with hair as is the Atlantic species at the same age, from which the color of the hair does not appreciably difier. The mystacial bristles are somewhat longer than in the above-described very old specimens^ but are rather shorter than in the Atlantic species at the same age. Probably in young individuals the bristles are much longer than in the adult, as is the case in the Atlantic species. The chief external difference between the two species appears to consist in the shape of the muzzle and the size and form of the bristly nose-pad, which has a vertical breadth at least one-fourth greater than in the Atlantic species. Very important differ- ences between the two species are exliibited in the skull, as will be presently described. The old male Alaskan Walrus in the Museum of Comparative Zoology has a length as mounted of 3350 mm. (about lOJ feet)^ and a circumference at the shoulders (axillae) of 3050 mm. The skeleton, as measured while the bones were still connected by cartilage, gave a total length of 9J feet (2G46 mm.), of which the skull measured 15^ inches (354 mm.) ; the cervical vertebrte 13 (330 mm.) ; the dorsal vertebrae 45 (1130 mm.) ; the lumbar 15 (370 mm.) ; and the caudal 23 (580 mm.). The fore limb, from the proximal end of the humerus to the end of the first or longest digit has a length of 40 inches (1010 mm.), and the hind limb, from the proximal end of the femur to the end of the Ion- MEASUKEMENTS. 149 gest digit, a length of 54 inches (1040 mm.). The scapula has a length of 16J inches (420 mm.), and the innominate hones a length of 13 inches (330 mm.). The measurements more in de- tail of the principal bones, taken from the skeleton as mounted, are as follows : Measuremenis of an adult male slceleton of Odohwnus ohesus. mm. Total length of skeleton 2890 Totallength of skull 390 Extreme breadth of skull 305 Length of canines (from plane of molars) 559 Length of lower jaw 290 Breadth at condyles 238 Length of cervical series of vertebrae 400 Length of dorsal series of vertebrae 1170 Length of lumbar series of vertebrae 380 Length of the sacral and caudal series of vertebrae 550 Length of first rib, osseous portion 150 Length of first rib, cartilaginous portion 95 Length of first rib, total 245 Length of second rib, osseous jjortion 240 Length of second rib, cartilaginous portion , 160 Length of second rib, total 400 Length of third rib, osseous ijortion 310 Length of third rib, cartilaginous iiortion 180 Length of third rib, total 590 Length of fourth rib, osseous jiortion 440 Length of fourth rib, cartilaginous portion 190 Length of fourth rib, total 630 Length of fifth rib, osseous portion 480 Length of fifth rib, cartilaginous portion 220 Length of fifth rib, total 700 Length of sixth rib, osseous portion 565 Length of sixth rib, cartilaginous portion 255 Length of sixth rib, total 820 Length of seventh rib, osseous portion 575 Length of seventh rib, cartilaginous portion 285 Length of seventh rib, total 860 Length of eighth rib, osseous portion 580 Length of eighth rib, cartilaginous portion 275 Length of eighth rib, total '. 855 Length of ninth rib, osseous portion 570 Leugth of ninth rib, cartilaginous portion 345 Length of ninth rib, total 915 Length of tenth rib, osseous portion 5G0 Length of tenth lib, cartilaginous portion 400 Length of tenth rib, total 960 Length of eleventh rib, osseous portion 525 Length of eleventh rib, cartilaginous portion 380 Leugth of eleventh rib, total , 905 150 ODOBiENUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALRUS. mm. Length, of tweKth rib, osseous portion 500 Length of twelfth rib, cartilaginous portion 320 Length of twelfth rib, total 820 Length of thirteenth, rib, osseous portion 450 Length of thirteenth, rib, cartilaginous portion 210 Length of thirteenth rib, total 660 Length of fourteenth rib, osseous portion 365 Length of fourteenth rib, cartilaginous portion 120 Length of fourteenth rib, total 485 Length of fifteenth rib, osseous portion 70 Length of fifteenth rib, cartilaginous portion 00 Length of fifteenth rib, total 70 Length of sternum, osseous portion 540^ Length of sternum, total 650 Length of scapula 420 Breadth of scapula 245 Greatest height of its si)ine (at base of acromion) 53 Length of the humerus 390- Transverse diameter of its head 110 Autero-posterior diameter of its head 132 Transverse diameter of distal end 138 Length of radius 273 Length of ulna 362 Longest diameter of proximal end of ulna 130" Length of carj»iis , 48 Length of first digit 124 Length of metacarpal of second digit 87 Length of third digit 68 Length of fourth digit 68 Length of fifth digit 75 Length of fenuir 250 Circumference of neck of femur 135 Least transverse diameter of shaft 55 Transverse diameter of shaft at end 118 Length of tibia 380 Length of fibula 375 Length of tarsus 172 Length of metatarsal of first digit 142 Length of second digit 126 Length of third digit 123 Length of fourth digit 132 Length of fifth digit 158 Length of innominate bone 430 Greatest width of pelvis anteriorly 320 Length of ilium 475 Length of ischio-pubic bones 245 Length of thyroid foramen 153 Length of os penis 710 Width of manus at base of metacarpus 140 Width of pes at base of metatarsus 130 MEASUREMENTS AND EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 151 Eespecting the size and external dimensions, Mr. Elliott says, "the adult male is about 12 feet in length from nostrils to tip of tail [x)robably in a curved line over the inequalities of the surface] and has 10 or 12 feet of girth, and an old bull, shot by the natives on Walrus Island, July 5, 1872, was nearly 13 feet long, with the enormous girth of 14 feet. The immense mass of blubber on the shoulders and around the neck makes the head and posteriors look small in proportion and attenuated."* He estimates the gross weight of a well-conditioned old bull at "two thousand pounds," the skin alone weighing from "two hundred and fifty to four hundred pounds," and the head "from sixty to eighty." The head, he adds, will measure eighteen inches in length from between the nostrils to the occiput.t Captain Cook says the weight of one, " which was none of the largest," was eleven hundred pounds without the entrails, the head weighing forty-two and the skin two hundred and five. Of this specimen he gives the following measurements: rt. Id. Lengtli from the snout to the tail 9 4 Length of the neck from the snout to the shoulder-hone 2 6 Height of the shoulder 5 0 (fore 2 4 Length of the fins < , . , ^ „ ^ ( hmd 2 6 (fore 1 2* Breadth of the fins < , . , « /^ ( hind 2 0 (breadth 0 5^ Snout I depth 1 3 Circumference of the neck close to the ears 2 7 Circumference of the body at the shoulder , 7 10 Circumference near the hind tins 5 6 From the snout to the eyes 0 7i This was evidently either a female or not fully grown. The circumference, as here given, is somewhat less than the length. Eespecting the external appearance of the old males as ob- served in life by Mr. EUiott on Walrus Island, Mr. Elliott says : " I was surprised to observe the raw, naked appearance of the hide, a skin covered with a multitude of pustular-looking warts and pimples, without hair or fur, deeply wi'inkled, with dark red venous lines, showing out in bold contrast through the thick yellowish-brown cuticle, which seemed to be scaling o& in places as if with leprosy. They struck my eye at first in a * This is well shown in Mr. Elliott's figures. t Condition of AJfairs in Alaska, pp. 161, 162. t Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, etc., vol. ii, p. 459. .* / 152 ODOB^NUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALEUS. most unpleasant manner, for tliey looked like bloated, mortify- ing, shapeless masses of flesh ; the clusters of swollen, warty l^imples, of a yellow, parboiled flesli-color, over the shoulders and around the neck, suggested unwholesomeness forcibly."* The old male, in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, of which measurements are given above, is almost wholly naked, except about the numerous old healed gashes and scars, which are generally bordered with very short, stiff, brownish hair. Cap- tain Scammon, however, who has also observed them in their native waters, states that the hair that covers " most individu- als is short and of a dark brown ; yet there is no lack of exam- ples where it is of a much lighter shade, or of a light dingy gray. . . . The young, however, before its cumbrous canines protrude . . . is of a black color." t The mystacial bristles appear to vary in length in diflerent individuals. Pallas's figure of a rather young animal represents them as thick and long. In the old specimen in the Museum of Comparative Zoology they are very short, and do not form a very prominent feature of the physiognomy. On the upper i)art of the muzzle they are merely short, small-pointed spines, one- fourth to one-half or three-quarters of an inch in length ; they increase somewhat in length toward the edge of the lip, where the longest obtain a length of about two inches. They are quite slender, the coarsest having a diameter of not more than eight one-hundredths of an inch. Captain Scammon states that " The cheeks are studded wdth four or five hundred spines or whiskers, some of which are rudi- mentary, while others grow to the length of three or four inches. They are transparent, curved, abruptly pointed, and about the size of a straw, but not twisted, as has been stated by some writers." f Mr. Elliott describes them as being " short, stubbed, gray- white bristles, from one-half to three inches long." § The descriptions of the bristles of the Atlantic Walrus, as given by numerous writers, agree in representing them as much longer and thicker than in the Pacific species, the dimensions usually assigned being a length of four or five inches, or even, in some cases, six, and about one-twelfth of an inch thick. The figures and descriptions commonly rei^resent them as forming, by their * Coudition of Affaii's iu Alaska, p. 160. t Marine Mammalia, p. 177. I Marine Mammalia, -p. 176. § Condition of Affairs iu Alaska, p. 161. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 153 size and lengtli, next to the long tusks, one of the most striking features of the physiognomy. In Cook's and Elliott's iigures of the Pacific species, how- ever, they are by no means a prominent feature, and there are no such allusions to the formidable aspect they give to the facial ex- pression as are commonly met with in the accounts of the Atlantic species. A direct comparison of speci- mens of corresponding ages shows them to be much shorter than in the Atlan- tic Walrus. The eyes of the Atlantic Walrus are described as fiery red, one writer com- paring them to glowing- coals. Mr. Elliott refers to those of the Pacific species as having the sclerotic coat *'of a dirty, mottled coffee- yellow and brown, with an occasional admixture of white ; the iris light-brown, with dark-brown rays and spots " ; and in no case have I seen any reference to their being " red." While most writers who have de- scribed the Atlantic Wal- rus from life refer to the redness of the eyes as a remarkable and striking- feature, Cook, Scammon, and others (Mr. Elliott ex- cepted) make no reference to the color of the eyes, which would hardly have escaped them had they possessed the redness char- acteristic of the Atlantic species. Mr. Elliott further describes the eyes as small, but prominent, ^^ protruding from their sockets like those of a lobster," and Odohcenns ohesus. 154 ODOB^NUS OBESUS— PACIFIC WALRUS. states that the aninials have the power of rolliug them about in every dkection, so that wheu aroused they seldom move the head more than to elevate it, the j)osition of the eyes near the top of the head giving them the needed range of vision. The nostrils, as in the Atlantic species, are at the top of the muzzle ; they are " oval, and about an inch in their greatest diameter." The auricular opening is placed nearly in a line with the nostrils and eye, and hence near the top of the head in a fold of the skin. The animal is said to have a keen sense of smell and an acute percei^tion of sound, but a limited power of vision. * An idea of the uncouth and peculiar facial aspect of the Pa- cific Walrus may be derived from the above-given figures (Fig. 13) drawn by Mr. Elliott, to whose kindness I am indebted for their presentation in the present connection. I append herewith measurements of a considerable series of skulls, of different ages, one only of which is marked as that of a female, they being mostly skulls of middle-aged or very old males. *See Elliott, 1. c, pp. 161, 162. MEASUREMENTS OF SKULLS. 155 02 'Jl •A C5 O 03 o Q O 00 o •ssaoojd . . fcO fcil o o o o b b 3 S tx) fee SB n g g pi 3 3 o o o >, V^ t>t>!^3fHPHMO ■ S fcfl r3 O c8 • • b-2 ^ . I— • r— ' r4 -r-i IT^ ,_i o o t> o- 3 o ■i[|Su3t 'AVBfxaAiOl Tit ■<*l (M O O O (M C<1 CJ C-1 O M O 00 (M (M (M (M O O 00 00 00 t- (M 04 01 00 o ■q4^^^:^ jo sauae rajojiJBtoui 9q:^ jo q^aai ■sdj; %Ti ^iBdB aouB^sjp 'satnaBQ OOtSOOO-^OMOOOOM CO iH »H tH -* m ■asBq %'z saSpa x'BUia:^ -xa uaaAi.'jaq 9onB:jsip 'samueo (M 00 CI 05 (M i-l O O t- t- t- iH O O (M CO O CO r-i »-* Cq I-t OJ rH Ol CJ 98Bq (jBaaaajajnmojio 'satnueQ o o CO i-H c^oincoooooci (MrHUB qipm 'saaoq xbsbjj o m o c] O CO t^ C3 00 o in o in o 00 tr- io 00 (M in o i.n t- TJH 1-H O •* ijl •■* 00 in 00 Cl i-< 00 00 Cl i-t 1-1 CO CO M Cl Cl Cl 00 Cl I-H Cl Cl 00 00 in 00 t- o C5 Cl tH 00 t- Cl Cl Cl Cl Cl rH rH Cl Cl Cl ■^Xiopai^sod q:jpiAi. 'sanoq ^bsbjiJ •q^Saai 'sanoq Ibsb^; 00 CO CO O CO 00 Cl Cl rt s ■Sit -qjo uaaAi^aq saouB^sip '^SBai 00 o o t- t> t- ■saseaaojd pto^SBtn ;b qjpt^ ciooo^oomi-iooo'* cioooor-(in'>jtcocao OOCIOOCICONCICIIMCO •BHioS^z x& qipm isa^Baj^j .-I t- o 1-n o 00 o 00 m •<* t- o in m CO -i^ in Cl rH rH Cl Cl Cl •q;Saai ociincoooooooo oocsr— ooin*--t^o OOOOOOCOtJICOCOCO-* CO CO «o 50 O ■* Cl CO Cl CO Tji in Cl TJ1 00 Cl Cl 1-1 00 o ■* CO in Cl CO CO CO •xas '^^'o'o'b■b•b"b'^^•o'o•o^3'b'bo o o o ci O rS rf a f^ C3 rM /<« r« ,M ,i=^ iTJ rn (/? ca C3 a o! C3 < <1 ^ <1 <1 ■s 13 r: rS r— *■ fl a a a fl ca a;nns rosmarus. young enough to have the sutures still open show the differ- ences seen in the occipital region of older skulls. Another difference, but one apparently less constant than the others, is the presence in the young skull of the Pacific Walrus (Pigs. 22 and 24) of an extension posteriorly of the intermaxilla- ries for two-thirds of the length of the nasals. In the Atlantic skull (Pigs. 23 and 25), the intermaxillaries do not enter into the dorsal outline of the skull, but terminate at the anterior bor- der of the nasals. This difference is open to exceptions, and is not offered as a character of importance, since the same modifi- cation or backward prolongation of the intermaxillaries occurs occasionally in the Atlantic species, and is sometimes absent in the Pacific S]3ecies, while in some examples the intermaxillaries reach the dorsal surface only as isolated ossicles between the nasals and maxillaries. As a rule, however, the conditions in this respect shown in the young skulls here figiured appear to be diagnostic of the two species. DIFFERENTIAL CHARACTERS. 163 A comparison of the skulls as seen from below (Figs. 26 and 27) shows not only the considerably greater contraction of the sknll anteriorly, and the greater massiveness and different form of the mastoid processes in the Atlantic Walrus, but other weighty differences. These are especially seen in the size and form of the auditory bullae, and, to a less extent, in the form of the occipital condyles, the form of the glenoid cavity, the orb- ital fossae, etc. In the Atlantic Walrus (Fig. 26), the auditory Fig. 24. — Odoibcenus obesus. Fig. 25. — Odohcenus rosmarus. bullae are relatively larger than in the other (Fig. 27), more quadrilateral in outline, and rather more swollen. The differ- ences in size and outline are very considerable, the auditory bullae in the Pacific species being, as respects outline, nearly triangular. The inner anterior angle is also strongly developed, being by far the most inwardly salient portion of the bullae, while in the Atlantic skull it is greatly sux3i:)ressed. As regards the occipital condyles, they are broader and shorter in the Atlantic species, and less produced anteriorly. The space between them is also 164 ODOB^NUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALRUS. considerably broader tliau in the other, and the plane of artic- ulation is more nearly vertical. Tliis seems correlate with the greater incurvation of the tusks ; these, being- almost vertical in the Pacific species, allow a greater declination of the head. Another difference apparent in this aspect of the skull is the relative posterior extension of the condylar portion, which, in the Pacific species, extends much further beyond the posterior bor- der of the mastoids than in the other. This is obviously due to greater length of the basioccipital segment of the skull in the Pacific species, which is clearly showTi in the annexed figures Fig. 26. — Odobcemis rosmanis. (Figs. 26 and 27). The position of the foramina of the basal portion of the skull is also quite different in the two, as is especially seen in respect to the condylar foramina, which are situated more posteriorly in the Atlantic species than in the other, due, perhaps, to the shortness in this form of the basi- occipital region. DIFFERENTIAL CHARACTERS. 165 Another difference not yet noted consists in the greater length and massiveness of the zygomata in the Pacific species, in which they are fnlly one-third heavier than in the Atlantic species; they being in the former both deeper and thicker. (This is well shown in the above given figures of the skulls as seen in profile and from above and below, but especially as as seen from below.) The orbital fossae are also quite different, they being relatively long and narrow in the Pacific, and shorter and broader in the Atlantic Walrus. Fig. 27. — Odobcenus obesus. To sum up in a word the above-detailed cranial differences between the two species of Walruses, the skull of the Pacific animal is heavily developed anteriorly and relatively much less so posteriorly, while in the Atlantic Walrus just the reverse of this obtains, tlie skull in the latter being heavily developed jjosteriorly and relatively less so anteriorly. The axis of vari- ation being at the posterior border of the orbital fossse, the 166 ODOB^NUS OBESUS — PACIFIC WALRUS. zygomata share tlie general character of the anterior half of the skull. Fig. 28. — Odoboenus rosmarus. Adult. But equally striking differences are seen in a comparison of the lower jaws of the two species. These differences correlate Fig. 29. — Odohcvnus obesus. Adult. in a most interesting manner with those that characterize the cranium. Thus, in the Atlantic species (Figs. 28 and 30), the DIFFERENTIAL CHARACTEES. 167 mandible is far less massive auteriorly tlian in the Atlantic "Walrus (Figs. 29 and 31), wliile it is much more massive idos- teriorly. There is also considerable difference in the mandibles of the two in other respects. Thus, not only is the mandible of the Pacific Walrus much thicker, both laterally and ver- tically, at the symphysis, but the border of the ramus is widely unlike in the two forms. In the Atlantic Walrus (Fig. 30), the 30. — Odobcenus rosmarus. Adult. inferior border of the ramus, from the posterior end of the sym- physis to the front of the jaw, rises by a gradual and nearly uniform curve ; in the Pacific Walrus (Fig. 31), the inferior bor- der scarcely rises at all, the jaw in front being simply bluntly rounded. In respect to the posterior portion of the ramus, the differences consist in the greater breadth of the condylar j)or- tion in the Atlantic species, and the greater thickness of the Fig. 31. — Odobcenus obesus. Adult. coronoid process. These differences are all strongly pro- nounced in even quite young skuUs, this being especially the case with respect to the inferior border of the symphysial por- tion of the jaw (Figs. 32 and 34). Another difference consists in the position of the coronoid process, which in the Pacific Walrus, especially in the young, is central to the axis of the ramus, while in the Atlantic species it rises more from the inner 168 ODOBiENUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALRUS. edge, and the process itself lias an inward cnrvature not seen in the other (Figs. 33 and 35). The cranial differences here detailed as obtainittg between the Atlantic and Pacific Walruses are borne out by a large series of the skulls of the two species, numbering not less than twelve to fifteen of each. There is in each spe- cies a considerable range of individual variation; but the differences presented by the skulls here figured fairly rep- resent average conditions. The only exception to be made is in respect to the tusks of the Pacific speci- FiG. 32. — Odohcenus rosmarus. Young, men figured, which are per- haps above the average in size, while they are remarkably di- vergent, more so than in any other specimen of this species that I have seen. Ordinarily, or as a^ rule^ they are more or less convergent, and some- times even meet or overlaj), while in the Atlantic species they are, as a rule, (Zivergent. While in the Pacific sxDecies the tusks descend almost ver- tically, in the Atlantic spe- cies they are quite uniformly strongly incurved. In view of the differences in the skulls here described, together with the correlating differences of facial expres- sion, notwithstanding the ab- sence of other very strongly marked external differences, I have little hesitation in accord- ing to these two forms specific rank. Added to these differ- ences is the fact of their unquestionably long geographic separation. Whether an individual of one species may not oc- casionally find its way to the habitat of the other is a question for future consideration. That such an occurrence is not impos- FiG. 33. — Odobcenus obesiis. Youns;. DIFFERENTIAL CHAKACTERS. 169 sible seems evident from the fact of the existence, dnring por- tions of the year at least, of areas of open water along those portions of the Arctic coast snpposed to separate the habitats of the two species. Fnrther than this, 1 have seen a sknll (now in the Mnsenm of the Boston Society of Natnral History) which Capt. Charles Bryant (certainly a trnstworthy authority) assures me was taken by his assistant, on Walrus Island, in the summer of 1871 or 1872, that agrees in every particular with the skulls of the Atlan- tic species. This skull hav- ing been somewhat fantas- tically painted (the lower surface deep red and the upper yellowish-white), led me at first to doubt the cor- rectness of the alleged local- Fig. 34.— Odohwnus rosnarus. Young. ity, supposing that if really obtained at the Prybilov Islands it might have been brought there from some distant point. This quaint ornamentation proves, however, an aid in fixing the locality of its capture as Walrus Island. It differing so widely from the form usually occurring in those waters, it at once attracted attention, and was mounted on a bracket and preserved as a curiosity, the i)aint being applied, as Captain Bryant informs me, to facilitate its being kept free of dust ! Captain Bryant states (in a letter to the writer) that he has himself "seen two specimens like it," but adds that he "did not succeed in killing them." Hence, of course, their resemblance to the one now in question is only presumed, the animals being only seen alive. He writes, further, that this "head" was recognized as "different from any before seen there." I will merely add that this skull is indistin- Fig. 35.—Odol)cenus ohesus. Young. guishable in any essential detail from skulls of corresponding- age from the Atlantic waters, and points to the occasional oc- currence of Odohcenus rosmarus within the habitat of Odobwmis obesus. As von Middendorff has shown (see antea, p. 78), the Wabus (presumably the Atlantic species) has occurred much further to the eastward than the limits assigned it by von Baer, he having traced it, satisfactorilj- to himself, apparently, to 170 ODOB^NUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALRUS. witliin tliirty degrees of the western limit of the range of the Pacific animal. In view of these facts, the qnestion arises as to whether the Atlantic species may not occasionally pass along the northern coast of Asia so fiir as to sometimes reach the habitat of the Pacific species. I^ToMENCLATURE. — The first specific name applied to the Pa- cific Walrus is ohestis, given by Illiger in 1815, in his " Ueber- blick den Siingethiere nach ihrer Yertheilung fiber die Welt- theile."* In this paper this name is three times used as a dis- tinctive aijpellation for the Pacific Walrus, namely, (1) in his list of the species of Northern Asia, in which " TricJiechus ros- marus^^ and " TricJiechus ohesns^^ are both given; (2) in his list of the species of North America ; and (3) in his remarks respect- ing the first-named list. In these remarks (1. c, p. 75) he says^ "Die beiden Arten des Walkosses, Trichechus obesus wnd [T.] Bosmarus, sind schon bei Nord-Asien vorgekommen." For Eu- rope he gives only T. rosmarus (1. c, p. 50), respecting the dis- tribution of which he says, " Der TricJiechus Bosmarus, das Wall- ross, lebt an den eisigen Kusten von Nord-Europa, Nord-Asien^ und des ostlichen Nord-America " (1. c, p. 01). It is thus not quite clear whether he considered his T. rosmarus to have a complete circumpolar range, with T. ohesus as a second species^ occurring only on the northeastern shores of Asia and the north- western shoresof North America, or whether, as is more probable,, he merely meantthat T. rosmarus ranged eastward along the Arc- tic coast of the Old World to the northern shore of Western Asia (as is the fact), and was replaced on the Pacific shores of Asia and America by T. oTjcsus. In either case he recognized as a distinct species, under the name T. oJjcsus, the Walrus of the North Pa- cific and adjacent portions of the Arctic Ocean. In the same paper is also a reference to a TricJiecJius " divergens,''^ respecting which he thus observes : "Auser dem schon bei Euroi^a erwiihn- ten Wallross, TricJiecJius Eosmarus, findet sich an der westhchen Nord-Amerkanischen und nahen Ost-Asiatischen Kuste, und dem Eise dieser Meere, vielleicht aber auch an der ganzen Kiiste des Eismeers das von Cook beschriebene und abgebildete Wall- ross, das ich wegen raehrerer Verschiedenheiten, besonders der Hauzahne, als eigne Art unter dem Namen divcrgens aufge- fuhrt habe " (1. c, p. 08). He thus, in the same paper, appears to recognize two species of Pacific Walruses. The name divcrgenSy *Ablian(l. der Akad. der Wisseusch. zu Berlin, 1804-1811, (1815), pp. G4, 70, 75. NOMENCLATURE AND HISTORY. 171 liowever, does not again occur, so far as I can find, either In this paper or in any of the writings of this author. The name obesus has several pages priority over divergens, and must hence be adopted for the Pacific Walrus. The next names applied to the Walruses are those used by Fremery, who, in 1831, recognized three species, namely, Triclie- clms rosmarus, T. longidenSy and T. cooM. The first is the com- mon Walrus of the Korth Atlantic. The second was founded on a skull with long, slender, and somewhat converging tusks, the locality of which is not stated, but the species is usually considered as based on the skull of a female Atlantic Walrus. The third is obviously the Walrus described and figured by Cap- tain Cook. The latter is hence synonymous with obesus (and divergens) of Illiger. The second (longidens) has generally been, as just stated, considered as based on a female skull of the common Atlantic Walrus. In 1842, Stannius, while referring all the previously given names to one species, characterized what he believed to be a second species, under the name duMus, based on a large skull presenting unusual fe'atures of individual variation. I do not find that the locality of this specimen is distinctly given, but von Middendorff appears to consider Stannius's T. diibius ta have reference to the Pacific Walrus.* In 1866, Gill, in adopting Rosmarus as the generic name of the Walruses, took Illiger's name obesus for the specific name of the single species he (GiU) at that time recognized. Later (as already noticed, see antea, p. 22), in naming the two presumed species of Walruses, Gill chose obesus as the name of the Atlantic species, and took cooTcii of Fremery for the Pacific species, over- looking the fact that obesus was origiaally applied to the Pacific species, in obvious allusion to its supposed more robust or thicker form as compared with the Atlantic Walrus. History. — The Pacific Walrus appears to have received its first introduction into literature through the early exploration of the * Vou Middendorif says: "Ersterer verglicli [he refers at tliis point in a footnote to Stannius's paper] Schiidel und Gebisse der Walrosse unter einan- der und fand die Hauer bei den Walrosseu der Beringsstrasse etwas liiuger, diinner und gelinde spiralig gegen einander gekriimmt, im Vergleiclie mit denen des atlantischeu Eismeeres. Seine eigenen schliesslichen Zweifel spricht aber der vorgesclilagene Name, Triclieclms duhius, deutlich geuug aus." — Sihirisclw Eeise, Bd. iv, ji. 792. I do not understand, however, that Stannius's T. duMus had any reference to either these characters or to the Pacific Walruses. (Compare Stannius's paper in Miiller's Arch, flir Anat.,. 1842, pp. 392, 405-407). 172 ODOB^NUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALRUS. eastern portion of the Arctic coast of Asia, about tlie middle of the seventeenth century, by the Cossack adventurer Staduchiu, who found (about 1045 to 1648) its tusks on the Tschuktschi coast, near the mouth of the Kolyma Eiver. A century later Deschnew found also large quantities of Walrus teeth on the sand-bars at the mouth of the Anadyr. These explorations, so interesting geographically, appear not to have been known in Moscow till Miiller, in 1735, discovered the reports of them at Jakutsk which he x>ublished in his " Sammlung russischer Geschichte." * Hence not until the last half of the eighteenth century did the Pacific Walrus become fairly known, mainly through the explora- tions of Steller, Kraschiniunikoff, Cook, Kotzebue, Liitke, Bil- lings, PaUas, and others, each of whom referred to or gave more or less full accounts of it. The Pacific Walrus was first figiu-ed in Cook's "Last Voyage," and subsequently by Pallas. Later it was noticed by Wrangell on the Tschutkchi coast and by Beechey in Behring's Straits and the neighboring waters. More recently we have notices of it by Dall, Scammon, and ElUott, the two last-named authors giving us by far the most detailed account of these animals which has, to my knowledge, thus far appeared, and froin whose writings I have freely bor- rowed in the preparation of the following images. Figures. — The first figures of the Pacific Walrus apx)ear to be those published in Cook's "Last Voyage," t in 1784, when a group of Walruses is represented as resting on the ice. The more prominent of these figures was copied by Shawf in 1800, and later by Godman § and others. It was also reproduced by Gray in 1853, || and is here republished (Fig. 36). According to von Baer, Pallas, in his "Icones,'!^ gave two illustrations of the Walrus. The one, he says, shows the animal from the side, the other as lying on its back. Von Baer describes these as being far better than any figures of the Wakus that had preceded them, with the exception of Gerard's (1612), al- ready described. The structure of the hind feet, he says, is well represented, except that the nails on all the feet are too long. _ ( * For this history in greater detail, see vou Baer, 1. c., pj). 175-177. t Voyage to the Paciiic Ocean, etc., under the direction of Captains Cook, Gierke, and Gore, in the years 1766-1780, vol. ii, pi. lii. t General Zool., vol. i, 1800, pi. Ixviii, facing p. 234. Also Nat. Miscel., pi. Isxvi. oAmer. Nat. Hist., vol. i, 1826, pi. II Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1853, p. 116. •[ "Icoues ad Pallasii Zoographiam, fasc. ii." , FIGURES. 173 TliQ fore foot, Lowever, he says, is wrongly represented. Von Baer criticises tlie form of the nose, the front part of which he saj' s is too jirominent, and has the angles or wings (Nasenfliigel) too distinct, and adds that the coloring is also faulty. But von Baer's comparison is made with the young specimen of the At- # lantic Walrus he observed in St. Petersburg, and perhaps indi- cates the differences between the two species, rather than any incorrectness in Pallas's drawings. Von Baer also refers to the figures in Cook's '.'Last Voyage" as being somewhat exagger- 174 ODOB^NUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALRUS. ated in regard to the pliimp or robust form of the animal, unless, as he says, the Eastern (or Pacific) Walruses are fatter than the Western ones. Pallas, in his "Zoographia Eosso-Asiatica," cites "tab. xxviii. et xxix." of his accompanying "Icones," but the only copy of the "Icones" I have seen contains only one plate, marked as referring to page 269 of his "Zoographia" (the plates are not numbered), where the Walrus is described. This is a most indifferent and badly colored figure of an appar- ently not half-grown animal, in which the tusks are quite short, the mystacial bristles long and thick, the hind feet extended backward, the tail distinct and prominent, as well as the thighs and shoulders, and all the toes of both the fore and hind limbs are provided with long, conspicuous nads. The next illustration of the Pacific Walrus appears to have been published by Mr. H. W. Elliott * in 1873. This is the result of a careful study of the animals from lifet (on Walrus Island, Alaska, in July, 1872), by an artist not only qualified to do jus- tice to the subject from an artistic point of view, but who brings to his work the trained eye of a naturalist. This illustratiou represents a grouj) of some ten or more old males quietly repos- ing on the rocks in a variety of j)ostures. The figures in the foreground are expressive and detailed, and aftbrd by far the best representations of an adult Walrus yet extant. The edi- tion of the work embraced only one hundred and twenty-five copies, and can hence, unfortunately, have but a very limited circulation. Two of the figiu-es seen in the foreground, how- ever, have been reproduced by Scammonf from Mr. Elliott's drawings, and give a good idea of the form of these unwieldy creatures. I can refer with certainty to no heretofore-published figures of the skull or general anatomy, but some of the representations of the skull already mentioned in the account of the figures of the Atlantic species may i^ossibly represent this species. ' Geographicax, Distribution. — The habitat of the Pacific Walrus embraces a much smaller extent of coast and a much narrower breadth of both latitude and longitude than the Atlan- tic species. It is confined on the one hand to a comparatively small stretch of the northern and eastern coasts of Asia, and to * Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands, of Alaska (plates not num- bered and text unpaged). Washington, 1873. t See beyond, p. 179. t Marine Mammals of the Northwest Coast of North America, 1874, p. 177. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 175 a still smaller portion of the opposite American coast. To the westward the Walrus appears not to have been traced beyond €ape Schelatskoi (157o 30' east longitude), and to have occurred in large herds only as far west as Koljutschin Island (185° east longitude). These herds are reported as composed almost solely of males, the females rarely passing beyond the mouth of the Kolyma Eiver.* Wrangell, who passed two winters at the mouth of the Kolyma River, asserts confidently that the Wal- rus of Behring's Straits were abundant at Cape Jakan (170° 30' east longitude), but only once reached Cape Schelatskoi, while he found them numerous at Koljutschin Island. Thence east- ward they form the chief subsistence of the Tschutschi.t On the eastern coast of Asia, Steller (according to von Baer) reports that as early as 1742 none were killed by the Russians south of Karaginskoi Island in latitude 60°. He reports, how- ■ever, finding one on the southern point of Kamtschatka, but von Baer questions whether in this isolated instance of its supposed occurrence so far south there may not be some mistake, and that the animal was really a large Seal or a Sea-cow {Bliytina).X Krashinninikow states that in his day they were confined to the northern seas. He says, "On voit pen de chevaux marins dans les environs de Kamtschafl-a, on si I'on en trouve, ce n'est que dans les mers qui sont au uord. On en prend beaucoup plus pres du cap Tchukotskoi, oil ils y sont plus gros & plus nombreux que par-tout ailleurs".§ Liitke found a dead one as far south as Karaginskoi Ostrow (latitude 58°). || Higher up the coast from Caj)e Thaddeus northward and westward, they were met with in great numbers bj' the early Eussian explorers. In the Arctic Sea north of Behring's Straits they have been met with abundantly as far north as shii)s have penetrated, their north- ward range being only limited by the unbroken ice sheet. On the American coast they have been traced eastward onlj^ as far as Point Barrow, where they were observed by Beechey * See vou Middendorff, Sibirisclie Eeise, Bd. iv, -p. 936, footnote. t "Auf der Insel Koliutscliin werdeii manchmal eiue grosse Menge Wall- rosse erlegt, indein die Eingeborneu sic, weun sie aus dem Meere auf das Ufer steigen, plotzlich iiberfallen, ilineu deu Riickweg ins Wasser abschneideu und mit Peitschen und Stocten weiter liinauftreiben, wo sie sie dann mit leicbter Miilie erlegeu. — Das Wallross ist dem sitzeuden Tscbuktscben, wenii aucli niclit so uumittelbar, docli fast eben so allgemeiu niitzlicli, als dem Nomaden das Eennthier." — NordhUste von SiMrien, vol. ii, 1839, pj). 224, 225. tSee Ton Baer, 1. c., p. 183. §Hist. de Kamtscb., etc., as translated by "M. E. . . ." (Eidons), tom. 1, 1767, p. 283. II Voyage autour du Monde, tom. ii, p. 178. 176 ODOB^NUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALEUS. in 1823. Cook, in 1799, found tliein numerous in the neiglibor- liood of Icy Cape. They were also met with by Beechey on Diomede and Saint Lawrence Islands, and on other islands more to the southward.* Llitke found great herds at Saint Mathew's Island, in latitude GO°,i where their teeth were seen later by Billings.| They formerly resorted in summer in large numbers to Saint Paul's and Saint George's Islands, where, ac- cording to Sarytschew, 28,000 pounds of their teeth were ob- tained in a single year. They still resort, in small numbers, to a neighboring islet (Walrus Island), and even to the easternmost of the Aleutian chain, as will be presently more fully noted. For- merly they were also abundant on Nunivak Island, situated to the eastward of Mathew's Island, and not far from the Alaskan coast. On the coast of the mainland they have been met with in great herds at difi'erent times in Kotzebue and I^ortou Sounds and in Bristol Bay. Captain Cook apjjears not to have ob- served them south of latitude 58° 42', at which point he found them in Bristol Bay, as well as more to the northward.§ There appears to be no certain i)roof that they were in early times ever met with on the outermost of the Aleutian Islands, || and no early reference to their occurrence anywhere south of Bristol Bay and the Prybilov Islands. Brown, however, as late as 1868, says : " On the northwest coast of America I have known it to come as far south as 50° north latitude."^ Of this I can find only a partial confirmation, and think that i^ossibly there is a mistake in respect to the latitude here given.** Elliott says, * Narrative of a Voyage to tlie Pacific and Beliring's Straits, vol. ii, p. 271. t Voyage autour du Monde, torn, ii, p. 176. t Sauer's Account of Billings' Exped. to the North Parts of Russia, p. 235. ^ Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, etc., vol. i, pp. 433, 455, 457; vol. ii, pp.. 245, 248, 249, 2.59. II On this jioiut, see von Baer, 1. c, p. 182. II Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 432. ** Mr. Brown further states in the same connection that "It [the Walrus] is found all along the circumpolar shores of Asia, America and Europe" and that "J* is not unlikely that it may even ie found in the Antarctic regions" ! L. c, p. 432. This idea I have not seen elsewhere revived since the early part of the present century. (On this point see von Baer, 1. c, j). 173, and footnote.) Dr. Gray refers to the reported occurrence by Bonelli of "Sea Horses" on the Island of Saint Lorenzo, CaEao. As this author describes "the two great white tuslis projecting from the mouth on cither side," and further says that "the tusks are of great value and form an im^wrtant article of commerce," Dr. Gray concludes these remarks "cannot apply to the tusks of the Sea Bear" ; hut he adds that he had "never heard of the genus Triche- GEOGEAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 177 '^vriting in 1874, that "not more than thirty or thirty-five years ago small nnmbers of these animals were killed now and then on islands between Kodiak and Oonemak Pass" (lat. 55° to 57^). He adds none "are now fonnd sonth of the Alentian Islands."* Respecting' their present distribution, Captain Scammon, writ- ing in 1874, from personal observation, says: "Great numbers of Walruses are found where the waters of the Arctic Sea unite with those of Behring Straits, and also in Behring Sea, and that innumerable herds still resort in the summer months to dif- ferent points on the southern or central coasts of Alaska, par- ticularly at Amak Island and Point MoUer, on the northern shore of the Alaskan peninsula. Within the last ten years many of these animals have been destroyed by the whalers^ both in the Arctic and Behring Seas."t According to Mr. Elliott, the Walruses are now to be seen in the Prybilov Islands only on Walrus Island,| they being so shy and timid that they deserted the other islands as they became poftulated bj' man. In early days, or when the Rus- sians first took possession, a great many Walruses were found at Northeast Point, and along the south shore of Saint Paul's Island, but with the landing of the traders and seal-hunters the Walruses abruptly took their departure, and Walrus Island alone is now frequented by them, being isolated and seldom \isited during the year by the natives. He adds that they are now most numerous, outside of the Arctic circle, in Bristol Bay, where "great numbers congregate on the sandj'^ bars and flats, and where they are hunted to a considerable extent for their ivory."§ They are now far less numerous than formerly, having greatly decreased in numbers within the last fifty years. So numerous were they in Behring's Straits about 1821, that a Russian writer elms living out of the Arctic Ocean, and should have believed that he [ Bo- nelli] had mistaken the Sea Bear (Otaria leonina) for the Sea Horse," if he had not so particularly described the tusks. — Cat. Seals and Whales, i>. 37. The reference by Bonelli to the great white tusks of the " Sea Horses" relates, in all jirobability, to the large canines of the Sea Elephant, which were for- merly employed for a variety of uses. * Condition of Affairs in Alaska, p. 1G4, footnote. t Marine Mammalia, p. 180. X A low rocky island, about half a mile long by one-eighth of a mile in breadth, situated a few miles to the southeastward of the eastern end of Saint Paul's Island. § Condition of Affairs in Alaska, pp. 161, 164. Misc. Pub. No. 12 12 178 ODOB^NUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALRUS. reports meeting with herds there embracing thousands, and even hundreds of thousands, of individuals.* During recent years, in addition to the number killed by the natives, the whalers are said to have destroyed as many as 12,000 annually, so reducing their numbers that the natives have be- come anxious lest they shall soon lose this source of subsist- ence, upon which they are so dependent. Habits, Food, Commercial Products, and the Chase. — The Pacific Walrus appears to agree quite nearly in habits with its closely allied congener of the Atlantic waters. It has the same gregarious propensity, the same intense affection for its young, the same strong sympathy for a distressed comrade, lives upon similar food, and is limited in its distribution by about the same isotherms. Its leading characteristics were concisely stated nearly a century since by Captain Cook in the following words : "They lie, in herds of many hundreds, upon the ice; hud- dling one over the other like swine ; and roar or bray very loud ; so that, in the night, or in foggy weather, they gave us notice of the ^dcinity of the ice, before we could see it. We never found the whole herd asleep; some being always on the watch. These, on the approach of the boat, would wake those next to them ; and the alarm being thus gradually communicated, the whole herd would be awake presently. But they were seldom in a hurry to get away, till after they had been once fired at. Then they would tumble one over the other, into the sea, in the utmost confusion. And, if we did not, at the first discharge, kill those we tired at, we generally lost them, though mortally wounded. They did not appear to be that dangerous animal some authors have described; not even when attacked. They are rather more so, to appearance, than in reality. Yast numbers of them would follow, and come close up to the boats. But the flash of a mus- quet in the pan, or even the bare pointing of one at them, would send them down in an instant. The female will defend the' young one to the very last, and at the expense of her own life, whether in the water or upon the ice. N^or will the young one * Vou Middendorflf says, " Tansende ja Himderttavisende im lebensfrisclie- reu Berings-Eismeere," and cites as authority a Russian "vvriter named Hiilseu. Von Middeudoiff continues, " Im Jahre 1821 iiber sail er [Hiilsen] dort im Dezember Tansende, zu Eude des Juni Hunderttausende von Wal- rossen zugleicli,welclie die Luffc mit ikrem Stohnen erfiiUten undvon denen einige, fruclitlos kratzend, sich. bemiihten an den Scliiffswandungen empor- zuklimmen." — Sihirisclie Beisc, Bd. iv, p. 913, and footnote. HABITl^i. 179 quit the dam, tbougli she be dead ; so that, if you kill one, you are sure of the other. The dam, when in the water, holds the 3'oung- one betAveen her fore fins."* In Captain King's continuation of the narrative of Cook's last voyage, reference is made to a " Sea Horse" hunt. "Our people," says the account, " were more successfid than they had been before, returning with three large ones, and a young one, besides killing and Avounding several others. The gentle- men who went on this party were witnesses of several remark- able instances of parental affection in those animals. On the approach of our boats toward the ice, they all took their cubs under their fins and endeavored to escape with them into the sea. Several, whose young were killed or wounded and left floating on the surface, rose again and carried them down, some- times just as our people were going to take them up into the boat, and might be traced bearing them to a great distance through the water, which was colored with their blood. We afterward observed them bringing them, at times, above the suriace, as if for air, and again diving under it with a dreadful bellowing. The female, in particular, whose young had been destroyed and taken into the boat, became so enraged that she attacked the cutter and struck her iwo tusks through the bottom of it." t The accounts given by subsequent observers confirm the general truthfulness of this brief but comi^rehensive sketch, and supply some further details resj)ecting its interesting his- tory. Mr. H. AV. Elliott, recently an agent in the employ of the Treasury Department of the United States Government, stationed at the Prybilov Islands, has made these animals a special study, under opportunities unusually favorable for observation. On Walrus Island, well known as being still a favorite resort for a large herd of old males, he was able to ap- proach within a few yards of a herd of several hundred old bulls, which lay closely ]3acked upon a series of low basaltic tables, elevated but little above the wash of the surf. Here he studied and painted them from life,| seated upon a rocky ledge a few feet distant from and above them. He describes these scarred, wrinkled, and almost naked old veterans as of by no means prex30ssessing appearance. He says they are sluggish * Cook's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, etc., vol. ii, p. 458. tibid., vol. iii, p. 248. t See antea, p. 174. 180 ODOB^NUS 0BESU8 PACIFIC WALKUS. and clumsy in tbe water and almost helpless on land, their im- mense bulk and weight, in comparison with the size and strength of their limbs, rendering them quite impotent for terrestrial movement. " Like the seal, it swims entirely under water when traveling, not rising, however, quite so frequently to breathe ; then it 'blows' not unUke a whale. On a cool, quiet May morning, I watched a herd off the east coast of the island, tracing its progress by the tiny jets of vapor thrown off as the animals rose to respire. " In landing and climbing over the low rocky shelves," he continues, " this animal is almost as clumsy and indolent as the sloth ; they crowd up from the water, one after the other, in the most ungainly manner, accompanying their movements with low grunts and bellowings ; the first one up from the sea no sooner gets composed upon the rocks for sleep than the sec- ond one comes x«'odding and poking with its blunt tusks, de- manding room also, and causing the first to change its position to another still farther off from the water ; and the second is in turn treated in the same way by the third, and so on, until hundreds will be packed together on the shore as thickly as they can lie, frequently pillowing their heads or posteriors upon the bodies of one another, and not at all quarrelsome ; as they pass all the time when on land in sluggish basking or deej) sleep, they seem to resort to a very irregular method of keep- ing guard, if I may so term it, for in this herd of three or foiu' hundred bidls under my eye, though all were sleeping, yet the movement of one would disturb the other, which would raise its head in a stupid manner, grunt once or twice, and before lying down to sleep again, in a few" moments, it would strike the slumbering form of its nearest companion with its tusks, causing that animal to rouse up for a few minutes also, grunt and pass the blow on to the next in the same manner, and so on, through the whole herd; this disturbance among themselves always kej^t some one or two aroused, and consequently more alert than the rest. "In moving on land they have no power in the hind limbs, which are dragged and twitched up behind; progression is slowly and tediously made by a succession of short steps for- ward on the fore feet. How long they remain out from the water at any one time I am unable to say. Unlike the seals, they breathe heavily and snore. " The natives told me the walrus of Bering Sea is monoga- HABITS FOOD. 181 mous, and that tlie difference between the sexes in size, color, and shape is inconsiderable; that the female brings forth her yonng, a single calf, in Jnne, nsually on the ice-floes in the Arctic Ocean, above Bering- Straits ; that the calf closely resem- bles the parent in general proportions and color, bnt that the tusks which give it its most distinguishing expression are not visible until the end of the second year of its. life ; that the walrus mother is strongly attached to her offspring, and nurses it later in the season in the sea ; that the walrus sleeps pro- foundly in the water, floating almost vertically, with barely more than the nostrils above water, and can be easily approached, if care be taken, to within easy spearing distance ; that the bulls do not fight as savagely as the fur-seal or sea-lion, the blunted tusks of the combatants seldom penetrate the thick hide ;* that they can remain under water nearly an hour, or twice as long as the seals, and that they sink like so many stones immediately after being shot." Mr. Elliott adds: "As the females never come down to the Prybilov Islands, 1 have never had an opportunity of observing them. . . • The reason why this band of males, many of them old ones, should be here by themselves all through the year is not plain to me ; the natives assure me that the females, or their young, never have been seen around the shores of these islands. Over in Bristol Bay great numbers of walrus con- gregate on the sandy bars and flats, where they are hunted to a considerable extent for their ivory." On Walrus Island, however, they are said to be comparatively unmolested, the natives here " not making any use of their flesh, fat, or hides." They are hence shot here only by the natives of Saint Paul's Island, who ^asit Walrus Island for the puri^ose of getting eggs, in June and July, when they often shoot the Walruses wan- touly.t Their comparative immunity here from persecution is hence apparently the reason why they select this island as one of their favorite reposing grounds. Their food is described by Mr. Elliott as .consisting exclu- sively of shell-fish (xnincipally clams), " and the bulbous roots of certain marine grasses and plants, which grow in great abun- dance in the broad, shallow^ lagoons and bays of the mainland * That their blows are at times not lacking in force is sufficiently proven by the too well-known fact of their striking them through the planking of a ship's boat. t Condition of Atfairs in Alaska, pj). 160~1G4. 182 OUOB^NUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALEUS. coast. I liave taken from tlie paunch of a walrus," he addSj "over a bushel of crushed clams, shells and all, which the animal had but recently swallowed, since digestion had scarcely com- menced. Many of the clams in the stomach were not even broken ;* and it is in digging- these shell-fish that the service rendered by the' enormous tusks becomes e\ddent."t Mr. W. H. Dall also says, "Thej^ feed principally upon shell-fish which they s^^allow whole, and the shells, which remain after they have digested the contents, are found in large numbers about the localities they frequent."| Among the enemies of the Pacific Walrus are not only to be reckoned man, both savage and civilized, but also the Polar Bear and the Orca or "Killer," while, like the Atlantic species, it is said to be greatly infested with j)arasites. According to Captain Scammou, the Polar Bear, when meeting with a herd in its prowliugs, " selects and seizes one of the smallest indi- viduals with his capacious jaws, and the resisting struggles of the poor victim to free itself are quickly suppressed by repeated blows with Bruin's paws, which cause almost instant death. The murderous beast then quickly tears the skin from the body by means of his long, shari) claws, when the remains are de- voured." That carnivorous Cetacean, the Orca, he continues, " also watches for the young cubs of the Walrus, and if there is floating ice at hand, the mother with iier charge clambers upon it to avoid the jiursuer; if this fails, however, the cub will mount the mother's back as the only place of refuge. But the Killer is rarely baffled in obtaining the object it seeks by this mode of the mother's protection, for the pursuing animal dives deeply, and then comes head up under the old Walrus, with such force as to throw the cub from the dam's back into the water, when it is instantlj' seized and swallowed by its adver- sary. Instances have been known, however, Avheh the Orca has paid dearly for its murderous temerity, as the enraged Walrus, when bereft of her young, will sometimes strike her tusks into her foe with such effect as to cause a mortal wound or instant death."§ Caj)tain Scammon says the period of gestation is "about nine * Comparer on this point Malmgrcn'.s (statement that the Athmtic Walrua rejects the shells, swalloAving only the soft i)arts. See allied, p. 136. t Condition of Affairs in Alaska, p. 162. t Alaska and its Eesonrces, 1870, p. 504. Olarine ^liunnialia, pp. 180,181. I. ^ AFFECTION. 183 montlis," and that both sexes and the youug are often found m company. He adds that the paring' season occurs during- the "last of the spring months or the fii'st of summer." His gen- eral account of their habits is quite in harmony with the early account given by Cook. " The mother and her offspring," he says, " manifest a stronger mutual affection than we have ob- f served in any other of the marine mammals ; the cub seeks her l^rotection, clinging to her back whenever there is cause for alarm, and she will at all times place herself between the foe and her helpless charge; frequently has she been known to clasp to her breast the terrified little one, embracing it with her fore flippers, while receiving mortal wounds from the whale- man's lance." Captain Scammon further states, in respect to the f affection of the young for its mother, on the authority of Capt. \ T. W. Williams, an experienced and observing whahng master, ^ that " a female was captured two miles from the ship and the , young cub kept close to the boats that were towing its dead I mother to the vessel ; and when arrived, made every effort to follow her as she was being hoisted on board. A rope uith a bowline was easily thrown over it, and the bereaved creature taken on deck, when it instantly mounted its mother's back and there clung with mournful solicitude, until forced by the sailors to again retm^n to the sea ; but even then it remained in the vicinity of the ship, bemoaning the loss of its parent by utter- ing distressful cries." "A male, and a female with her cub," continues our author, " are often seen together ; yet herds of old and young, of both sexes, are met with, both in the water and upon the ice. AVhen undisturbed they are quite inoffensive, but if hotly pursued they make a fierce resistance ; their mode of attack is by hooking their tusks over the gunwales of the boat, which may overturn them, or they strike a blow through the planking, which has repeatedly been the means of staving and sinking them."* The commercial products of the Pacific Walrus are, as in the case of the other species, its tusks, oil, and hide. They are, fur- thermore, to the Tschuktschi what the Greenland Walrus is to the Esquimaux, their most important source of food, utensils, and means of commercial interchange. Cook, Wrangell, and numerous other exi)lorers of the Arctic waters beyond Behring's Straits, unite in the testimonj" that they form the chief means of support of the coast tribes. To quote the words of a recent * Marine Mammalia, p. 178. 184 ODOB^NUS OBESUS PACIFIC WALEUS. writer, their "flesh supphes them with food; the ivory tusks are made into implements used in the chase, and for other do- mestic purposes, as well as affording a valuable article of barter ; and the skin furnishes the material for covering their summer habitations, i:»lankiug for their haidarras, harness for their dog- teams, and lines for theii' fishing-gear."* According to Wrangell, "the Walrus is aluiost as useful to the settled as the Eeindeer is to the nomad Tschuktschi. The flesh and the blubber are both used as food, and the latter for their lamps ; the skin is made into diu-able thongs for harness and other purposes, and into strong soles for boots ; the intes- tines furnish a material for light water-proof upper garments for summer use; a very durable thread is prepared from the sinews ; and, lastly, the tusks, which are of the finest ivory, are sometimes formed into long narrow drinking vessels, such as takes a long time to hollow out, but are more frequently sold to the Eeindeer Tschuktschi, who dispose of them to the Eus- sians."t As already incidentally noted in the foregoing pages, their tusks have been an important article of traftic from the earliest times to which the history of this region extends, and the source of this valuable commodity was the "Eldorado" of the Eussian adventurers of the middle of the seventeenth century who first explored the Arctic coast of Eastern Asia. Now, as then, the tusks have the highest commercial value of any of the products of the Walrus, and thousands of these animals have annually been sacrificed, for perhaj^s the greater part of the last two cen- turies, in order to meet the demand for them. Mr. Dall, writing in 1870 of the Alaskan Wabas, states that "the quantity of Walrus tusks annually obtained will average 100,000 pounds."| Allowing the average weight of a pair of Walrus tusks to be 15 to 20 pounds (I have found the weight of large tusks to vary from 6 to 8 pounds each, the very largest 1 have seen weighing less than 9 pounds) — a very high estimate — this enormous quantity implies the destruction of more than six thousand Walruses annually in the waters bordering Behring's Straits. According to Captain Scammon, the whalers have of late been largely instrumental in the destruction of the Alaskan Wah-us, they having, owing to the scarcity of Whales, become more or * Scammon, Marine Mammalia, p. 180. t Wrangell's Polar ExiiL, Harper's Amer. cd., p. 282. t Alaska and its Resources, p. 504. PRODUCTS. 185 less interested iu Walrus-huntiiig-. According to a quotation given by Captain Scammon from The Friend* of Marcli 1, 1872, "the whalers first began to turn their attention, to Walrus- catching about the year 1868, and the work has contiuued up to the present time [1874]. Usually, during the first part of every season, there has been but little ojiportuuitj" to capture whales, they being within the limits of the icy barrier. Hence, much of the whalers' time during the months of July and Au- gust has been devoted to capturing the Walrus ; and it is esti- mated that at least 60,000 of these animals have been destroyed by the whale- fishers in the Arctic Ocean and Behring Sea dur- ing the last five years, which j)roduced about 50,000 barrels of oil, with a proportionate amount of ivory." t This would make an average annual destruction of 12,000, in addition to the large number habitually destroyed by the natives. In the "Annual Eeview" of the products of the Korth Pacific Whaling Fleet t for 1877, it is stated that the whalers arriving at the port of San Francisco during 1877 reported 74,753 pounds of Walrus teeth and 2,178 barrels of Walrus oil. The amount of Walrus ivory "received in the customs district of San Fran- cisco " for 1876 is given as 33,034 x^ounds. The same authority ^ives the following statistics for x^revious years, beginning with 1873 : * Tear. Number of vessels. Pounds of ivory. 1873 1874 16 12 11 7 16 12, 142 7,600 25, 400 7, 000§ 74, 000 1875 1876 1877 Total for the last five years, 153,075 pounds, with an estimated value of about $55,000. This amount imjihes.an annual destruc- tion of at least ten to twelve thousand Walruses. It thus ap- pears that for the last ten years the number of Walruses taken * A newspaper xiublishecl in Honolulu. t Marine Mammalia, j). 181. X '•'Commercial Herald and Market Review," vol. xii, No. 531, San Fran- cisco, Cal., Jan. 17, 1878. § There is an unexplained discrejiancy here, for another statement in the same connection gives the quantity of "Walrus teeth " for 1876 as 33,934 pounds. 186 ODOBJiLNUS OBESUS PACIFIC AVALEUS. by the whalers alone cannot fall far short of one hundred and twenty thousand. It is hence little wonder that these animals are rapidly declining in niunber, and that the natives manifest alarm at the disappearance of their main reliance for support. The destruction of the Alaskan Walrus is now largely effected by the use of firearms, even the natives shooting them on shore with rifles and heavy muskets, although they still also practice their former method of pursuing them in the water and there disi)atching them with spears and lances. FAMILY OTARIID^. Eared Seals. Phoques a oreilles, Buffon, Hist. Nat. Suxjpl., vi, 1782, 305. Phocacea auriculata, Perost, Voy. Terr. Austr., ii, 1816, 37. Otaria, Peron, Voy. Terr. Austr., ii, 1816, 37 (genus). Otariimt, Grat, Ann. of Phil., 1825, 340 (subfamily). Otariada', "Brookes, Cat. Anat. andZool. Mus., 1828, 36." — Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat., Hist., 3d ser., xviii, 1866, 228. — Allen, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., ii, 1870, 19. Otariida', Gill, Proc. Essex lust., v, 1866, 7. Arctocephalina, Gray, Charlesworth's Mag. Nat. Hist., i, 1837, 583. Otarides, Gervais, Hist. Nat. des Mammifferes, ii, 1855, 305. Fore limbs i^laced far back, and, like tlie liiiid limbs, comj)ar- atively free and serviceable for terrestrial locomotion ; hind feet susceptible of being turned forward. The digits of the manus successively decrease very much in size and length from the first to the fifth, without well-developed nails, and with the manus bordered with a naked cartihgiuous extension. Of the pes the three middle digits . are shorter and weaker than the others, with well-developed nails ; the others strong and thick, the first rather stouter than the fifth, both with only rudi- mentary nails; all terminate in hairless, long cartilaginous fla^js, which vary in length in the different genera. Soles and palms and most of the upper digital surface hairless. Scaj)ula large, the blade very broad, the crests high, and the acromion greatly developed. Femur with a trochanter minor, which in adult males is strongly developed. Pubic bones unanchylosed, and in the females considerably separated. Ilia long and slender, not abruptly turned outward i)osteriorly. Acetabula opj)osite the posterior end of the second sacral vertebra. Skull with well- tleveloped orbital processes, and an aUsphenoid canal ; mastoid process strong and salient, distinct from the auditory bullae, which are small and but slightly inflated. Incisors always ^^, the two middle pairs of upper with the crown deeply grooved trans- versely, the outer caniniform. Dental formulaj: Milk dentition, I- SjC.gjM.g; permanent dentition, I. g, C. j^j, M. Q, or ^^, = 34 or 36. Ears with a subcyhndrical external conch. Testes scrotal. 187 188 FAMILY OTARIIDiE. ft TECHNICAL, HISTORY. Higher Groups. — The Eared Seals were referred by the older writers to the Linnfean genus PJioca. Buffon, in 1782, re- cognized the Seals as consisting of two groups, characterized by the presence or absence of external ears. Peron, in 1816, first divided the Seals into two genera, he separating the Eared Seals from the earless ones under the name Otaria. Later, Brookes, in 1828, raised the group of Eared Seals to the rank of a family, under the name of Otariadw. This classification was not, however, generally adopted till 1866, when it was revived by Gill, and immediately adopted by Gray, and it has been ac- cepted by most subsequent writers. Gray, Turner, and others, had previously considered the Eared Seals as forming a sub- family of thePJiocidw, for which Gray, at different times, used the names Otariina and ArctocepJialina, which latter was also adopted for the name of the group by Turner in 1848. In 1870 I di- vided the Eared Seals into two groups, which I provisionally adopted as subfamilies, with the names THcMpliocinm and Ouli- pliocinw, in allusion to the nature of the pelage. The charac- ters assigned, while i^erhaps of small importance, relating mainly to size, character of the pelage, and size and shape of the ear, and insufficient to characterize divisions of this grade, serve to mark two natural groups, the so-called Sea Lions, or Hair Seals, forming the one, and the Sea Bears, or the Eur Seals of commerce, the other. Dr. Gray, in 1869,* divided the family into five ^'tribes," which he termed, respectively, Otariina, Callorhinina, Arcto- cephalina, Zalophina, and Eumetojnina, mainly with reference to the number of the grinders and the x)osition of the hinder pair. These " tribes " he at the same time combined into two " sections," the one embracing the Otariina (consisting of his genus Otaria), and the other all the others, this division being based on the posterior extension of the bony palate. To his first primary division ("Section I*'), consisting, as just stated, of the single genus Otaria as limited by Gray, and, as seems to me, embrac- ing only the single species 0. juhata of recent authors, he re- stricted the name " Sea Lions," applying to the other, embi^ac- ing aU the other Eared Seals, the name ''Sea Bears." This latter group, however, embraces not only the animals commonly •called Sea Bears by other authors, as well as by travelers and *Ami. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., vol. iv, pp. 264-270. HIGHER GROUPS. 189 sealers (i. e., the "Fiir Seals'- of commerce), but also the two Sea Lions (commonly so called) of the northern hemisphere, and all the Eared Hair Seals of the South, except Oiaria jvhata. This classification, with scarcely any modification, he followed also in his papers treating of this group in 1871;* l)ut in 1872 1 he proposed a new arrangement of the " Sea Bears." The sub- division of this group into "tribes" is not here clearly indi- cated, iilthough he arranges the genera in four unnamed sec- tions. In 1873 1 he proposed another arrangement of the "Sea Bears," in which they were i)laced in two primary divisions, in accordance with whether the number of molars is^? or ^. His later modifications were more formally presented in his last gen- eral account of the group published in 1874,§ in which the clas- sification then presented differed very much from that adopted by him in 1868 and 1871. Although a new "tribe" ("Tribe 2, GypHopliocina'''') was instituted, his former "tribes," CullorJii- nina^ Arciocepltalma ^ and Eiimetoj)iina^ were united into one, under the name Arctoceplialina, thus reducing the whole num- ber of "tribes" to four, as follows: 1. Otariina; 2. Gypsoplio- ciiia; 3. ArctocephaUna ; 4. Zalophina. As before, he recognized two primary "sections," by means of which Otaria is opposed to all the other genera as a group co-ordinate in rank with all the rest. Also the "sections," or primary divisions, are still based on the x)osterior prolongation of the bony palate, and the "tribes," or secondary divisions, on the number of the molars and the position of the hinder pair relative to the "front edge of the zygomatic arch." It is needless to add that a more purely artificial and valueless basis could scarcely be devised. In his later schemes, Eiimetopias is placed under the division charac- terized as having the molars -^, on the wholly theoretical ground that "the fifth uj^per molar on each side [is] wanting," leaving "the sixth separated from the fourth by a wide space." On similar groimds his PJiocarctos elongatus, — based, as I shall later give reasons for believing, in part on an adult female Eumetopias steUeri and in jjart on the young of the Jai)an species of Zaloplms, — is considered as lacking the "fifth grinder" when adult, though possessing it when young. As late as 1873, Eu- metopias is placed in a group explicitly characterized as having *Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, p. 11, tProc. Zool. Soc. Lond.,1872, p. G55. tProc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1873, p. 779. §Haud-List of Seals. 190 FAMILY OTARIID^. " thick imder-fnr " ! In his latest notice of the species (in 1874) his synonymy of the species shows that he still believed the skin of a young CallorJiinus ursinus, referred in 186G to his Arctoce- pJialus inonteriensis, belonged to this species, although in 1871* he properly assigned it to Callorhinus 'ursinus^ which I had shown in 1870 was its proper allocation. Dr. Gill, in 1871,t made two primary divisions of the family, the genus Zalophus alone constituting one division, which was thus contrasted with all the others. The characters cited as the basis of this division are the rostral profile (whether " more or less decurved," or ''straight or incurved") and the sagittal crest. The last distinction was based wholly on a misapprehension of the facts in the case,f and the first proves to be open to very obvious exceptions. Although Dr. Gill, in his later papers on this groui3, retains these divisions as originally proposed by Mm, he has adduced no additional characters in support of them. Genera. — The first generic division of the Eared Seals was made by F. Cuvier in 1824,§ who separated them as "Arctoce- phales" {Arcioceplmlus) and "Platyrhinques" {PlatyrMncMs), with ^'■Phoca vrsma^^ (^ ArciocepUalus delalmuli, F. Guvier; A. cmtarctieus, Gvaiy) as the tyj)e of the former and '■'■Plioca leonina^^ (= Otariajubata of recent authors) as the type of the latter. Suc- ceeding writers very generally adopted the name ArctocepMlus for the greater part of the species, while Platyrhinclms was con- sidered as equivalent to Otaria of Peron, of prior date. Otaria has, by some writers, even down to the present time, been used in a generic sense for all the species of the family, sometimes with and sometimes without subgeneric divisions. In 1859, Gray separated genericaUy the jSTorthern Fur Seal from ArctocepJialus under the name Callorhinus, and the group has been since very generally recognized as of generic or subgeneric value. Prior to this date the only commonly recognized genera were Otaria and Ai'ctocephalits. The next generic subdivisions of the Ota- ries were instituted by Gill in 1866, || namely, Eumetojiias and ZalopJms, the former ha^dng for its type and only species the Northern Sea Lion, or Leo marimis of SteUer, while the latter * Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, p. 15. tAmer. Nat., vol. iv, Jan., 1871, p. 681. tSee Am. Nat., vol. v, Marcli, 1871, p. 41. $M€m. duMus. d'Hist. Nat., vol. xl, 1824, 205. II Proc. Essex Institute, vol. v, pp. 1-13, March, 1866. GENERA, . 191 ^as founded on tlie Otaria giUespi of M'Bain. The genera recog- nized Trere live in number, namely : 1. Otaria ("Peron, 181G, type P/iom JM&rtteSclireber"); 2. Arctoceplialus ("F.Cnvier, 1824, ^ .... type Fhoca nrsina Linnieus," lience = Callorhimis, Gray, 1859, and not Arctocephalus, F. Cuvier); 3. Einnetopias, Gill (nov. ^en., "type Otaria caJiforniana Jje&aon, = Arctocephalus monte- riensis Gray," the intended type being Otaria HteUeri of Miiller) ; 4. ZaJopliuSj Gill (nov. gen., "type Otaria Gilliesptii, Macbain"); 5. Salarctus, Gill ("type Arctoceplialus Delalandii, Gray," hence = Arctoceplialm^ F. Cuvier, 1824). Although three new names ■were proposed, only two new genera were added, Halarctus be- ing synonymous with ArctocephaJm of F. Cuvier, and Arctoce- phahis, as here defined, with CaUorhimis, Gray, as speedily and almost simultaneously pointed out by Gray* and Peters,t and as has been since freely conceded by Gill. A few months later Professor Peters t adopted, in a subgeneric sense, the genera previously recognized by Gray and Gill, and added two other subgenera, namely, Phocarctos and Arctophoca. The type of Phocarctos was Gray's Arctocephalus hoolieri (then known to Pe- ters apparently only through Gray's description and figures), with which, however, was associated the Otaria ullow of von Tschudi, which latter appears to be merely Otaria jubata, fem. The type of Arctoplioca was originally Otaria philippiij Peters, sp. nov., ^vo\yA\)\y = Arctocephalus faUdandicmj fem.; at all events, a Fkt Seal from the Island of Juan Fernandez. These groups were first estabUshed in May, 1866, but the following jSTovember, Phocarctos iilloa was removed bv Dr. Peters to his section or subgenus Otaria^ and Otaria faJklandica, Shaw ( = " 0. nigrescens, Gray"), was taken as the type oi Arctophoca, to which 0. p)hilippii was now apparently referred as a subspecies or a doubtfid form. Thus Arctocephalus faMandicus is here re- moved from Arctocephalus, where he formerlj" idaced it, to be-" come a new type oi Arctophoca ! In September, 1866, | Gray adopted the above named generic and subgeneric divisions, to which he added J^eophoca as a " new genus," based on his Arctocephalus Johalus, referred previously by Peters to Zalophus^ and Euotaria and Gypsophoca as subgen- era of Arctocephalus. Euotaria was based on his ArctocephaJus nigrescens, and Gypsophoca on his Arctocephalus cinereus. In * Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d ser., vol. xvii, pi». 444-447, June, 1866. t Monatsb. d. k. P. Akad. zu Berlin, 180(5, pp. "iOi), iTC, 670-672. t Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d ser., vol. xviii, pp. 228-237. 192 . FAMILY OTARIID^. 1868 * he raised Eiiotaria and GypsopJioca to the rank of genera^ ten genera of Eared Seals being now recognized by this author. In his formal synopsis of the family i^resented in 18G9,t these ten genera were all retained, and are the following : 1. Otaria. i 6. Gypsoplioca. 2. Callorliiuus. 7. Zaloplins. 3. Pliocarctos. j 8. Neoplioca. 4. Arctoceplialns. i 9. Eumetopias. 0. Euotaria. , 10. Arctophoca. In 1871 he again treated two of them [Euotaria and Gypso- plioca) as subgenera of ArctocepJialtts, tliereby reducing the number of genera to eight. In 1873 1 eight genera of " Sea Bears" alone {i. e., Eared Seals exclusive of Otaria) are enumer- ated, Euotaria being omitted. In 1874, § however, both Euota- ria and Gypsoplioca are given full generic rank, but no reference is made to Arctoplwca, the siiecies {Arctoplioca pliUippii) formerly referred to it being neither recognized nor accounted for. The number of genera is thus reduced to nine. Dr. Gill, in 1872 1| and in 187G, |f retained the five generic groups first recognized by him in 186G, with, however, the corrections in nomenclature introduced by Gray and Peters later in the same year. These five genera, namely, Otaria, Eumetopias, Zaloplius, Callorliinus, and Arctoceplialus, were adopted by myself in 1870, in my paper on the Eared Seals of the North Pacific.** Dr. Peters, in 1871,tt referred all the South American Fur Seals (of which he then recognized four, namely, A. faUlandicus^ A. nigrcscens, A. argentata, A.pliilippii) to his subgenus ("Unter- gattung") Arctoplioca. Dr. Peters's later views respecting the genera of the Otariidcv are given in his paper on the Eared Seals published in August, 1877,|| in which he reduces the genera to three, namely, Otaria, Eumetopias, and Arctoceplialus. The Pur Seals are all united uiidiiv Arctoceplialus ; Of«H« includes only 0. juhata (to which his 0. leonina and 0. ullow are referred as " Lo- calrassen"), Eumetopias being made to inchide all the otlier * Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4t]i ser., vol. i, pp. 99-110, Feb., 1868. tAnn. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., vol. iv, p]i. '^G4-270. tProc. Zoul. Soe. Lond., 1873, p. 779. ^ Hand-List of Seals. II Arrangement of Families of Mammals, p. (59. IJJolinson's Cyclopedia, vol. iii, p. 1018. ** Bnll. Mus. Gomp. Zool., vol. ii, No. 1, Angnst, 1870. ttMonatsl). d. k. P. Akad. d. WissfMisch. zn Berlin, 1871, p. 564. :» Mouatsl>. d. k. P. Akad. il. AVisseuseli. zu Berlin, 1877, pp. 505-507. SPECIES. 193 Hair Seals (=tlie subgenera Eumetopias, Zalophus, and P/toc- arctos of Peters's earlier papers). Species. — Prior to about the beginning of tlie present cen- tiiry, tlie Eared Seals then known were commonly referred to two species, one of which was termed, in common parlance, the Sea Bear, Ours marin, Meerbar, etc., and the other Sea Lion, Lion marin, Meerlowe, etc. Th^y were hardly more definitely known in technical terminology, the "Sea Bear" being Plioca ursina, and the " Sea Lion" the Phoca juhata. The first of these names originated with Linne in 1758,* and the other with Torster in 1775.t Phoca ursina was based originally on Stel- ler's Ursus marinus, and Phoca jtihata on the Southern Sea Lion, or " Lion marin," of Pernetty, to which species these specific names have of late been properly restricted. Zimmermann, in [1782,1 named the Southern Sea Bear Phoca awstm?«*s(=" Falk- land Seal, Pennant II, p. 521," the Sea Bear of Forster), which Shaw, in 1800, renamed Phoca falklandica. Both names were based on the "Falkland Isle Seal" of Pennant, but Zimmer- mann's seems to have been entirely overlooked by subsequent writers. As it has eighteen years' priority, it must be adojited in place of falklandica. During the last half of the last century and the early part of the present, the early voyagers to the southern seas (as Anson, Per- netty, Forster, Weddel, Peron and Lesueur, Quoy and Gaimard, Lesson and Garnot, and Byron, among others) met with different species of Sea Lions and Sea Bears. They described these ani- mals very imperfectly, their accounts relating mainly to their habits and localities of occurrence, and they brought with them to Europe very few specimens.§ Desmarest in 1817, and Lesson in 1828, gave names to the species thus obscurely indicated, the latter renaming several that had already received names. To these authors, and to the often-quoted remark of Peron that he believed there were not less than twenty species of Otaries, we are indebted for much of the confusion and obscurity that must ever be inseparable from the early history of this group. Des- marest alone, in his article on the Otaries in the " Dictionnaire d'Histoire naturelle" (vol. xxv, 1817, pp. 590-603), recognized *Syst. Nat. J. 1758, 37. tDescrip. Auim., pp. 66, 317. t Geograpli. GescMclite, Theil iii, 1782, p. 276. § G. Cuvier, according to Gray (Catalogue of Seals, 1850, p. 2), had. skuUs of only two species of Eared Seals wlien lie wrote tlie '' Ossemens Fossiles." Misc. Pub. ISo. 12 13 194 FAMILY OTAEIID^. nine species, only two of which have any tangible basis, or can be determined except conjecturally, and mainly on the basis of their habitat. In fact, it is almost impossible to say whether they are "hair" Seals or "fur" Seals 5 the descriptions show merely that they were some kind of Eared Seal. Desmarest's species are the following: 1. Otaria leonina (= Otaria juhata-\- Umnetopias stelleri)', 2. Otaria ursina {= Callorhinus ursinus)'^ 3. Otaria peroni (n. sp., based on a vague account by M. Bailly * of an Eared Seal seen in great nAimbers on Eottnest Island, west coast of Australia. Desmarest doubtfully refers to it two mounted skins in the Paris Museum, both of very young animals, the larger only about two feet and a half long, brought from " Ter- res Australes ") ; 4. Otaria cinerea (Peron et Lesiieur, Voy. au Terr. Austr., ii, 77 ; habitat, " He Decres," coast of Australia ; an Eared Seal, with rough hair, described only in general terms, and undeterminable ; probably = Zaloplms lohatus) ; 5. Otaria cilhicollis (Peron et Lesueur, 1. c, 118; habitat, "He Eugene," coast of Australia 5 an Eared Seal, eight or nine feet long, char- acterized by a white spot on the middle and upper part of the neck ; perhaps the same as the last, but not certainly deter- minable); G. Otaria flavescens {Sha^i'^ Mus. Lev.; Gen Zool., i, 260, pi. Ixxiii; habitat. Straits of Magellan; a "Yellowish Seal, with x^ointed ears " ; not determinable, but probably = 0. jiibata) ; 7. Otaria falJclandica {= Fhoca faJJdandica Shaw=P/iOca aus- trails J Zimm. ; " Cinereous Seal, with small pointed ears, and the cutting-teeth marked with furrows " ; presumably the common Fur Seal of the Falkland Islands) ; 8. Otaria imrcina (= PJioca ])orcina, Molina ; habitat, coast of Chili ; wholly undeterminable) ; 9. Otaria inmlla {='■'■ Plioca pusilla, Linn."; a wholly mythical " Otary " as described by Desmarest, supposed to inhabit the Medi- terranean Sea ! t Of these nine species, only one {Otaria ursina), * P^ron et Lesiieur's Voy. Terr. Austr., vol. i, p. 189. t In view of recent attempts to revive the name jjMsiZZa as a tenable desig- nation for some species of Eared Seal, it seems desirable to state fully the original basis and early Mstory of tbis name. It was given originally by Scbreber, in 1776, to "Le Petit Pboque" of Buffon, Scbreber even copying Buffon's figure (Hist. Nat., siii, 1765, pi. liii). Buffon introduces bis notice of tbis species as follows : " Le second [espece] (planche LIII) qui est le pboque de la M6diterran6e & des mers du Midi, & que nous pr^sumons Stre le plioca des AncienSj parolt etre d'une autre espece, car il difffere des autres par la quality & la couleur du poil qui est ondoyant & presque noir, tandis que le poll des premiers est gris & rude, il en difffere encore par la forme des dents «fe par celle des oreilles ; car il a une espfece d'oreille exteme tres-petite ^ la v6rit6 . . . ." Tben follows a good description of a young Fur Seal 5 but in SPECIES. 195 or possibly a second {O.falMandtca), is positively referable to any j)articiilar species as now known. Three years later (in 1820) Desmarest again, in his "Mamma- logie" (Encyclopedie Methodiqne, vol. clxxxii, pp. 248-252), re- described the Otaries, reducing the number of species to eight by uniting his Otaria ])usilla to his Otaria peroni under the latter name, which now relates not only to the Fur Seals of the western coast of Australia, but also to those of the Cape of Good Hope. Lesson, eight years later, in his article on the Otaries (Dic- tionnaire classique d'Histoire Xaturelle, vol. xiii, 1828, pp. 419- 426), raised the number to fifteen. One is purely mythical ; five or six can be determined as equivalent to species now commonly recognized, but the greater part are not satisfactorily identifia- ble, His species are the following: 1. Otaria fabricii {='■'■ Flioca wmnaFabricius"; habitat, Greenland; wholly undeterminable; oertainly not an Eared Seal, and probably whoUy mythical) ; 2. Otaria stelleri{=Leomarinus, ^teller, =Uumetopias stelleri, which here receives its first distinctive name) ; 3. Otaria californiana (z=" jeune Lion marin de la Calif ornie," of Choris, and hence = ZalopJius gillespii of recent authors, which here received its first specific name*) ; 4. Otaria TcrascJienniniJcoivii (= Ursus marinuSy a long footnote to this description he gives quotations from Olaiis Magnus, Zorgdrager, Charlevoix, and from collections of voyages, which relate to the Seals of both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, none of which probably re- fer to any species of Eared Seal. On the following page he says: ''C'est par une convenance qui d'abord parolt assez l^gfere, & par quelques rapports fugitifs que nous avons jug6 que ce second phoque {yl. LIII) 6toit le jylioca des anciens ; on nous a assur^ que I'individu que nous avons vu. venoit des Indes, 4&. il est aumoinstr^s-probablequ'il venoit desmers du Levant; . . ." — Mist. Nat., xiii, 1765, pp. 340, 341. Though assumed to be a Mediterranean species, the origin of the specimen here described and figured as "Le Petit Phoque " is avowedly unknown, and a certainly ereoneous habitat is as- signed to it. This is the sole basis, however, for the Phoca pusilla of all the earlier systematists, and of some modern ones. As already stated, Desma- rest's Otaria pusilla is purely mythical; for while he describes an Eared Seal, he claims for it a Mediterranean habitat, and deems .it to be the species described by Aristotle, Pliny, and ^lian, and figured by Belon, and even goes so far as to say, "Buffon et Erxleben paroissent avoir confondu, avec ce i)hoque, de jeunes individus d'autres espfeces particulieres aux Terres Atis- trales, et particulierement a I'ours-marin de I'ile de Juan-Fernandez. Quant a lui, il semble propre a la Mediterran6e." The Fhocaimsilla of Erxleben and Gmelin is a heterogenous compound of Eared and Earless Seals from both hemispheres. * See further remarks, jjosiea, under Eumetopias stelleri and Zaloplius calif or- nianus. 196 F.UIILY 0TA1?IID.E. BtelleT=C(dh)r]uni(s ursinus); 5. Otarki perncityi { = Otariajiiba- ta) ; 0. Otaria forstcrt (embraces all the Fur Seals of the Southern Hemisphere); 7. Otaria moUissina (" Lesson et Garnot, Zoologie delaCoquille,pl. iii,p. 140"; habitat, " lies Malonines " ; thelong description contains nothing in itself distinctive of any species, but it has been determined, by Nilsson and Gray, from the skull and skin in the Paris Museum, to be a young Otaria jubata) ) 8. Otaria peroni {='■'■ Otaria peroni^ Desm., sp. 382"; embraces '■'■ Flioca imsiUa Linn.", "Petit Phoque, Buffon," "Otarie de La- lande, F. Cuvier," and "Loup marin, Pages"; habitat. Cape of Good Hope ; formerly referred by Gray to his Arctoceplialus delalandi, to which it is mainly referable); 9. Otaria coronata ("Desm., spec. 383; Flioca coronata, Blainv."; undetermiuable, and habitat unknown) ; 10. Otaria cinerea ("Peron et Lesueur," as above); 11. Otaria albicollis ("Peron et Lesueur," as above) ; 12. Otaria fiavescens (= ^^ Phoca Jlavescens, Shaw," as above; not determinable); 13. Otaria sliawi {= PJioca faUdandicus, ^haw, therefore = ArctocejjJialus falJdandictis, auct.) ; 14. Otaria hau- mllii ("G. Cuvier, Oss. Foss., t. v, p. 220"; = Arctocephalus falTc- landicus, auct.; habitat, "lies Malouines") ; 15. ^^ Otaria moli- oiaii" { = ^^F]wca porcina, Molina"; no tangible description, and wholly undeterminable). Fischer, in 1829-30,* appears to have recognized fifteen (only twelve have numerals prefixed) species of Eared Seals, which are the same as those described by Lesson in 1828, with the ex- cex)tion that Lesson's Otaria fabricii is not admitted, and Gray's Arctocephalus lobatus is added. Hamilton, in 1839,t recognized twelve species, as follows : 1. " Sea-Lion of Steller" (= Eumetopias stelleri) ; 2. " Sea-Lion of Forster" (= Otaria jubata) ; 3. " Sea-Lion of Pernetty" (= Ota- ria jubata, mainly); 4. " Pusilla, or Cape Otary" {^^ Otaria pusilla, Desm.," but really based on a skull from the Cape of Good Hope); 5. "Ursine Seal, or Sea Bear of Steller [=Cal- lorlmms ursinus); 6. "Ursine Seal, or Sea Bear of Forster" {= Arctocephalus falMandicus, auct.); 7. " Sea Bear, from speci- men in the British Museum" {=f Otaria jubata, according to Gray); 8. " Lesson's Otary, 0. moUissina, Lesson" {= Arctocepha- lus falMandicus) ', 9. and 10. "Ash-coloured and white-necked Otaries" (= Otaria cmerm and 0. albicollis, Feron) ; 12. "Com- mon Fur-Seal of Commerce" {= Arctocephalus falMandicus). * Synopsis Mammalium, pp. 230-234, 374 (i. e. 574). \ t Amphibious Camivora, etc. (Jardine's Nat. Library, Mam., yoI. viii). SPECIES. 197 He very judiciously refers to Otaria porcina, 0. coronata, 0. delalandi, and 0. hauvillii as species so slightly indicated " as still to remain doubtful." Z!^ilsson, in his celebrated paper on the Seals, published in 1837, * reduced the species to three, reuniting all the Sea Lions (except one) under the name Otaria jubata, and all the Sea Bears under the name Otaria ursina. His third species is the Otaria australis of Quoy and Gaimard, from Australia (= Arc- toceplialus lohatus, Gray, Spicel. Zool., i, 1828). Miiller, in his appendix to Mlsson's paper, t recognized five species, as repre- sented in the Berlin Museum, namely: 1. Otaria stelleri ; 2. Otaria ursina; 3. Otaria platyrhincJms {= 0. juhata, aiict.) ; 4. Otaria cMlensis (described as new from a skull received from Chili, but really = 0. juhata) ; 5. Otaria lamari ( = ArctocepJia- lus lohatus Gray, as above). He recognized as " eine sechste Art" the Otaria anstralis, Quoy and Gaimard, and Nilsson. The next general review of the group is contained in Gray's Catalogue of the Seals of the British Museum, j)ublished in 1850, in which eight species are formally recognized. These are : 1. Arctocejphalus ursimis ; 2. A. falldandicus ; 3. A. cine- reus (= ".^ Otaria ciiierea, Peron," as noticed above) ; 4. A. loha- tus; 5, A. australis ("Quoy and Gaimard" = A. lohatus, Gray) ; 6. A. lioolceri ; 7. Otaria stelleri ; 8. Otaria leonina. All but A. australis probably represent good species. In 1866, in his " Catalogue of Seals and Whales," he raised the number to twelve by adding, 1. Arctoceplialus monteriensis (first described by him in 1859 = Eumetopias stelleri, plus a skin referable to CallorMmis ursinus) ; 2. A. californianus,n. S]}. { = A. monterien- sis, Gray, 1859, in part, really = Uumetopias stelleri) -, 3. A. nigres- cens, first named in Zool. Erebus and Terror ; not mentioned in Cat. Seals of 1850, but revived in 1859, when it was really first published (= A. falldandicus); 4. A. delalandi (= Petit Phoque, Buffon, hence Phoca pusilla, Schreber, plus Otaria dela- landi, F. Cuvier, 1828,— the Fur Seal of the Cape of Good Hope); 5. A. ^^ Gilliespii^^ (= Otaria gillespi, M'Bain, 1858, = Otaria californiana, Lesson, 1828). Of these five, two {A. mon- teriensis and A. californianus) are strictly nominal, as is prob- ably a third {A. nigrescens) ; two valid species {A. '■'' delalandi^^ " K. Vet. Akad. Haudl. Stockliolm, 1837, pp. 235-245. Translated by Peters in Wiegniann's Archiv fiir Naturgescli., 1841, pp. 301-333, Avith notes and an appendix by J. Miiller. tWiegmann's Archiv, 1841, pp. 333, 334. 198 FAMILY OTARIID^. and A. '■^ (lUliesjyii ") are added to tliose recognized hj this author in 1850. The same year (186G), Peters* recognized fourteen species (three of them were treated as doubtful), as follows: 1. Otaria juhata; "'?2. Otaria leonina''^ { — 0. jubata); 3. Otaria godefroyi {a. sp, = 0. juhata); 4. '^ f Otaria hyronia^^ {=Phoca hyronia, Blain- Yi]le, = 0. juhata) ; 5. Otaria iMolieri ; 6. Otaria ulloaf {= 0. ulloce, vonTschudi, = 0. juhata, iem.); 7. Otaria jmsilla (=Petit Phoque, Butibn, Phocapusilla, Schreber, Otaria delalandi,F. Cn- vier, etc.); 8. Otaria emerea ( = "0. cinerea, Peron and Lesueur, Quoy and Gaimard"; '■'■ 0. stelleri, Schlegel," in part,etc.) ; ?9. Otaria falMandica (= Arctoceplialus faR-IandicUs, auct.) ; 10. Otaria nrsina { = Callor]iiniis ursinus); 11. Otaria stelleri [Eume- topias steUeri) ; 12. Otaria gillespi {=ZalopJms caUfornianus) ; 13. Otaria lobata {= Arctocephalus lohatus, Gray, 1828, Otaria aus- tralis, Quoy and Gaimard, 1830, 0. steUeri, " Schlegel," in part, = Zalophus lohatus) ; 14. Otaria 2^limpp'ii (n- sp. = Arcto- cephalus falMaiidicus, auct.). Six months later, on again review- ing the grouj),t the same writer reduced the number of species to ten. In this paper he referred the 0. hyronia, 0. leonina, and 0. godeffroyi of his former i)aper to 0. juhata, and his O.pliiUppii to 0. falklandica. 0. ulloce is still retained as a valid species, and '■'■ Otaria stelleri, Schlegel," is determined to be the 0. gillespi, M'Bain. ■ In 1868 1 Dr. Gray described as a new species ArctocepJialus nivosus {= A. antarcticus, s. pusillus) fi?om the Cape of Good Hope, and Professor Turner added,§ as a new species, Arcto- cephalus schisthyperoes (later corrected to scMstuiJcriis by Giin- ther), from Desolation Island, considered later by Gray,|| after an examination of the type, to be referable to his A. delalandi (therefore = A. antarcticus). M'Bain, the same year,^ described an imperfect skull of what he called "0. ullowf'^ {= Otaria juhata, fern.), adding that in case it proved to be a new species it might be called " 0. graii." In 1870 ** I was able to recognize only six species as weU estabhshed, but gave two more as probably valid, the latter *Monatsl). d. k. P. Akad. Wissenscli. zu Berlin, 1866, pp. 261-281. tibid., 1866, pp. 665-672. t Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4tli ser., vol. i, p. 219. § Joum. Anat. and Phys., vol. iii, pp. 113-117. II Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., vol. iv, p. 264. 11 Ibid., pp. 109-112. Bull. Mns. Comp. Zool., vol. ii, pp. 44, 45. ## SPECIES. • 199 { being Arctocepludus cinermis, Gray (Australia and New Zealand), ' and A. antarcticus. Gray (Cape of Good Hope). The others are : 1. Otaria jubata (under which was wrongly included 0. Jiool-eri, Gray) ; 2. Etimetopias stelleri;3. Zaloplms gillespi ; 4l. Zaloplius lohatus ; 5. CallorMnus ursimis ; 6. Arctoceplialus falldandmis. In 1871, PhiUppi and Peters* added Arctocej)lialus {Arcto- plwca) argentata, a Fur Seal from the island of Juan Fernandez { = Arctoce2)JialusanstraUs,fem.). The latter here divided the Fur Seals of South America into four species, two of which {A. falMandica and A. nigrescens) are from the Atlantic Ocean and two {A. argentata and A. pliili'pjyii) from the Pacific. The same year (1871) Grayt recognized thirteen species of Eared Seals, as follows : 1. Otaria jubata (embracing 0. leonina of Gray and Peters, and 0. godeffroyi, 0. Mronia, O.ullom of Peters). 2. CallorMnus ursinus. 3. PJiocarctos Jiool'erL 4:. Arcto- cejokalus antarcticus (Cape of Good Hope = Phoca antarcticay Thunberg, 1811, and Phoca [s. Otaria] pusUla and delaJandi, auct.). 6. Arctoceplialus nigrescens {=A. australis). 6. Arcto- cejjJialus cinereus. 7. Arctoceplialus forsteri ("IN'ew Zealand, "= '■'■Plioca ursina, Forster," = Otaria forsteri, Lesson, formerly re- ferred by him to his A. falldandicus !). 8. Arctocepliahis fallc- landicus. d. '-'■Arctoceplialus'? nivosus'^'' {=. A. antarcticus). 10. Zaloplius gillespi. 11. Neoplioca lohata. 12. JEmnetopias stelleri (embracing his Arctocepludus monteriensis and J., californianus). 13. Arctoplioca pliilippii ( = Arctoceplialus australis). A. forsteri is the only species added, while no less than six species, recognized by either himself or Peters in 1866, are reduced to synonyms. Gray, in 1872,| added Gypsoplioca tropicalis, based on a young- skull from Auckland Island, to which specimens from Xorth Australia are also referred. This Clark§ believes to be in part based on the young of Otaria hoolceri, and in part referable to Arctoceplialus cinereus. Scott, in 1873, in his account of the Otariida',\\ described (p. 19) what he regarded as two new species of Arctoceplialus ^ namely, ^'■Arctoceplialus Grayii^^ and '■''Arctoeeplialus euloplius.^^ The first is equivalent to Gray's A. fcdldandicus of his Cata- ■ Monatsb. d. k. P. AkacLWissensch. zu Berlin, 1871, pp. 558-566. t Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales. tProc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1872, pp. 659, 743. ^Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1873, p. 759. II Mammalia, Eecent and Extinct, an elementary treatise for the use of the public schools of New South Wales. By A. W. Scott, M. A. Sidney, 1873. Sec- tion B, Pinnata, Seals, Dugongs, Whales, &c. &c. &c. — Otariidse, pp. 7-25. 200 FA%IILY OTARIID^. logue of Seals aud Whales (186G, p. 55), and tlie "Supplement" to the same (1871, p. 25), which Mr. Scott gives as a synonym. After quotmg Gray's description of A. falJdandiciis, he says: " This IS clearly a species distinct from the common Southern Fur Seal. . . . The specific name Falklandicus having been appropriated almost by general consent for another ani- mal, I beg to substitute that of Grayii.^'' The Arctocephalus eidoplins is based on verbal information from Mr. Morris, an experienced sealer, who informed him " that during his sealing A'oyages he occasionally met with a fur-seal, which he and those connected with him in the trade readily recognized as a distinct kind — by the diminutive size of the adult animal ; by a topknot of hair on the crown of the head; and by the soft, beautiful under-fur, unlike in colour to, and much more valua- ble for articles of ladies' wear than that of any other fur-seal they were in the habit of captimng." ' " This seal," continues Mr. Scott, " appears to be rare, only a few specimens having been taken ; some were seen on the south-east coast of New Zealand, evidently stragglers driven far away from home. Mr. Morris has been told that they were formerly common on the shores of Patagonia and the Island of Juan Fernandez." With all due deference to the opinions of Mr. Morris and Mr. Scott, this information hardly forms a satisfactory basis for the erec- tion of a new species in this obscure group, where external characters, when well known, are of slight distinctive value. The Arctocephalus euloplms can only be assigned to the category of vaguely described and indeterminable species, of which the writings of Peron, Desmarest, and Lesson were so prolific half a century ago. Only six other species were recognized by Mr. Scott, namely: 1. Arctocephalus ur sinus {=. Callorhmus ur si- nus). 2. Arctocephalus falMandicus (embracing all the Southern Fur Seals, with the exception of his two " new species," already noticed). 3. ZalopMis gillespi. 4. Z.lohatus, 5. Otaria stelleri. 6. O.jubata (= 0. jubata and Phocarctos hooJctri Gray). In 1873, Dr. Graj^ described* a Eumctopias elongatus, based in part on a skull from Japan he had the previous yeart referred to U. stelleri, and in part on a young skull, also from Japan, which, doubtless, is the same as the Otaria stelleri of Temminck (Fauna JaiDonica). * Proc. Zool. Soc, 1873, p. 776. t Ibid., 1872, p. 738. SPECIES. 201 In 1874, tlie same autLior* added two more " new species" of 'Otaria, this time whoUy from old material, from unknown locali- ties, wLicli lie bad had before him in the British Museum for nearly twenty years, and which he had hitherto uniformly refen'ed to Otaria jiihata! Having, however, found that the lower jaws differed from those of the other specimens in being " straight, not bowed on the side, and elongate," and that " the scar of the temporal muscle is elongate, narrow in front," instead of being ^' broad, rounded in front." One of the species, based on the ■" skull of an adult male 11^ inches long, and C^ wide at the ■condyles," etc., he calls '■''Otaria minor ^ the Smaller Sea Lion." The other, based on <' the skuU of an adult (female) 9 J inches long, and 5^ broad, at the condyles," he calls " Otaria pygmcea, the Pigmy Sea Lion." The last-mentioned skull is " partly broken behind, and wants all the grinders and the greater part of the cutting teeth." They are unquestionablj" referable to the re- stricted genus Otaria, and there is nothing in the descriptions indicating that Dr. Gray's reference of them for twenty years to 0. juhata was erroneous. The skull of Otaria minor is later figured in the "Hand-List of Seals" (pi. xvi), and is evidently that of a young male Otaria jubata. In this year (1874) also appeared the lastt of Gray's long- series of publications relating to the Eared Seals, in which we have his latest views respecting the species of this group. In this work two other " new species " are added, making in all ■eighteen species of Otariidw now recognized by Dr. Gray! These are: 1. Otaria juhata. 2. Otaria minor {see ahoy e, lust paragraph). 3. Otaria ullocc {= 0. ul low, Yon Tschudi and Peters, and 0. pygmcca, Gray, both formerly, and, I believe, cor- rectly, referred by him to 0. juhata). 4. GypsopJioca tropicalis { = Arctocephalus cinereus). 5. Phocarctos hooJceri. 0. Phocarc- tofi clongatus {=Eumetopias stelleri, in part, and Otaria stelleri, Temminck, in part). 7. Callorhinus ursimis. 8. Arctocephalus •antarcticus. 9. Euotaria cinerea (includes Arctocephalus forsteri of Gray's Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales [see above, p. 199]). 10. Euotaria nigrescens { = Arctocephalus australis). 11. Euota- ria latirostris (n. sp., based on a skull supposed to have come from the Falkland Islands, formerly referred to his A. nigres- cens. He now says, " The skull may belong to the Arctocepha- lus falUandicus, of which [/. c, his A. falMandicus] the skull is *Ann. anclMag. Nat. Hist., 4{li ser., vol. xiii, p. 324. t Hand-List of Seals^ etc. 202 FAMILY OTARIIDiE. not known, or it may he a distinct species'^''). 12. Euotaria com- pressus (n. sp. 5 liab. " Sontli Africa'? 'Warioicli''''; formerly re- ferred by liim to Arctocephalus hoolceri as "9 .skull, South Sea, Mr. Warwick's collection"*). 13. Euotaria schistliyperoes {=. Arctoccplialus scMsthyperoes, Turner, formerly referred, with- out reservation, by Gray himself to his Arctoceplialus antarcticus). 14. Eumetopias stelleri. 15. Zalophus (jiUesjn. 10. Keoplioca. Johata. Two other species are also given, as follows : 17. '■'■ Arcto- ceplialus f nivosus^^ { = A. antarcticus); 18. '■'■ Arctoceplialus f falJ^- landicus " {=A. australis). These are Fur Seals, referred doubt- fully to Arctocepliahis from lack of knowledge of the skidls. The first, he says, "may be the skin of Euotaria compressa or scliisthyporoes "; to the latter he refers the '■^Arctoceplialus grayiV and '■'■ euloplius''^ of Scott (see above, p. 200), the latter, however, doubtfully. In 1875 Dr. Peters described t still another species, based on two specimens, an old male and a young female, brought home by the German Transit-of-Yenus Expedition (supposed by him to have both come from Kerguelen Island), to which he gave the name Arctoplioca gazella. Externally A. gazella appears to differ little from the other Southern Sea Bears, the distinctive characters resting in the form of the hinder border of the bony palate, which has a triangular projection at the middle, in the very small size of the tympanic bones, and in other details of the skull-structure.| Later he found that only one of the speci- mens on which A. gazella was based came from Kerguelen Island, the other having been brought either from "der Insel St. Paul Oder Amsterdam." In 1876, § therefore, in referriug again to these specimens, after the discovery of the error in locality respecting one of the specimens, he renauied the Saint Paul or Amsterdam Island skin Otaria {Arctoplioca) elegans. In 1877, Dr. Peters again reviewed || the whole group of Eared Seal, of which he at this time recognized three genera and thirteen species. He refers to having had access to much new material, and it is greatly to be regretted that he has not *Cat. Seals, Brit. Mus., 1850, p. 16; Cat. Seals and AVliales, 1866, p. 54. tMouatsb. d. k. P. Akad. Wisseusch. zii Berlin, 1875, pp. 393-399. t In this paper he refers incidentally to the South American Fur Seals, stating that in consequence of the reception of more material since the Ijublication of his last paper respecting them, he is led to unite the Arcto- cepliahis argeniata with A. pltilippu. and ihe A. nigrescens with A. falJclandica (1. c, p. 395). vUbid., 1876, pp. 315, 316. illbid., 1877, pp. 505-507. SPECIES. 203 stated of what it consisted, and especially what types it em- braced, and that he has not presented the results of his investi- gations in detail, with more explicit expression of his later views respecting the numerous synonyms of the group, very few of the many nominal species being here definitely allocated. He having here made radical changes of nomenclature, not only from that of his former iDapers of 1866, but from that of all previous authors, without giving his reasons for such a pro- cedure, such information would have in this connection espe- cial value. Of the restricted genus Otaria he recognizes only the single species 0. jubata. He gives its habitat as extending^ from the Eio de la Plata and Callao and- the Chincha Islands southward. He refers 0. leonina, F. Cuvier, and 0. ulloce, von Tschudi, to this species as ''local races," and leaves, it to be^ inferred that his 0. godeffroyi and Gray's 0. minor and 0. pyg- mcea are regarded by him as purely synonyms. Gray's Phoc- arctos elongatus, he says, belongs, without doubt, to Enmetopias gillespi, and gives Japan as falling within its range. Gray's Zalophus lohatus he refers to Otaria cinerea, Peron, to which lie also assigns 0. albicollis of the same author and 0. australis of Quoy and Gaimard. He adopts Peron's apparently wholly indetei^inable name cinerea* for this species, A^dthout giving his reasons or stating whether he has obtained new light on this intricate matter since 1866, when he referred it to a group having thick under-fur, and associated with it the Otaria cinerea of Quoy and Gaimard, and the Otaria forsteri of Lesson, both of which he now treats as distinct species belonging to another genus. ]S"o reference being made to Tiu-ner's ArctocepMlus schisthyjjeroes, nor to Gray's A. nivosus and Euotaria com- 2Jressa, nor to the 0. perom., 0. JiauvilU, etc., of the French writers, it is to be inferred that they are regarded as syno- nyms, but of what species we are left in doubt. He adopts Arctocephalus pusillus (from Schreber) as the name of the South African Fur Seal, on the supposition that Buffon's "Petit * It has been supposed by Gray and others that P6ron took with him to France no specimens of his Otaria cinerea, but G. Cuvier (Oss. Foss., v, 3d ed., p. 221) refers to a specimen of Otary "vient de Peron (c'est la seule qu'il ait rapport^e), elle n'a que deux pieds neuf pouces de long, et est un pen plus blanchutre que celle du Caj)." He adds in a footnote, "C'est pro- bablement celle dont il parle sous le nom d'otorje cendr^e de I'ileDecr^s; Voy. aux Terres Australes, t. ii, i>. 54." The Otary of the Cape here referred to is the one brought by M. Delalande, which is the Fur Seal of the Cap© of Good Hope. 204 FAMILY OTARIID^. Phoquej" on which the name pusilla rests,* must have come from the Cape of Good Hope.t The Fur Seals of South America are recognized as belonging to two species, those of the east coast, the Falkland Islands, the southern extremity of the continent, and the west coast northward to Chili being re- ferred to Arctocejjhalus falklandicus, while those from Juan Fer- nandez and Masafuera Islands are assigned to A jjhilippi. We are therefore left to suppose that his and Gray's A. nigrescens^ his A. argentata^X Gray's Euotaria latirostris, and Scott's A. grayi and A. eulophits, are regarded by him as synonyms of these species. The Fur Seal of Australia he calls Arctocephalus brevipes, citing " Otaria cinerea Quoy et Gaimard, Yoy. Astro- labe, Zoolog. i, p. 89 (non Peron)." He also recognized A. ele- gans from Saint Paul and Amsterdam Islands (to which he doubtfaUy referred A. tropicalis, Gray); A. gazella, from Ker- guelen Island; and the A.forsteri, Lesson, from New Zealand and the Antarctic Seas to the southward of Kew Zealand. Four of his species, namely, Arctocephalus elegans, A.forsteri, A. ga- zella, and A. philipjni, appear to me to be invalid, while under his Eumetopias gillespi, I beheve he has confounded two quite distinct species, namely, Zalophus giUespi and Z. lohatus. Pe- t-ers's thirteen species are the following : * 8. Arctoceplialus brevipes, Peters. 9. Arctocephalus elegans, Peters. 10. Arctocephalus forsteri, Lesson. 11. Arctocephalus gazella, Peters. 12. Arctocephalus philippl, Peters. 13. Arctocephalus ursinus (Linn^). 1. Otaria jiibata.(Forster). 2. Eumetopias stelleri (Lesson). 3. Eumetopias gillespi (M'Bain). 4. Eumetopias cinerea (P^ron). 5. Eumetopias hooker! (Gray). 6. Arctocephalus j)usillus (Schreber). 7. Arctocephalus falklandicus, Shaw. Five are Hair Seals and eight are Fur Seals. Three onlj- are given as found in the northern seas, while ten are recognized as occurring in the southern. From the foregoing it will be seen how widely opinions have differed respecting the number of species and their generic affinities among recent writers on this group, and how unstable have been the "views of the two leading authorities in this field * See antea, p. 194, second footnote. tG. Cuvier supposed it to have come from the Caj)e, because Pages (see Butfon's Hist. Nat., SuiipL, vi, 357) had reported the young Otaries of the Cape a,s of a black color (Oss. Foss. , 3d ed. , v, 220) ; but it is now well knowTi that all Fur Seals are black when young. On the other hand, Daul)entou insisted that Buffon's "Petit Phorxue" (see Desmarest, Mam., p. 251) came from'TInde." X Antea, j). 202, footnote. SPECIES. 205 during the last ten or twelve years. Peters and Gray have both, repeatedly during this time radically modified their views re- specting both the number of genera and species; greatly, in the case of Gray at least, out of proportion to the new material they have examined. This fluctuation of opinion shows, in a most emi)hatic manner, how imperfect our knowledge still is respect- ing the Otaries of the Southern Hemisphere. Those of the Northern are much better known, the only doubts still existing having relation to those of Japan. Eespecting all the others, there has been for the last eight years an almost perfect una- nimity of opinion, so far as the question of species is concerned. In 1870 I could find no satisfactory basis for the discrimina- tion of more than a single species of Fur Seal in the Southern Hemisphere, and to my mind the case is now scarcely better, since I have as yet had opportunity of examining only speci- mens from South American localities, with the exception of a. skin and skull of a very young individual from Australia. I now add one species of Hair Seal to the number I then recog- nized. These, which will be discussed more fully later, are the following : Sair Seals or Sea-Lions. 1. OtarLa jubata. 2. Eumetopias stelleri. 3. Zalophus californiatius. 4. Zalophus lobatus. 5. Phocarctos hookeri. Although taken severely to task by Gray and others for my " conservatism," especially respecting Otaria liooTieri, auct. (the justness of which in this instance I now concede), but also as regards the Southern Fur Seals, I must still confess my inability to satisfactorily distinguish them by the published figures and descriptions. I find only such differences indicated as a large series of specimens, embracing both skulls and skins, of two allied species (namely, Callorhi n us ur sinus aiidArctocephalusfalJc- landicKS, auct., australis, Zimm.) show to have no imx:)ortance as specific characters. Indeed, I find Gray himself, in his latest ref- erence to two of these species, writing as follows : '' The New- Zealand skull [^^ JEuotaria cinerea^^] is very like the skull of the Southern Fur-Seal {ArctocepJialus nigrescens) from the Falkland Islands and the south-west coast of Patagonia. It differs in the X^osition and form of the grinders, and in the form of the i)alate, and its contracted sides and truncated hinder part ; it differs considerably from it in the outline and prominence of the tem- Fnr Seals or Sea-Beors. 6. Callorhinus ursinus. 7. Arctocephalus falklandicus. ?8, Arctoceplialus antarcticus. ?9. Arctoceplialus forsteri. 206 FAMILY OTARIID^. poral bullae and the os petrosuin. The upper surfaces are very much alike, and the orbits are very large and of the same size. The lower jaws are very similar; but the callosity of the Falk- land Island specimen is rather longer, and the crown of the teeth is longer and rather more slender — the crown of the ]S"ew-Zea- la.nd specimen being as long as broad, that of the Falkland Island specimen being one-third longer than broad."* I cite the differences here noted by Gray to show how trivial are the grounds of separation. A skull of each of the supposed species only is here compared. The differences are just such as occur between undoubted specimens of CaJlorlmius nrsinus, no two of which, even of the same age and sex, can be compared without observing differences, while there is no difficulty in selecting specimens that are very unlike in characters that have been taken, in discussing other species of this group, as having great significance. Again Dr. Gray, in comparing his Gypsopkoca tropicalis from ISTorth Australia with Peters's Arctoplioca argen- tata and A. pliUippiiivovn Juan Fernandez and Masafiiera, says: '^ These three skulls have nearly the same teeth, and appear to me to belong to one group 5 but whether they are three distinct species (two from the west coast of South America and one from North Australia) I will not attempt to determine, as I have only seen the skins and skulls of the one from the latter region ; but they are all Fur-Seals and may be distinct."t Dr. Gray says his genus Gypsoplwca " is most like Arctoplioca in the position of the teeth; hut the palate is miicli narrotcer, the face shorter, and tlie hinder part of the slmll much larger and more ventricose''^ ;X but, as Clark has shown,§ and as is evident from Gray's figures, Gyp- sophoca was based on a young skull, and young skulls of Otaries differ from adult ones of the same s]3ecies in just these characters. It may here be noted that in several instances the so-called " spe- cies" of Fur Seals differ from others recognized by the same authors only through differences that can be demonstrated to be, in other well-known allied species, simply sexual. Hence, until writers on this group have learned to discriminate the sexes, and to make due allowance for the great changes in' contour and details of structure that result from age in the skulls of Otaries, we can hardly hope to have the subject of species placed on a proper basis. * Hand-List, p. 36. + Hand-List, p. 28; iirst printed in Proc. Z06I. Soc. Lond., 1872, p. 661. t Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1872, p. 659. ^Ibid., 1873, p. 759. SPECIES. 207 The distiibiition of the Fur Seals in the Southern Seas pre- sents no obstacle to the supposition of their conspecific rela- tionship. They occur not only on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the South American continent, about its southern ex- tremity, and on all the outlying islands, including not only the Falklands, the South Shetland, and South Georgian, but at other small islands more to the eastward, at Prince Edward's, the Crozets, Kerguelen, Saint Paul, and Amsterdam, the south- ern and western shores of Australia, Tasmania, IS'ew Zealand, and at the numerous smaller islands south of the two last named. They have been found, in fact, at all the islands mak- ing up the chain of pelagic islets stretching somewhat inter- ruptedly from Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands eastward to Australia and l:^ew Zealand, including among others those south of the Cape of Good Hope, so famous in the annals of the seal-fishery. It has been stated by Gray and others that the Cape of Good Hope Fur Seals (really those of the Crozets and neighboring islands) are far inferior in commercial value to those of other regions ; but in tracing the history of the sealing business I have failed to notice any reference to the inferior quality of those from the last-named locality, or that there has been any difference in the commercial value of the Fur Seal skins obtained at different localities in the Southern Seas. The quality differs at the same locality, wherever the Fur Seals are found, with the season of the year and age of the animals, so that skins may come not only from the Cape of Good Hope, but from any other of the seahng-places, that one " might feel convinced could not be dressed as furs," being "without very thick under fur." In this connection I may add that Gray's figure (Hand-List of Seals, pi. xxiii) of an old male skull of Arctocephalus antarc- ticus so closely resembles an aged male skull (Ko. 1125, M. C. Z. Coll.) of Arctocephalus australis {= falTclandicus, auct.), that the latter might have served as the original of the figures ! while other skulls of the last-named species bear a striking resem- blance to Gray's figures of his Euotaria cinerea (Hand- List, pi. xxvi) and his U. latirostris (ib., pi. xxvii). In fact, the series of skulls of Arctocephalus australis in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, from the Straits of Magellan and the west coast of South America, presents variations that seem to cover all of Gray's species of Arctocepliahis and Evotaria as figured by him in the Hand-List of Seals. 208 FAMILY OTARIID^. Synopsis of fhc Genera and Species. fj 6 12 5 5 A. Pelage harsh, withoutimder-fur. Ears short. Molars^ — ? = :r;i'Or'^ — - = o J 5 — 5 10 5 — o i^. Species generally of large size. Color yellowish-brown ; red- dish-Lro-wn when young Trichophocac^. I. Genus Otaria, GiJl ex Per on. Otaria, Perox, Voy. aux Terr. Austr., ii, 1816, 37, footnote (in part). [Plaiyrhinchtts'i Flatyrhinque, F. Cuvier, M^m. du Mns., xi, 1824, 208, pi. iv, fig. 2. PlatyrUncus, F. Cuvier, Diet, des So. Nat., xxxix, 1827, 555. — Lesson, Man. de Mam., 1827, 203 (in part). Otaria, Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 7. Char. Gex. — Palatine bones extending nearly to the pterygoid processes, deeply concave, truncate behind. Molars g^^ = j^. . 1. Otaria jubata ("Forster") Blainville. Phoca juiata, "Forster, 1775"; Schreber, Erxleben, Gmelin, and other early writers. Phoca juiata, Forster, Descrip. Anim. adLicht., 1844, 317 (" Terra Statuum ; Insula Novi-anni"). Otaria juiata, Desmarest, Mam., 1820, 248 (in part), and of most recent writers. ? Phoca flavcscens, Shaw, Gen. Zool., i, 1800, 260 (young). Otaria leonina, P:i6ron, Voy. aux Terr. Austr., ii, 1816, 40. Also of Desmarest, Gray, Peters, and some others. Platyrhincus Jconimts, F. Cuvier, Lesson. Phoca hyroni, Blainville, Journ. de Phys., xci, 1820, 287. — Desmarest, Mam., 1820, 240 {fideGvay, Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 13). Otaria moUossina, Lesson et Garnot, Voy. Coq., Zool., i, 1826, 140, pi. iii ("lies Malouines"). Platyrhyncus mollossinus et uranium, Lesson, Man. de Mam., 1827, 204. Otaria pernettyi, Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 420. Otaria pJatyrhinclius et chiJcnsis, MtJLLER, Wiegmann's Archiv fUrNaturgesch.,. 1841, 333. Otaria leonina, godeffroyi, hyronia, et nlloce, Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1866, 264, 266, 269, 270, 670, 671. Otaria ulloce, VON Tschudi, Fauna Peruana, 1842-44, 135, 136, pi. vi. Arctocephalus fallcJandicus, Burmeister, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d ser.,, xviii, 1866, j)l. ix, figs. 1-4 (at least in part). Otaria nmior, et pygmaa, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d ser., viii, 326. Otaria hookeri, Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1866, 80. Habitat. — Galapagos Islands (Coll. Mus. Comp. Zool., from Hassler Expedition), and coasts of South America from Peru and Chili on the Pacific side, and Rio de la Plata on the Atlantic side southward. SPECIES. 209 II. Genus PhocarctoSj Peters. Arctocepaalus, m part, of GRAY, prior to 1866. Phocarctos (subgenus), Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1866, 269. Char. Gex. — Palatine bones ending considerably in front of the pterygoid processes, deeply concave in front, narrowed and emarginate behind. Mo- -, 6 — G 12 • lars F — = = ,-7,. 5 — o 10 2. Phocarctos hookeri (Gray) Peters. Arctocephahis hookeri, Gray, "Zool. Voy. Erebus and Terror, pll. xiv, xv"; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 53, fig. 15. Phocarctos hooleri, Gray, Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 15; Hand- List Seals, 1874, 29, pi. xx. Otaria jiiMta, Allen, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., ii, 1870, 45 (in part). Otaria hookeri, Clark, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1873, 754, figs. Habitat. — Auckland Islands. (Originally described from specimens smjj- jjosed to have come from the ' ' Falkland Islands and Cape Horn." See Clark, as above cited, and Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., vol. xiv, 1874, pp. 26-30.) III. Geims ElTMETOPiAS, Gill. Otaria, in part, of earlier authors. Eumetopias, Gill, Proc. Essex In8t.,v, 1866, 7, 11. Char. Gen. — Palatine bones ending very far in front of pterygoid pro- cesses, flat, or nearly so ; hinder border hollowed or emarginate. Molars g^ = —; fifth i)air sej)arated by a considerable space from the fourth pair. 3. Eumetopias stelleri Peters.* Habitat. — Pacific coast of North America from California to Alaska; Pacific coast of Asia from Japan northward. IV. Genus Zalophus, Gill. Arctocephalus, in part, of Gray, prior to 1866. Zalophus, Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 7, 11. Neophoca, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d ser., xviii, 1866, 231; Suppl. Cat. Seals and W^hales, 1871, 28. Eumetopias, Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1877, 506 (in part). Char. Gen. — Palatine much as in Eumetopias. Sagittal crest very high. Interorbital region greatly constricted. Molars V^^ = r-, in a continuous series. 4. Zalophus californianus (Lesson) Allen.t Habitat. — Coast of California. 5. Zalophus lobatus (Gray) Gill. f? Otaria alUcolUs, Peron, Voy. Terr. Austr., ii, 1816, 118, Otaria cinerea, Gray, King's Narr. Austral., ii, 413. Arctocej)halus lohatus-, Gray, "Spic. Zoolog., i, 1828, pi. — "; Cat. Seals, 1850, 44 ; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 50. * For synonymy, see infra, under the general history of Eumetopias stelleri. t For synonymy, see infra, under the general history of the species. Misc. Pub. No. 12 14 210 FAMILY OTARIID^. Neoplioca lobata, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3(1 ser., xviii, 1866, 231; Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 28 ; Hand-List Seals, 1874, 43, pi. XXX. Otaria australis, QuOY & Gaimard, Zool. Voy. Astrolabe, i, 1830, 95 ; 1833, pi. xiv (animal), xv, figg. 3,4 (skull), "Nouvelle HoUande." Arctocephalus australis, Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 57 (not Fhoca australis of Zimmermanu and Kerr). Otaria stelleri, Temmixck, Faura Japon. (at least in part). Phocarctos elongatus, Gray, Hand-List of Seals, 1874, 30, pU. xxi, xxti. Eumetopias diierea, Peters (ex P6ron), Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1877, 506. Habitat. — Australian Seas. Japan ? ? B.— Pelage soft, with abundant under-fur. Ears longer. Molars 5375=^5- Size smaller. Color gray ; black when young Ouliphocac^. V. Gen«s Callorhinus, Gray. CallorMnus, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1859, 357. Arctoceplialus, Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 7, 11 (not of F. Cuvier). 6—6 12 0«AR. Gen. — Facial jjortion of the skull short, convex. Molars ^3^ = Jq- *^ 6. Callorhinus ursiuus Gray. * Habitat. — Shores of the North Pacific, ftom California and Japan {Peters) northward. VI. Genus Arctocephalus, F. Cuvier. \_Arctocephalus'\ Arctocepliales, F. Cuvier, M6m. du Mus., xi, 1824, 205, pi. iv, fig. 1. ArctocephaJus, F. Cuvier, Diet, des Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1827, 554. Halarctus, Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 7, 11. Arctophoca, Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1866, 276. — Gray, Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 31. Euotaria, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., iv, 1869, 269; Hand- List Seals, 1874, 34. Gypsoplioca, GRay, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., iv, 1869,269; Hand- List Seals, 1874, 27. Char. Gen. — Facial portion of skull slender, elongated, pointed, gently declined. Molars 5:^5 — — , much larger than in CallorMnus. 5 — 5 ~ 10' ^ 7. Arctocephalus australis (Zimmermann) Allen. Phoca ursina, in part, of various early writers. Phoca australis, Zimiviermann, Geograph. Geschichte, iii, 1782, 276 (= "Falk- land Seal, Pennant, ii, 521"). — Kerr, Anim. King., 1792, 127 (= "Falkland Seal, Penn., Hist. Quad. N., 378"). Phoca falklandica, Shaw, Gen. Zool., i, 1800, 256 (= "Falkland Isle Seal" of Pennant — the Fur Seal of the Falkland Islands). Otaria falklandica, Desmarest, Diet. d'Hist. Nat., xxv, 1817, 601, and of many subsequent writers. Otaria s. Arctocephahis falklandicus. Gray, Peters, and others. ' For synonymy see infra, under the general Mstory of the species. SPECIES. 211 €taria shawi et hauvillei, Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 425. Arctocephahis nigresccns, Geay, Peti<:rs. Otaria {Arctoplioca) iMUppii, Peters, Mouatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1866, 276, pi. ii. Otaria {Arctoplioca) argentata, Philippi & Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1871, 560, pll. i, ii. Arctocepluilus (jrayl, Scott, Main. Recent and Extinct, 1873, 19. Euotaria latirostris, Gray, Hand-List Seals, 1874, 37, pi. xxvii. Habitat. — Galapagos Islands (specimens in Mus. Comp. Zool., Hassler Exp.*) and shores and islands of Sontli America, from Cliili and the Rio de la Plata southward. * Specimens of both Otaria juiata and Arctocephalus auslralis were col- lected by members of the Hassler Expedition at the Galapagos Islands, show- ing that they both range much farther northward than has hitherto been gen- erally supposed. For the following observations respecting their numbers and habits I am indebted to my friend Mr. J. H. Blake, artist of the Expe- dition, who has kindly transcribed them from his note-book : ■ ^'Charles Island, Galapagos Group, June 10, [1872]. — On an island at the eastern side of Post-Office Bay is a Sea Lion rookery, where at almost any time can be seen hundreds of Sea Lions lying at a little distance from the water. Two of our company, in a little boat about ten feet long called the ^ Dingy ', went near the shore where they were, when the Seals immediately ran into the water and surrounded the boat. The Seals came close to and xmder the boat, so that there was danger of their capsizing it, some of them being as large as the boat, and some were even larger; hence it was deemed prudent to leave them. Toward evening the Captain, with others, took a larger boat and landed on the shore below the Seals, and while they were running toward the water one measuring six or seven feet in length was shot. Many of them were of enormous size, and great numbers could easily have been killed. They made a noise when rushing to the water louder than the waves on the shore. We saved one skeleton, and next day two half-grown Seals were brought on shipboard and also saved. ^^Jarvis Island, June 16, 1872. — At this island we saw many Seals, and some were killed, one small one being preserved in alcohol. I went on shore in the second boat, and as our boat landed we were surrounded with Seals of different sizes, which came near the boat. Near where we landed was a mother Seal and her two young ones lying together in a shallow excavation they had made in the sand. They lay very quietly and appeared to be not much disturbed by our presence as we gathered about them, except when we offered to touch the young The mother was about six feet long, and of a light grayish color, with the head small and shaped like that of a dog. The young resembled their mother but had shorter noses and were about three or four feet long. ''In walking along the beach I came to another small rookery where there were family groups similar to that above described, lying about in all kinds of positions, and so comfortably situated I did not disturb them. One Seal, about six or seven feet long, which I met with at some distance from the water, I drove some distance to study its movements in walking and running. It would nearly raise itself from the ground and walk like 212 FAMILY OTARIID^. 8. Arctoceplialus antarcticus (Thimbcrg) Allen. Phoca ursina, Fokster, and in part of many early "writers. ? Phoca jnisilJa, Sciireber, ,Siiuget., iii. [177(5?], 314 (=Le Petit Phoque, Buffon, based on a young Fur Seal, from an unknown locality, but sujiposed to have come from India or the Levant,* but as no Seals exist there, and as many animals which, in former years,, purported to have been brought from India were found to be really African, some late writers have assumed that Buffon's "Petit Phoque" must have been also African, but the pertinence of the name intsiUa to the African Fur Seal is not beyond reason- able doubt). t Also of Erxlebex, Gmelin, and others. f OtariapusiUa, Desmarest, Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., xxv, 1827, 602 (based on the same). Otaria pusilla, Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1866, 271, 671 (name adopted from Schreber). ArctocejpJialus pumllus, Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1877, 506. f " Phoca 2>an-a, Boddaert, Elenchus Anim., pi. Ixsvii" (= Buifon's Petit Phoque, as above). Phoca antarcflca, Thunberg, M(5m. Acad. St.-Petersb., iii, 1811,222. Arctocephalus antarcticus, Allen, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., ii, 1870, 45. — Gray, Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 17. f Otaria peroni, Desmarest, Mam., 1820, 250 (:^ Otaria pusilla, Desmarest,. as above). Otaria peroni, '' Smith, South African Quart. Journ. ii, 62." any four-footed animal by bending the fore-fliiipers and turning the hind- flippers forward as here represented [in some sketches accompanying these notes, but not here reproduced]. They galloped along the sandy shore at quite good speed. In going over the rocks they tumbled about in every way but would still manage to get along with surjjrising rapidity. I saw many lying on the shore asleep, and there were hundreds more in the water near the shore. On approaching Avithin a few feet of them they would come towards me as if they had been tamed. From a projecting rock I watched their movements in the water — a beautiful sight. They would roll over under water, turning complete somersaults, swim on their backs or sides, and in almost every position would glide about in the most graceful manner around the rock on which I was sitting, looking \\\> at me. They often put their noses together in the most affectionate way When annoyed by flies alighting on their noses they would open their mouths widely and snaj) at them as dogs do. "Just back of the beach, and separated from the ocean by a row of man- grove trees, was a lagoon of brackish water in which were a number of Seals, while lying about on the border of the lagoon were many skeletons of those that had died." *Buifonsays: " . . . . on nous a assure que I'individu que nous avous vu venoit des Indes, & il est an moins tr^s-probable qu'il venoit des mers du Levant." — Rist. Nat., tome xiii, p. 341. t Gray says: "It is as likely to have come from the Falkland Islands as from the Cape, as the French had traffic with Les lies Malouines, as they call ihem:'— Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, p. 19. SPECIES. 213 Otaricde Delalamlc, F. Cuvier, Diet. Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 558.* Arctocephalus delalamU, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. Loncl., 1859, 107, 369, pLlxix; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 52; Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d ser., xviii, 1866, 235. Arctocephalus fallJandlcm (in part). Gray, Cat. Seals, 1850, 42. Arcioceplialus scliisthijpcrocs^ Turner, Jonrn. Anat. and Phys., iii, 1868, 113, fig. Arctocephahib uivosiis, Gray, Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 27. f Euotaria compressa, Gray, Hand-List, 1874, 38, pi. xxiT(" South Africa?"). Habitat. — Cape of Good Hope. ?9. Arctocephalus forsteri (Lesson) Gray. Phoca itrsina, Forster, Descrip. Anim. (ad Lichtenstein), 1844, 64 (New- Zealand) = Sea Bear, Forster, Cook's Second Voyage, 1777, ^Ours Marin, Biiffon, Hist. Nat., Suppl., vi, 1782, 336, pi. xlvii, so far as it relates to Forster's figure and notes). Otaria forstei-i, Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 421 (^Sea Bear of Forster, which became, later, Phoca nrsina, Forster, exclusive of references to Steller's Ursus marinus). Arctocephalus forsteri, Gray, Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 25. ■Otaria cinerea, QuoY & Gaimard, Zool. Voy. Astrolabe, i, 1830, 89; Atlas, 1833, Jill, xii (animal), xiii (animal), xv, figg. 1,2, skull (" Nouvelle Hollande"; probably not Otaria cinerea, P6rou, Voy. Terr. Austr., ii, 1866, 54, 77, "which, however, is indeterminable). — Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1866, 272, 671 (exclusive of some syno- nyms). Arctocephalus cinereus. Gray, Cat. Seals, 1850,43; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 56; Suppl, Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 24, etc. Euotaria cinerea, Gray, Hand-List Seals, 1874, 34, pi. xxvi. f Otaria lamarii, Mxjller, Wiegmann's Arch. f. Naturges., 1841, 334 (in part at least,— /(7e Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1866, 271, 272). Gjipsophoca tropicalis, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1872, 659, figg. 5, 6; Hand-List Seals, 1874, 28, pi. vviii. ? Arctophoca gazella, Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1875, 396 (Kerguelen Island). i Otaria {Arctophoca) elcyans, Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1876, 316 (St. Paul and Amsterdam Islands). Arctocephalus hrevipes, forsteri, ? elegans, et ? gazella, Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 1877, 507. Habitat. — Australia, New Zealand, Auckland Island; ? Kerguelen Island; ? Saint Paul and Amsterdam Islands. *" Otaria delalandii, F. CuviER, Diet. Sci. Nat., xxxix, 423," cited by Fischer (Syn. Mam., 232), and repeatedlj- by Gray and by Peters, is evidently erroneous, as the article "Phoque" begins on j». 540, and no species of Seal or Otary is mentioned on p. 423. The correct citation is not " Otaria dela- landii," but " Otarie de Delalande," as given above. G. Cuvier refers (Oss. Fos., 3ded., v, 1825, 220, pi. xviii, fig. 5, skull) to it as ''Otarie du Cap" "regu par M. Delalande." 214 FAMILY OTARIID^. MYTHICAL AND TJNDETEEMINABLE SPECIES. In tlie preceding pages reference lias been made to various species described too imperfectly to admit of recognition. Some of tliese I liave doubtfully allocated as above ; others I bave made no attempt to determine. Among these are the folloT\ing : 1. Flioca irusiUa, Scheeber, Siiuget., iii, [1776?], 314, based, as already stated (see above, p. 194), on Buffon's " Petit Phoque," a young Fur Seal from an unknown locality. Buffon speaks of it as reported to have been brought from the Indies and the Levant (Hist. Nat., xiii, 1765, 341), and later (ib.,345) calls it '^e petit phoque noir des Indes i& du Levant." 2. Flioca longicotlis, Shaw, General Zool., i, 1800, 256, based on the Long-necked Seal of Grew (Museum, 1686, 95) and Parsons (Phil. Trans., xlvii, 1751-52, pi. vi). Though said by Shaw to be "earless," Gray* contributes the following his- tory: "There formerly existed in the Museum of the Eoyal Society an Eared Seal without any habitat ; it is called the Long-necked Seal in Grew's 'Rarities', p. 95, described and figured under that name by Parsons in the Phil. Trans, xlvii, t. 6, and noticed in Pennant's ' Quadrupeds ', ii, p. 274. Dr. Shaw,, in his ' Zoology', i, p. 256, translated the name into Phoca lon- gicollis, and copied Parsons's figures. The name and the form of the front feet are enough to show that it is an Eared Seal ; for the neck of these animals is always long compared with the neck of the Earless Seals or PhocUkv. Fischer, in his ' Synopsis ', p. 240, overlooking this character and the description of the front feet, considers it as the same as the Sea-Leopard of Wed- dell {Phoca Weddellii) from the Antarctic Ocean, an Earless Seal. Though the habitat is not given, there can be no doubt, when we consider the geographical distribution of the Eared Seal, that it must have been received either from the southern part of South America or from the Cape of Good Hope, as the animals of the North Pacific and of Australia were not known or brought to England in 1686. As no account of the color of the fur is given, it is impossible to determine to which species inhabiting these countries it should be referred. It is most probably the Sea Lion {Otaria leonina), as that is the animal which is most generally distributed and commonly brought to Encland. The sailors sometimes call it the 'Long-necked *Anii. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4tli ser., i, 1868, pp. 217, 218. SPECIES. 215 Seal'." Gray, however, had formerly referred it doubtfully (Cat. Seals, 1850, 43; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 56) to Arctocephalus faWandicus. 3. Phoca JiavescetiSj Shaw, Gen. ZooL, i, 1800, 260, a small, "yellowish" Eared Seal, described from a specimen in the Leverian Museum brought from the Straits of Magellan. It is the "Eared Seal" of Pennant (Quad., ii, 278), and the Otaria flavescens of Desmarest (Mam., 1820, 252). From its size (about two feet long), color, and habitat, it is presumably referable to Otaria jubata, but has been referred by Gray to his Phocarctos hoolccri. 4. Otaria cinerea, Peeon, Voy. Terr. Austr., ii, 1816, 54, 77, is merely referred to in such general terms that it is wholly in- determinable. The name, however, has been commonly referred to the Hair Seal of Australia, for which species the name has been adopted by Peters (see above, p. 203). 5. Otaria alMcolIis, Peeon, Voy. aux Terr. Austr., ii, 1810, 118. An Eared Seal, eight to nine feet long, distinguished by a large white spot on the middle and upper part of the neck. Observed in great numbers on the islands near Bass Straits. No tangible characters given, and wholly unrecognizable. Ee- ferred, however, by Peters, in 1877, to his <■' Uumet02nas cinerea (Peron)," the Zalophns lobatus of Gray. 6. Otaria coronata, Desmaeest, Mam., 1820, 251. Says Desmarest : " PJioca coronata, Plain v. Espece nouveUe observee dans le Museum de Bullock, a Londres. " Locality unknown. Though said to be an Eared Seal, one foot and a half long, black, sparsely and irregularly spotted with yellow, the fore feet are said to have five toes, nearly equal, and armed with very strong, curved, sharp nails, while the hind feet have five nails, "mais depasses par des pointes onemhraneuses^'' — a combi- nation of characters unknown in nature. 7. Otaria porcina, F. Cuviee, Dict.des Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 559. Based on the Phoca porcina, Molina, Hist. Nat. du Chile, 260, recognizable merely as an Eared Seal^ which Gray and Peters have thought possibly referable to the Arctocephalus falMandicus. 8. Otaria peroni, Desmaeest, Mam., 1820, 250. The same as Phoca piisilla, Schreber, and the Petit Phoque of Bitffon, already noticed. 9. Otaria fabricii, Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii,1828, 419,= Phoca ursina, Fabricius, Faun. Groenl., 6. Based on a 216 FAMILY OTAEIID^. supposed species of Eared Seal erroneously believed by Fabri- cius to exist in the Greenland seas, but who never saw the animal, and described it mainly from what were doubtless fab- ulous reports rife among the Greenlanders. The supposed species is entirely a myth, at least so far as having any relation to an Otary. (See, further, Brown, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, pp. 357, 358.) 10. '^Otaria aurita, Humboldt." This is unknown to me. Peters, in 1877, referred it doubtfully to Arcfocephalus falJcland- icus. 11. Arctocephalns eulophus, Scott, Mam. Recent and Ex- tinct, 1873, 19. Based wholly on the testimony of an "expe- rienced sealer." Kot determinable. HaMtat. — "New Zea- land," "Patagonia," "Juan Fernandez"! (See above, p. 199.) Other species, composite in character, are determinable onlj- by reference to the types, among which are Otaria stellerij Tem- minck, Otaria lamari, Miiller, etc., noticed elsewhere. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. The most striking fact in respect to the distribution of the Otariidce is their entire absence from the waters of the North Atlantic. As already noticed, the Eared Seals are obviously divisible by the character of the i)elage, into two groujis, which are com- mercially distinguished as the "Hair Seals" and the "Fur Seals," which are likewise respectively known as the " Sea Lions" and the " Sea Bears." The two groups have nearly the same geo- graphical distribution, and are commonly found frequenting the same shores, but generally living apart. Usually only one spe- cies of each is met with at the same localities, and it is worthy of note, that, with the exception of the coast of California, no naturalist has ever reported the occurrence together of two species of Hair Seals or two species of Fur Seals, although doubtless two species of Hair Seals exist on the islands and shores of Tasmania and Australia, as well as on the Californian coast. The Hair and Fur Seals are about equally and similarly represented on both sides of the equator, but they are confined almost wholly to the temperate and colder latitudes. Of the nine species provisionally above recognized, two of the fi.ve Hair Seals are northern and three southern; of the four Fur FOSSIL OTARIES 217 "Seals, three are soiitbern and one only is northern, but the three southern are closely related (perhaps doubtfully distinct, at least two of them), and are evidently recent and but slightly differentiated forms of a common ancestral stock. Of the two Eared Seals of largest size {Eumetopim steJleri and Otaria ju- bata), one is northern and the other southern, and, though dif- fering genericall}^ in the structure of the skull, are very similar in external characters, and geographically are strictly represent- ative. ZalopliiiH is the only genus occurring on» both sides of the equator, but the species are different in the two hemispheres.* The Fur Seals of the north are the strict geographical repre- sentatives of those of the south. Phocarctos hooker i is Austral- asian, and has no corresponding form in the Northern Hemi- sphere. ]So species of Eared Seal is known from the North Atlantic. Several of the southern species range northward into the equatorial regions, reaching the Galapagos Islands and the northern shores of Australia. FOSSIL OTARIES. The only fossil remains unquestionably referable to the Ota- ries are those found by Dr. Haastt in the Moa Caves of New Zealand. These have been referred by Dr. Haast to the species of Eared Seals still inhabiting the New Zealand coast. | Hence no fossil remains have thus far been discovered outside of the present habitat of the group, their supposed occurrence in the Tertiary formations of Europe requiring confirmation. The absence of the Otariidw from the North Atlantic renders any *This statement is made with some reservation, owing to the fact that it is not quite clear what the species are that are found in the Japan Seas. Both Eumetopias stelleri and Callorhinus ttrsimis extend southward, appa- rently in small numbers, along the east coast of Asia to Japan. Zalophiis lobaUis has been accredited to Japan, but apiiarently on the basis of Tem- miuek's Otaria stelleri, which is evidently a composite sjiecies, -which has been referred, at different times, in part to Z. lobatus and Z. californianus { — (jH- lespii, auct. ). The latter has as yet been certainly found nowhere except on - the Pacific coast of the United States, and Z. lohatus has not been positively identified from any point north of Australia. Temminck's figures 1-4, pi. xxii, of the Fauna Japonica, seem unquestionably to represent skulls of Zalophuii, but whether the Australian or the Californian species, or a third, as yet un- named, is apparently by no means settled. If it proves to be the Z. lohatus, it forms an exceptional case of the same species occurring on both sides of the equator. iXature, vol. xiv, pp. 517, 518, Oct. 26, 1876. + Dr. Haast identifies them as "Arctocejjhalus lobatus (?) and A. cinereus" ^nd " Gypsojphoca tropicalis." 218 FAMILY OTARIID^. indications of tlieir former presence in Europe of special interest, and calls for a critical examination of the supposed evidence of their former existence there. Gervais, many years since,* described and tigured a tooth which he referred, with doubt, to Otaria (" Otaria f prisca'''')^ but Van Beneden has since determined it to be referable to Squalodon. M. E. Delfortrie,t in 1872, described two fossil teeth from the bone breccia of Saint-Medard-en- Jalle, near Bordeaux, which he considered as representing two species of Otary, which he named, re pectively, Otaria oudrlana and Otaria leclerdi. The first is based upon a last upper molar having some resem- blance to the last superior molar of Eumetopias steUeri; the other is an "incisive inferieure externe," not much unlike the corresponding tooth of some of the Otaries. M. Belfortrie observes that these teeth have a striking analogy to those of Otaria juhata figured by Blainville, and to those of Eumetopias stelleri and CallorMniis iirsinus figured by myself. "Cette ana- logie," says M. Delfortrie, "disons-nous, nous permet d'attribuer sans hesitation a des Otarides, les deux dents de Saint-Medard, en en faisant toutefois deux especes distinctes, en raison des caracteres bien tranches qu'elles pr^sentent." Eespecting these teeth. Professor Van Beneden remarks : "Ces dents de V Otaria Oudriana me semblant bien se rapjirocher de celles de Pelagius monachus.''''X In another connection, the same writer adds: "Sans avoir vu les originaux nous ne pouvons toutefois nous defendre de I'idee que ces molaires et ces incisives pourraient bien appartenir a un animal fossile voisin du Pelagius monaclius de la Mediterra- nee. JSTous esperons que I'on i)ourra bientot comparer avec le soin necessaire ces dents interessantes avec les especes voisines A'ivantes et fossiles et nous ne serious pas surpris de voir ren- contrer certaines afiinites qui echappent jusqu'a i)resent. Le genre FaJa'oplwca que nous decrivons plus loin u'est pas bien eloigne des Pelagius de la Mediterranee, et la dent qui a servi de type a VOtaria Oudriana n'est pent etre qu'une premolairt' de notre PaUwplioca; celle sur laquelle est etablie VOtaria Lc clercii, est pent etre une incisive superieure du meme animal.'' § I agree entirely with M. Van Beneden that these teeth cannot be * Zoologie et la Pal^ontologie franf aises, 1850-55, p. 276, pi. viii, fig. 8. t Actes fie la .Societe Linndenne de Bordeaux, xxviii, 4<= livr., 1872. t Ann. du Mus. Roy. d'Hist. Nat. de Belgique, i, prem. part., 1877, p. 25. v^ Ihid., p. 57. FOSSIL OT ARIES. 219 accepted as satisfactory proof of tlie presence of Otaries in tlie Tertiary fauna of Europe. Van Beneden also refers to a humerus of an Otary in the Mu- seum of the Geological Institute of Vienna, supi^osed to have been taken from the bed of the Danube, and adds that it bears a close resemblance to the same part in Otariajuhata, if indeed it is not referable to that species, but adds: "Get os, en tout cas, n'est pas fossile." He also refers to a skull found by Valenciennes on the shore in the department of Lande, men- tioned by Gervais,* and says it is still unknown how it came to be found on the coast. Van Beneden, however, believes that he has proof of the ex- istence of fossil Otaries in Europe in his Mesotaria amhigua, t a si3ecies presenting many remarkable characters, which ally it, he believes, in some points, to the Otaries. This species is rep- resented by the greater i>art of the bones of the skeleton and numerous teeth, but the skull is not known.l The teeth, he says, are unhke those of any other genus, while the bones indi- cate a special mode of life, and a size about equal to or rather larger than that of Plwca grcenlandica.^ The ilium is described as resembling more the same part in the Otaries than the Seals, and as indicating a mode of life more terrestrial than aquatic. The humerus, on the other hand, is stated to more resemble that of the Seals than that of the Otaries. Of the femur he says : "Nous avons trois femurs assez comx^lets qui indiqueut que cet os s'eloigne par sa conformation des autres Amphiteriens. La tete, ainsi que le coV, tiennent de I'Otarie, comme les condyles, et le grand trochanter^ peu large, ne s'eleve pas au-dessus de la tete de I'os. La tete est comparativement petite. La cavite trochanterique est profonde et etroite vers le milieu de I'os et tout contre le col. Le caractere se rapporte ji la position du membre posterieur qui rapproche ainsi des Otaries I'animal qui nous occupe. Les Mesotaries etaient moins aqua- tiques que les Phoques actuels." Upon careful comparison of his excellent figures (pi. ix) of the femur, humerus, scapula, and fragment of pelvis, with the * Zoologie et la Paleoutologie fran^-aises, p. 276. tAnii. fill Mils. Roy. (f Hist. Nat. de Belgique, i, 1877, p. 56, pi. i. tVau Beiiedcn reports Laving two canines, three molars, seven cervical vertebra? and an axis, six dorsal and seven Inmbar vertebrae, a rigbt ilium and a left iscliiuni, the distal end of a scapula, four riglit and five left humeri, a left and a right femur, six tibise, and four metatarsal bones. $ The j)arts of the skeleton figured by Van Beneden correspond very nearly in size with the corresponding parts of Cystophora cristata. 220 FAMILY OTARIID^, €OiTespondiug parts of the skeleton in five species of Otaries, reiiresenting all the genera of that group, and with the princi- pal types of the Phocids, I fail to appreciate any imx)ortant ap- proach toward the former, or any marked departure from the latter, esi)ecially the subfamily Cystoplwrinw. In the femur, for examj)le, there is in Mesotaria no trace of a trochanter minor ^ which is always strongly developed in the Otaries, as well as m the Wah'uses, but absent in the Phocids, this feature alone serving to at once distinguish the Gressigrade from the Repti- grade Pinnipeds. The thick short form of the femur in Mes- otaria^ with its greatly enlarged distal extremity, and the great transverse breadth and thickness of the whole bone in propor- tion to its length, gives it a very close resemblance in its gen- eral form and proportions to the same part in Cystophora and Macrorhinus {Morunga of many authors), while it places it in strong contrast with the same bone in any of the Otariids. The scapula is also a very characteristic bone among the Pin- nipeds, and even the small portion (the lower extremity) shown in Van Beneden's figure (pi. ix, fig. 7) serves to emphasize and confirm the relationship of Mesotaria with the Phocids, and the wide divergence of this type from the Otariids, as shown espe- cially in the obliquity of the articular surface of the glenoid cavity. The portion of the pelvis figured (pi. ix, fig. 8) is de- cidedly Phocine in its proportions, and in the divergence of the iliac crest, while it is very unlike the same part in the Otariids. Finally, it may be noted that the tout ensemble of all the bones of Jlesotaria represented in Van Beneden's plate is strikingly that met with in the heavier types of Phocids, especially the genera Cystophora and Macrorhinus^ and very unlike that of the Otaries. In all the latter, the bones are relativelj" small, dense, and slender, and especially is this the case with the bones of the limbs, none of them apiiroaching the thick stout form char- acterizing these parts in Mesotaria. The proi)ortions, to say noth- ing of details of structure in the principal bones in the Otaries, are so widely different from what is met with in the Phocids, that general contour alone serves at once as a basis for their dis- crimination. In view of the foregoing, it seems to me evident that if the distribution of the Otariidcc formerly embraced the shores of Europe, we have still to wait for evidence of such a former dis- tribution ; and that in Europe, as on the Atlantic seaboard of !N"orth America, the only fossil remains of Pinnipeds thus far MILK DENTITION. 221 found are referable to the Phoeids on tlie one hand, and to the Wah-uses on the other, indicatmg- for the Otariids the same curiously limited habitat as now. MILK DENTITION. The milk dentition in the Pinnipeds rarely persists much beyond foetal life, and is never to any great degree functional, and the dental formula of the temporary teeth is substan- tially the same in all. In the Walruses, however, two of the posterior ujjper milk molars and the last lower one often remain till a comparatively late period of life, but all traces of the others disappear soon after birth. The two middle pairs of incisors probably never jjierce the gums, and the others scarcely persist beyond the fcetal period. The formula for the temjiorary dentition of this group is usually recognized as I. g^g? C. ^^, M. |5| (or M. ~^). In the Seals, however, the number of molars appears to never exceed ^l . In the Earless Seals " the milk-teeth are extremely rudimentary in size and form, and per- fectly functionless. The majority of them never cut the gums and are absorbed actually before bii-th, and certainly within a week after birth scarcely a trace of any of them remains."* The milk molars are three in number on each side, both above and below, and are replaced respectively by the second, third, and fourth molars of the permanent set. The canines are all represented in the temporary set. The number of tem- porary incisors varies in the different genera, it corresponding apparently with the number in the permanent set. In Phoca vitulina, P. grcenlandica, and P. foetida, they have been found to be 2~2, but the two inner ones of the upper jaw are absorbed long before birth. In the Elephant Seal, Professor Flower found, in a specimen eleven inches long, " a complete set of very minute teeth, viz. I. ^, C. i, M. f , on each side ; all of the simi)lest character."t In the Eared Seals, the milk molars are of the same num- ber as in the PJiocinw, namely l^g, and hold, approximately at least, the same position relatively to the molars of the i)erma- nent set. They are separated by wide diastema, and the middle * Flowek, " Eeniarks on the Homologies and Notation of the Teeth of the Mammalia," Journ. Phys. and Anat., iii, 1868, p. 269. tibid., p. 271, tig. 4. 222 FAMILY OTARIID^. molar is mucli smaller tlian either of the others. The middle incisors are replaced early in foetal life by the permanent ones, which are ready to cut the gum at birth. The outer upper incisor remains much longer, i)ersisting quite till after birth, as do also the temporary molars, while the canines are not shed for some weeks, at least five or six weeks. As Professor Flower has observed, " It is very interesting to note that in the Eared Seals (genus Otaria [or family Otariida?]), which more nearly approach the terrestrial Carnivora in many points of structure as well as habits, the milk-teeth are less rudimentary and evanescent than in the true Seals, the canines especially being of moderate size and retained for several weeks."* The milk dentition of the Eared Seals has already been de- scribed in two species of Arctocephalns, and I am able to add some account of it in Uumetopias and Zaloplms. Van Beneden found, in 1871, in a young skull of " Otaria pu- sUla''''] ("= Otaria delalandi,''^ Ciiv. , = Arctoceplialus antarcticus, Allen, ex Thunberg), the Fur Seal of the Cape of Good Hope, the milk dentition to be I. ^, C. ^^ M. 3^; but he supposed the absence of the other lower incisors to be due to their having already fallen. The two inner superior incisors were much smaller than the outer one, aj)pearing like little white grains stuck upon the gum. The outer had a long slender root and a distinct crown. The canines were comparatively large, with long roots and a lengthened crown, and both the upper and lower were of similar form. The superior molars were seiDa- rated by considerable intervals, the first being over the space between the first and second permanent molars, the second over the space between the second and third, and the fourth over the fourth permanent tooth. The middle milk molar he found to be much smaller than either the first or third, the two last named being of nearly equal size, but only the third was double- rooted. The lower milk molars were smaller than the upper, all single-rooted, and held the same position relatively to the permanent teeth as the ui)per ones. The middle one, as in the upper series, was much smaller than either the first or third. Later Malm described the milk dentition of Arctocephaltis nigrescens\ {=Arctocephalus australis) as existing in a specimen * Journ. Phys. and Auat., iii, 1868, j). 269. t "Sur les dents de lait de V Otaria pusilla," Bull, de la Acad. Roy. de Bel- gique, t. xxxi, 1871, pp. 61^7 (illustrations). t(Efver. af Kongl. Vetensk.-Akad. Forhaudl., 1872, No. 7, p. 63. MILK DENTITION. 223 lueasiiriiig 730 mm. from the nose to the end of the tail, the skull having a length of 123 mm., the specimen when killed having been probably a few weeks old. The formula of the milk den- tition found by Malm in this species is given as I. J^^J, C. ^, M. |^|. The third or last lower molar he describes as standing over the fourth of the permanent set, and as having two diverging roots. The first of the two upjier milk molars stands over the third permanent molar, and the second (also double-rooted) over the fourth, these milk molars being probably in reahty the second and third respectively, the first having doubtless already fallen, as had all the incisors except the exterior upper ones, owing to the post-foetal age of the specimens. The formula given by Malm corresponds nearly with that of young skulls of Zalophus, j)resently to be noticed, taken probably from individuals one or two months old. In a very young skull of Uumetopias stelleri (No. 4703, Nat. Mus., San Francisco, Cal., Dr. W. O. Ayres, labelled by the collector as "three or four days old"), the milk teeth have all fallen (probably by maceration), but the alveoli of 5,11 but the i middle incisors are still distinct, and indicate the following ; formula: I. ~J, C. j— , M. I^^. Thus, of the incisors the pres- ence of only an outer pair is indicated, the middle ones, being rootless and probably imj^lanted only on the gum, would leave no trace of their former presence. The alveoli of the molars ; ^how that, both above and below, the middle one was much smaller than the others. These alveoli are exterior to the per- manent teeth, which do not vertically replace them, that of the first upper milk molar being opposite the space between the first and second permanent molars ; the second opposite the space between the second and third permanent molars, while the third is nearly opposite the fourth tooth of the permanent set. In the lower jaw the alveoli of the milk molars are re- spectively just behind and exterior respectively to the second, third, and fourth i)ermanent teeth. In three fcetal skulls of Zaiopkus (No. 6156, Mus. Comp. Zool., Nos. 15660, S , 15661, 9 , Xat. Mus., all from the Santa Barbara Islands), the milk teeth are all still in situ, except the middle incisors, which are replaced by permanent incisors that were . apparently about ready to pierce the gum. As in Uumetopias j and Arctocephalus, the middle molar, both above and below, is much the smallest, and is placed very close to the third, leav- 224 FAMILY OTAEIIDJE. ing a very broad interval between the first and second. Ther first (in Ko. 15660) stands above the second permanent tooth ; the second is just behind the third, while the fourth is a little anterior to, but nearly over, the fourth. In No. 6156 the milk molars stand directly over the second, third, and fourth per- manent ones. In several other young skulls, the third milk molar is still in place, while all the others, except the canines, have disappeared. Some of them were pi'obably several weeks old, showing- that at least the canines are persistent for a con- siderable period after birth. In two young skulls of CaJlorhinvs, known to have been killed when between four and five weeks old, the milk canines are still in place, and a trace remains of the alveolus of the third superior milk molar. In all i)robability, the dental formula is the same in all the Eared Seals, the incisors, except the exterior upper, disappear- ing before birth. Of the molars the middle is smaller than the others, while the third is longest persistent. The canines ap- pear to remain for several months. IRKEGrULAEITIES OF DENTITION. The Eared Seals seem to rather frequently present cases of supernumerary molars, and more rarely cases of suppression of piolars. In respect to sui>ernumerary molars, I am able to record the following instances : In Callorhinus ursbn =69-100. Length 75-100) Breadth 64-100 Length 79-100 ) > =75-100. Breadth 76-100 5 Length 81-100 )^^joo_ Breadth 66-100 i Length 88-100 >g5_jQQ_ Breadth 83-100 > Length 77-100 j^g,^,)^ Breadth 75-100 > HABITS. 227 times that of the adult females of the same species. There are also veiy great diiferences iu the form of the skull, espe- cially iu respect to the devcloiuuent of crests aud protuberauces for muscular attachment, these beiug only slightly developed in females and enormously so in the males. With such remark- able variations in color and cranial characters, dependent upon age and sex, it is not a matter of surprise that many nominal species have arisen through a misappreciation of the real signifi- cance of these differences.* HABITS. The Eared Seals show also a remarkable resemblance in their gregarious and polygamous habits. All the species, wherever occurring, like the Walruses and Sea Elephants, resort in great numbers to particular breeding stations, which, in seal- ers' parlance, have acquired the strangely inappropriate name of " rookeries." The older males arrive first at the breeding grounds, where they immediately select their stations and await the arrival of the females. They keep up a perpetual warfare for their favorite sites, and afterward in defense of their harems. The number of females acquired by the successful males varies from a dozen to fifteen or more, which they guard with the utmost jealousy, — might being with them the law of right. The strong- est males are natnrally the most successful in gathering about them large harems. The males, during the breeding season, remain wholly on land, and they will suffer death rather than leave their chosen spot. They thus sustain, for a period of sev- eral weeks, an uninterrupted fast. They arrive at the breeding stations fat and Aigorous, and leave them weak and emaciated, having been nourished through thek long period of fasting wholly by the fat of theu- own bodies. The females remain uninterruptedly on land for a much shorter period, but for a con- siderable time after their arrival do not leave the harems. The detailed account given a century ago by Steller, and recently con- firmed by Bryant and Elliott, of the habits of the northern Fur and Hail" Seals during the breeding season, is well known to apply, in greater or less detail, to nearly all the species of the family, and presumably to all. As the observations by Messrs. Elliott and Bryant are presented later in this work at length, it is unnecessary to give further details in the present connection. *0f about fifty synonyms pertaining to the Eared Seals, probably two-tliirds have been based, directly or indirectly, iij)on differences dependent on sex and age, and the rest upon the defective descriptions of these animals by travellers. 228 FAMILY OTARIIDiE. PRODUCTS. The i3roducts of the Eared Seals vary in importance with the species, the Hair Seals yielding only oil, their skins being- almost valueless except to the natives of the countries these animals frequent. The products of the Eared Hair Seals are,, consequently, not different from those of the common Earless Seals, and at present are of far less comraer. ial imi^ortance, in consequence of the more limited source of supply. The Fur Seals, on the other hand, are hunted almost exclusively for their fur, which forms the well-known and highly- valued " Seal fur" of furriers. The fur differs in quality with season and the sex and age of the animals, the most valuable being obtained from the females and rather young males. In the young of the second year taken "in season," the skin "un- plucked" forms a rich and soft fur, the very thick, silky red- dish-brown underfur being slightly overtopped hy short, very soft, fine, gray overhair. Later in the season, and especially in the old animals, the overhair is coarser and longer, and even somewhat harsh, beneath which, however, is stjll the heavy soft underfur. Dealers sort the skins into grades, in accord- ance with the size of the skins and the quality of the fur, these features depending upon the age and sex of the animal, rather than upon the species. Dr. Gray refers to what he calls Arcto- cephalus falldandicus as being " easily known from all 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 other Fur Seals."* This, however, is not a peculiarity of the Falk- land Island Fur Seal, the overhair in prime young skins of the Alaskan Fur Seal being equally rich and soft. They are also often made up and Avorn " without the removal of the longer hairs," and are by some preferred to the j)repared or "dressed" furs of the furrier. The Australian Fur Seal appears to differ little in the quality or color of its pelage from the Alaskan and Falkland Island species. The Fur Seal of the Cape of Good Hope, although one of the Fur Seals of commerce, appears to have, according to Gray's account of the few examples he has examined, a shorter coat of underfur. I have, however, met with no statement respecting the Cape Fur Seal peltries that indicates that they are inferior in quality to those of other local- * Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. , 4tli ser. , i, 1868, p. 103. DESTRUCTION OP FUR SEALS. 229 ities. As regards color and the variations of color with age, the Cape of Good Hope species appears not to differ apprecia- bly from the others.* DESTRUCTION OF THE FUR SEALS FOR THEIR PELTRIES. The value of the peltries of the Fur Seal has led to whole- sale destruction, amounting at some localities almost to exter- mination. The trafiic in their skins appears to have begun toward the end of the last century. Captain Fanning, of the ship " Betsey," of IS'ew York, obtained a full cargo of choice Fur Seal skins at the island of Masafuera, on the coast of Chili, in 1798, which he took to the Canton market. Captain Fanning states that on leaving the island, after procuring his cargo, he estimated there were still left on the island between 500,000 and 700,000 Fur Seals, and adds that subsequently little less than a million of Fur Seal skins were taken at the island of Masafuera alone,t a small islet of not over twenty-five miles in circumference, and shipi)ed to Cauton.| Captain Scammon states that the sealing fleet off" the coast of Chili, in 1801, amounted to thirty vessels, many of which were ships of the larger class, and nearly all carried the American flag. Xot- withstanding this great slaughter, it appears that Fur Seals continued to exist there as late as 1815, when Captain Fanning again obtained them at this island.§ In the year 1800, the Fur Seal business appears to have been at its height at the Georgian Islands, where, in the single season, 112,000 Fur Seals are reported to have been taken, of which 57,000 were secured by a single American vessel (the "Aspasia," under Captain Fanning). Vancouver, at about this date, re- ported the existence of large numbers of Fur Seals on the south- west coast of ]N"ew Holland. Attention was at once turned to this new field, and in 1804 the brig " Union," of New York, Capt. Isaac Pendleton, visited this part of the Australian coast, but not finding these animals there in satisfactory numbers, repaired to Border's Island, where he secured only part of a cargo (14,000 skins), owing to the lateness of the season. Later 60,000 were obtained at Antipodes Island. About 1806, the American ship * See Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat, Hist., 4thser.,i, 1868, pp. 218, 219 ; Scott, Mam. Recent and Extinct, 1873, pp. 14, 15 ; also Pages, in Bnffon's Hist. Nat., Suppl., vi,p. 357. tFanning's Voyages to the South Sea, etc., pp. 117, 118. tib., p. 364. §Ib., p. 299. 2c]0 FAMILY OTARIIDiE. '' Catharine," of New York (Capt. H. Fanning), visited tlie Cro- zette Islands, where they landed, and found vast numbers of Fur Seals, but obtained their cargo from Prince Edward's Islands, situated a few hundred miles southeast of the Cape of Good Hope, where other vessels the same year obtained full cargoes. In 1830, the supply of Fur Seals in the southern seas had so greatly decreased that the vessels engaged in this enter^jrise "generally made losing voyages, from the fact that those places which were the resort of Seals," says Captain Benjamin Pendleton, "had been abandoned by them, or cut oft' from them," so that the discovery of new sealing grounds was needed. Undiscovered resorts were believed to exist, from the fact that large numbers of Fur Seals were seen while cruising far out at sea, which must repair once a year to some favorite breeding station.* Captain Weddell states that during the years 1820 and 1821 over 300,000 Fur Seals were taken at the South Shetland Isl- ands alone, and that at the end of the second year the species had there become almost exterminated. In addition to the number killed for their furs, he estimates that not less than 100,000 newly -born young died in consequence of the destruc- tion of their mothers. So indiscriminate was the slaugh- ter, that whenever a Seal reached the beach, of whatever de- nomination, it was immediately killed. Mr. Scott states, on the authority of Mr. Morris, an experienced sealer, that a like indiscriminate killing was carried on at Antipodes Island, off the coast of New South Wales, from which island alone not less than 400,000 skins were obtained during the years 1814 and 1815. A single ship is said to have taken home 100,000 in bulk, which, through lack of care in curing, spoiled on the way, and on the arrival of the ship in London the skins were dug out of the hold and sold as manure ! At about the same time there was a similar wasteful and indiscriminate slaughter of Fur Seals at the Aleutian Islands, where for some years they were killed at the rate of 200,000 a year, gluttiug the mar- ket to such an extent that the skins did not bring enough to defray the expenses of transportation. Later the destruction of Fur Seals at these islands was placed under rigid restric- tions (see infra the general history of the Northern Fur Seal), ill consequence of which undue decrease has been wisely pre- * Faniiiug's Voyages, p. 487. GENUS EUMETOPIAS. 231 vented. But nowhere else lias there been systematic protection of the Fur Seals, or any measures taken to prevent wasteful or undue destruction. Genus EUMETOPIAS, Gill. Otaria, in part of various authors. Arctocephahis (in part), Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 51. Eumetopias, Gill, Proc. Essex Institute, v. 7, 11, July, 1866. Type " Otaria cctlifornianus, Lesson, := ArctocepliaJus monteriensis, Gray." Molars —^ =to 5 the upper hinder pair separated from the others by a considerable interval; the last only double-rooted. Postorbital processes quadrate. Palatine surface of the inter- maxillaries flat, only slightly depressed, and greatly contracted Ijosteriorly ; the palatals moderately produced, extending about three-fourths of the distance from the anterior end of the zygo- matic arch to the pterygoid x)rocess; their posterior margin straight, or slightly or deeply emarginate; rarely deeply so in old age. Eumetopias differs from Otaria^ as restricted by Gill, in hav- ing one pair less of uj)per molars, a much less posterior exten- sion of the palatine bones, and in having the posterior i:)ortion of the palatal surface less than one-third, instead of more than one-half, the width of the anterior i3ortion, and but slightly in- stead of deeply depressed; also in the greater depth of the skull anteriorly, and in the less development of the occii^ital and sagittal crests. In Eumetopias the depth of the skull at the anterior border of the orbits is nearly as great as in the I)lane of the occiput, while in Otaria these proportions are as 13 to 18, there being in the latter a marked declination anteri- orly in the superior outline of the skull. The breadth of the skull at the temporal fossoe is also much greater than in Otaria ; that is, the skull is much less constricted behind the orbits. The postorbital processes also differ considerably in form in the two genera, while another noteworthy difference is the un- usually great development in Otaria of the i^terygoid hamuli. * * A comparison of adult inale skulls of Eumetopias and Otaria, of strictly corresponding ages, shows the following differences : Eumetopias stelJeri (No. 1765) : height of skull in occipital plane 155 mm.; height of skull at anterior edge of orbits 152 mm. Otaria juhata {^o. 1095): height of skull in occipital plane 180 mm. ; height of skull at anterior edge of orbits 130 mm. Comparing the same skulls in respect to the development of the pterygoid hamuli it is found that when placed on a plane surface the skull of E. stel- 232 EUMETOPIAS STELLliRI STELLER's SEA LION. EumetopkiH difler.s Iroin Zalophus tbrougli the presence of a wide si^ace between the fourth and fifth pairs of upper molars, the less emargination of the posterior border of the palatine boneSj the quadrate instead of the triangular and posteriorly pointed form of the postorbital processes, the less relative breadth of the posterior nares, and the larger size of the facial angle; also through its much broader muzzle, the less degree of the postorbital constriction of the skull, and its much less developed sagittal crest. Eumetopias differs too widely from Callorhinus and Arctoce- phalus, in dentition and cranial characters as well as in size and pelage, to render comparison necessary. The genus is at once distinguishable from all the others of the family by the wide space between the fourth and fifth upper molars. In distribu- tion it is restricted to the shores and islands of the Xorth Pa- cific Ocean, ranging from Southern California northward to Behring's Straits. Its geographical rei)resentative is the Otaria jiibata of the Southern Seas, which ranges from the equatorial regions (Galapagos Islands) southward. EUMETOPIAS STELLEEI, [Lesson) Peters. Steller's Sea Lion. Leo marinus, Steller, Nov. Comm. Petrop., xi, 1751, 360. Phoca jiibaia, Schreber, Siiugeth., iii, 1778, 300, pi. Ixxxiii B (in part only; not P. juhata, Forster, witli wMcli, however, it is in part con- founded).— Gmelin, Syst. Nat., i, 1788, 63 (in part ; = P. jM&ato, Schreber). — Pander & D'Alton, Skelete der Eobben nud Laman- tine, 1826, pi. iii, figs, d, e, /.—Hamilton, Marine Ampbib., 1839, 232 (in part — not tbe figure of the skull). Phoca (Otaria) juhnta, Eichardson, Zool. Beecbey's Voy., 1839, 6. Otaria juhata, Pepon, Voyage Terr. Austr., ii, 1816, 40. — NiLSSON, Arch. f. Naturgescb., 1841, 329 (in part only ; includes also tbe true Otaria ju- hata).— ? Veatch, J. R. Browne's Resources of tbe Pacific Slope, [app.], 150 (probably only in part, if at all). Otaria stelleri, Lesson, Diet. Class. Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 420.— J. MtJLLER, Ar- cbiv f. Naturgescb., 1841, 330, 333.— Schinz, Syuop. Mam., i, 1844, 473. — Gray, Cat. Seals in Brit. Mus., 1850, 47 ; Cat. Seals and Whales in Brit. Mus., 1866, 60.— Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1868, 190.— Scott, Mam. Recent and Extinct, 1873, 22. Phoca stelleri, Fischer, Synop. Mam., 1829, 231. leri rests anteriorly on tbe mastoid processes and tbe points of the canines, the points of tbe pterygoid hamuli being several millimetres above tbe plane of rest, while in 0. juhata the skull in the same jiosition rests posteriorly on the pterygoid hamuli, which project 5™" below a plane connecting the mas- toid processes and the points of the canines. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 233 Olaria {EKinetopias) stclleri, Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 186(i, 274,671. Eximctopias stelleri, Gray, Anu. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d ser., xviii, 186G, 233 ; Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales in Brit. Mns., 1871, 30 ; Proc. Zool. Soo. Lond., 1872, 737 (in part), tigs. 4, 5 (the young sknll on which Arctoccphcdus monteriensis, Gray, was in part based); Proc. Zool. Soc. Lend., 1873, 77G (its occnrrence in Japan stated to be donbtfnl) ; Hand-List of Seals, etc., 1874, 40. — Allex, Bnll. Mns. Coinp. ZoiiL, ii, 1870, 46, pll. i, iii, tigg. 9-1.5, and tigg. l-."> in text. — Scammox, Marino Mam., 1874, 124, four woodcuts of animal pp. 126, 127. — Elliott, Keport on the Prybilov or Seal Islands of Alaska, 1873 (text not paged, live plates); Condlt ion of Affairs in Alaska, 1875, 1-52; Scxib- ner's Monthly, xvi, Oct., 1878, 879 (popular account, with figures). Stemmatopias stelleri, Vax Benedex', Ann. du Mns. Roy. d'Hist. Nat. du Bel- gique, pt. i, 1877, 15 (in text), — lapsus penme for Eumetojnas stelleri ? Phoca leonina, Pallas, Zoog. Rosso-Asiat. , i, 1831, 104 {^= P. juhata, Gnieliu). Arctocephalus monteriensis, Grav, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1859, 358, 360, pi. Ixxii, skull (in part only ; the skin referable to Callorhiuus ursiiius) : Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 49. Arctocephaluscalifornianus, Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 51 (=A. monte- riensis, Gray, 1859, in part ; not = Otaria californiana, Lesson). Eumetopias californianus, Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 13 {= Arciocephalus monteriensis, Gray, 1859, " and possibly also [identical] with Olaria . stelleri, Miiller"; hence not =:: 0. californiana, Lesson). ? Eiimeiopias elongatus, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1873, 776, tigs. 1, 2 (=E. stelleri, Gray, ib., 1872, 737, figs. 1-3, Japan?). fPliocarctos elongatus. Gray, Hand-List Seals, etc., 1874, 30, pi. xxi, xxii. Meerlmven, Steller, Beschreib. von son der barer Meerthiere, 1753, 152. lie Lion marin, Buffox', Hist. Nat., Suppl., vi, 1782, 337 (in part only). Leonine Seal, Pexnaxt, Arctic Zool., i, , 200 (in part only). Lion Marin, Choris, Voyage Pittoresque, lies A16outienne, 1822, 12 (not =^ Lion marin de la Cnlifornie, pi.- xi, "Port San-Francisco et scs Habitants"). Leo marinus, the Sea King, Elliott, Scribner's Monthly, xvi, 879, Oct., 1878. "See-Vitchie,^' Russian; Lion marin, French; Seelbwe, German; Sea Lion, Hair Seal, English. Habitat. — Shores of the Xortli Pacific, from Behring's Straits southward to California and Japan. External Characters. — Length of full-grown male eleven to twelve and a half or thirteen feet, of which the tail forms three or four inches ; girth about eight to ten feet ; weight vari- ously estimated at from one thousand to twelve hundred or thirteen hundred pounds.* The weight of the full-grown female * A skull of this species in the National Museum (No. 4702), collected at Fort Point, Bay of San Francisco, July, 1854, bears a label with the follow- ing legend: '•Length 13 ft. 8 in. ; weight, by estimate, one ton." Captain Bryant, in some MSS. notes on this species recently received, states that the full-grown male measures 13| to 14 feet from the tip of the nose to the end of the outstretched hind-feet, and from 7^ to 9 feet in girth 234 EUMETOPiAS stellp:ri — steller's sea lion. is said to range from four linudred to five liundred pounds, "with a length of eight to nine feet. The color varies with age and season. The young are "of a rich dark chestnut-brown.'" The adults, on their first arrival at their breeding-grounds in spring, present no sexual dissimilarity of color, which is then light brownish-rufous, darker behind the fore limbs and on the abdomen. Later the color changes to "bright golden-rufous or ocher." The pelage is moulted in August, and the new coat^ when fully grown in November, is "light sepia or vandyke- brown, with deeper shades, almost dark upon the belly." At this season the females are somewhat lighter-colored than the males, and occasionally specimens of both sexes are seen with patches of dark brown on a yellowish-rufous ground {Elliott).. In two adult males in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and another adult male in the National Museum, the general color of the upper side of the body varies from pale yellowish- brown to reddish- brown, becoming much darker toward the tail. The sides below the median line are reddish, shading above into the lighter color of the back, and below passing into the dusky reddish-brown of the lower surface, which latter be- comes darker posteriorly. The limbs are dark reddish-brown,, approaching black, especially externally. The hairs are indi- vidually variable in color, some being entirely pale yellowish, others yellowish only at the tips and dark below, while others are wholly dark reddish-brown or nearly black throughout. The relative proportion of the light and dark hairs determines the general color of the body. The lielage consists of two kinds of hair, the one abundant, straight, stiff, coarse and flattened, and constituting the outer coat ; the other very short, exceed- ingly sparse and finer, and in such small quantity as to be detected only on close inspection. The hair is longest on the anterior upper i)ortion of the body, where on the neck and shoulders it attains a length of 40 mm.; it decreases in length j)os- teriorly, and toward the tail has a length of only 15 mm. It is still shorter on the abdomen, becomes still more reduced on the limbs, and disappears entirely toward the ends of the digits. The end of the nose, the soles and palms, the anal region, and the extra-digital cartilaginous flaps are naked and black (in around tlie cliest, and that the average weight is over one thousand pounds. He gives the lengtli of the full-grown female as &J to 9 feet, and the circum- ference at the shoulders as 4, the females heing relatively much slenderer than the males. The weight of the female he states to be one-third that of the male. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 235 life " dull blue-black "). Tlie wliiskers are long, slender, and cj'lindrical, white or brownish- white, and set in four or five rather indistinct rows. Some of the longest have sometimes a length of 500 mm., or about twenty inches, with a maximum thick- ness of 2 mm. They are set in several rows, and number between thirty and forty, increasing in length from the inner ones to the outer, which are longest. The ears are short and pointed, broader, but only half the length of those of the Northern Far / Seal [Callorliimis ursitms). The fore feet are large, triangular, situated a little in front of the middle of the body. They terminate in a thick, hard, mem- branous tlap, which is slightly and somewhat irregularly in- dented on the inner side. The terminations of the digits are indicated by small circular horny disks or rudimento.ry nails. The hind feet are broad, and gradually widen from the tarsus, reaching their greatest breadth at the end of the toes. Their length is short as compared to their breadth, the distance be- tween the ends of the outer toes when spread exceeding half of the length of the foot, measured from the tarsal joint. The toes terminate in strong cartilaginous flaps, covered with a thick leathery naked membrane, which is deeply indented oppo- site the tutervals between the toes, and serves to connect the diverging digits. The three middle toes are provided with long, well-developed nails ', the outer toes are without true nails, but in place of them are thickened, horny disks. The outer toes are slightly longer than the three middle ones, which are sub- equal. The nails on all the feet are bluish horn-color. The following table of external measurements of two males, one very aged and the other adult, both from St. Paul's Island, Alaska, indicates the general proportions of the body. A part were taken from a moist flat skia before stuflBng, and the others from mounted skins. 236 EUMETOPIAS STELLERI STELLEE's SEA LION. Measurements from Two Skins of Eumetopias stelleri. N"o. 2920, CoU. Mus. Comp. Zool. cf, about 10 years old. Length of body Length, of tail Extent of outstretched fore limbs Length of hand Breadth of hand Length of foot Breadth of foot at tarsus Breadth of foot at ends of the toe-flaps. Length of flap of outer toe Length of flap of second toe Length of flap of third toe Length of flap of fourth toe Length of flap of inner toe Distance from end of nose to eye Distance from end of nose to ear Distance between the eyes Distance between the ears Length of the ear 1 Length of longest barbule Dist. between points of longest barbules Circumference of the body at fore limbs. Circumference of the body near the tail. Circumference of the head at the ears . . Length of body to end of hind limbs . . Unmounted. 2,750 100 2,362 575 337 559 216 483 200 . 179 152 164 164 215 368 190 372 37 342 800 Mounted. 2,790 100 560 335 540 210 445 200 156 147 150 150 190 365 195 370 35 342 800 2,250 1,000 1,000 3,450 Ko. 2921, CoU. Mus. Comp. Zool., cT, about 15 years old. Mounted. 3,010 110 620 360 610 230 440 220 210 190 190 165 170 380 210 420. 35 2,600 1,020 980 3,790 Captain Scainmon gives tlie following external measurements of a full-grown male taken at the Farallone Islands, July 17, 1872. ft. in. mm. Length from tip of nose to end of hind, flippers 12 0 =3, 660 Length of Jiind flippers 2 2= 660 Breadth of hind flippers (expanded) 0 9= 220 Circumference of body behind fore limbs 7 0 =2, 150 From nose to fore limbs 5 0 =1,526 Length of fore flipper 2 6= 753 Breadth of fore flipper 1 4 = 470 Distance between extremities of fore limbs 10 0=3, 035 Length of ear .• 1|= 47 Length of tail 7 = 177 Length of longest whiskers 1 6 = 457 Length of longest hind claw 1J= 32 SKULL. 237 Skull. — The skull varies greatly in different individuals, even of the same sex, not only in its general form, but in the shape of its different bones. In the males the occipital and me- dial crests are not much developed before the fifth or sixth year. The bones thicken greatly after the animal attains ma- turity, and the palate becomes more flattened. In the adult male the brain-box may be described as subquadrate, nar- rower anteiiorly, where the skull is abruptly contracted. The greatest diameter of the skull is at the posterior end of the zygoma, and is equal to three-fifths of its length. The post- orbital processes are strongly developed and quadrate ; the fore- head is flat, and the facial profile is either abruptly or grad- ually declined ; the muzzle is broad, its breadth at the canines being rather more than one-fourth the total length of the skull. The i)alatal surface of the intermaxillaries is flat, or slightly de- jH'essed anteriorly, and very slightlj' contracted posteriorly. Lat- erally the intermaxillaries reach neai'ly to the end of the palatals. The latter are much contracted posteriorly, and terminate quite far in front of the hamuli pterygoidei. Both the anterior and posterior nares are a little narrower than high. The nasals are widest anteriorly. The last (fifth) pair of upper molars is placed far behind the fourth pair, the space between them being about equal to that occupied by two molars. The males in old age have exceedingly high occipital and sagittal crests, most devel- oped posteriorly; anteriorly they diverge and terminate in the hinder edge of the iDostorbital processes. The lower jaw is massive and strong. Its coronoid processes are greatly developed, as are the tuberosities at the angle of the rami, and a second tuberosity on the lower inner edge of each ramus. The skull in the female is not only much smaller than in the male, but lacks entirely the high crests seen in the male, and all the • processes are much less developed. The teeth, espe- cially the canines, are much smaller, and the bones are all thin- ner and weaker, the weight of the adult female skuU being only about one-third of that of the male of corresponding age. The skull of a full-grown female of this species attains only about the linear dimensions of an adult male skull of CallorMnus ursinus. 238 EUMETOPIAS STELLERI STELLER's SEA LION. a H to IB M O H P I S '^ s 1 o Hi •jgqnmn 9xmoie%vQ 'a U o o c8 n P i ai •sassooojd iB!)iqjojsod jo q^pugjg; tr- ee 1-1 1-1 CO o T-l cq cq c T— o cq r-l in 00 •:je9J0 pejidpoo jo :jt[Si9H o f? g ^ S ^ 00 CI •j'BXora %svi %v -iS-TjC j3A\.ot JO q:>d9(j § 1-1 CO § s in g I CO •SS3D -Old pionojoD JB jiiuf jaA\.ot jo t[:>d8(x o o T-l 00 00 T-l T-l o CO o CO CO ir c LO 00 cc •ABf J9Ai.0| JO Tl^2n91 O CO 00 CO 00 CI O o CO ?5 in o S5 CJ CI •S9xipnoo ^B^tdiooo jo ti:}pT;9jg: S5 00 CO 00 s in 00 in 00 cc oc § g 00 CO •^n^I Voia^ni nni[8 jo q^pcajq :)sie9i CO lO s CO in cc IT LO oc ■e9innBo ;^8 n^^s jo q^pBgig; T-l CI o s T—l tH o 1—1 T— 1 1—1 g - c S IT IT g •9n)prui ^B s[BSBn JO ti^pBgag; CO CO CO C>1 CO S u o CO : c c s •jgpioq Jotj9jeod!jB eresBU jo q;pB9ig; 00 CO LO CO C-1 CO IS CO o s T-l CO oc 0- CJ CO ?s •9§p9 :nio:g !^b ejBSBn jo q;pB9Ja: in 00 in s •* CO •* 5 in ? s •eguoq ^bsbu jo qjSn9i «5 «5 CO CO o CO g LO LO T-l in a o CO ir T-l •>* •aenix:BTn jo pu9 jopgj -god jB aoBjjne ginjBXBd jo qjpBajg; CO O CO o cq ^ in LO IT 00 CO i> CO •A'jBt -ItxBia JO igpioq jo^ogA^B jo qjSngi CO r-i CO I-t o T—l cq T-l 00 I- T-l in CO T-l CJ OC T— r-i o t— in CJ T-l •ssaoojd JBpimBq jo paa oj ainj -ns AiBHTx^ni-o^BXBd mojj 90UB!)sta; s LO CI CI T—l T— t T—l £ 3 •eeaoojd piongiSijsod oj saiiBnixBin -jg^fnj JO j9pjoq "iTLOij uiojj 9onB;si(j 00 o CO i o o CO a c m cq c a c^ o t~ 00 T-l T-l M CJ • JBxoui (^SBX JO J9pjoq j9puTq o:^ sgiJBni -xBntJ9!)ut JO 93p9 ^nojj rao:g aouBjeiQ o i-H g iH o CO 1-1 r-i i co T-l 1 § T-l C L- CJ 1-1 pio§i£i9^d JO ssaooid jB^nuiB q o!) sguB^n -S'Buu9:jm JO 9§p9 |nojj rao jj aonB^STQ; (M CM o CJ S cq o LO cq 5 c CO cq L' r-l •sgqoJB oi:jBmo§Az ^b q:^pB^aq :^s^:^B9J£) O (M o CO cq LO Tjl CJ cq c o C] cq CI -^ c o 1-i •S9SS300jd piO^SBin !JB qjpB9Ja o CO o CO LO LO LO CO CI CO T-l CI (M LO O cq L^ CJ o o CI c- L" s •q^n9i g CO g CO CO CO o in CO CO CO LO 00 CO CO oo CJ cq •X9g •o "o -b 'O "O "o "C ) "D •^ ) ^^ O O o fcn O IS ,13 OS ^ W C^ i-( CD rH l> O CO O O »-l i> o OS t* cq Tj( CO CO -^ CO * * * * iH t- Ci irt iH O CO CD o t- »H I-l lO rH cq CI 00 o to a a o •3 o N -l •BnpiraBq pio3i!j9^cI o^ eauiJi S 5 S in ?^ O 00 O c § g iH 1-1 -XTXBUua:jtn jo jopjoq !)uoj^ 00 u^ t^ t— t o in in cr •jf pou9!>Tre myiis. 'saaoq ^bsb^ CO ■* -* ■* Tt* in ■^ d rH CO O o o t- o •il.ioiJ9|so(I q;piJ\. 'sauoq x'bsb^ CO r^ -^ CO CO IM CO m CO uo CO in in CQ ■q:jSu9x 'S9noq x-bsbj^j; lO O lO lO CO CO CT O O CO 00 CO IT Tf t- cc in 00 •Si^iqjO II89Ai.^9q 90UB^eiQ[ ^ CO CO CO (M ■^ CO « CJ 1-1 eg o ira o in (N CC m in in 0- O (M •S9es900ja pio:)8Bni %-e q^piA\ O C^ T-H !M r-H (M rH (M OS 05 (M 1-1 rH 1-1 CO 1-1 T-l iH t- t- t- O CO r- O CO CO c CD O ■B^'BUIoSjiz ^B q^pm :^S9!JB9Jf) C^ CO CM C3 •q(}Snai ps^ox 115 CO O CO CO CO in CO CO 0- CO -^ CD CO CO . 233; Hand- List of Seals, etc., 1874, 40. llProc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1872, pp. 740,741. 250 EUMETOPIAS STELLEEI STELLER's SEA LION. teriensis], the young animal is blackish, silvered by the short white tips to the short black hairs; those on the nape and hinder parts of the body with longer white tips, making tliose parts whiter and more silvery. The nnder-fur is very abund- ant, reaching nearly to the end of the hair. The end of the nose and sides of the face are whitish. The whiskers are elon- gated, rigid, smooth, and white. The hind feet are elongate, with rather long flaps to the toes. The skull is small for the size of the skin, and I should have doubted its belonging to the skin if it were not accompanied by the following label: ' Skull of the Fur Seal I sent last year. It is very imperfect, from my forgetting where I had put it ; but it must do until acci- dent throws another in the way; the other bones were lost. — A. S. T.'"* Dr. Gray, in his ''Hand-List," published in 1874, refers the skulls, of both J., monteriensis and A. calif o mi anus to Eumetopias stelleri^ but makes no reference to the skin. As he seems, however, to have become settled in his opinion tJiat this skin is identical with his A. monteriensis^ this may ac- count for the statement made by him in 186G,t and subse- quently reiterated, % that the Eumetopias stelleri is a species in which "the fur is very dense, standing nearly erect from the skin, forming a very soft, elastic coat, as in 0. falklandica and 0. stelleri, which," he erroneously says, "are the only Seals that have a close, soft, elastic fur." § Lesson gave the name Otaria California na toasupposed species of Eared Seal based solely on a figure entitled " Jeune lion mariu de la Californie," published by Choris. || The following is the only allusion Ohoris makes to this animal, in this connection, in his text: "Les rochers dans le voisinage de la bale San- Francisco sont ordinairement converts de lions marins. PL XL" In his chapter on the "lies A16outiennes," in describing the "Lions marins," he says: "Cesanimaux sont aussi tres-com- muns au port de San-Francisco, sur la cote de Californie, oti *Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1850, p. 358. f Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th series, 1866, vol. i, p. 101. Ubid., p. 215. § Dr. Gray's mistake seems to have misled otliers in respect to the real characters of Eumetopias stelleri, which Dr. Veatch, on the authority of Gray, refers to as the '^fur-coated Euraatopias," which he supposed to be tlie proper name of the Fur Seal of the North. (See "Eeport of Dr. John A. Veatch on Cerros or Cedros Island," in J. Eoss Browne's "Eesources of the Pacific Slope," [appendix], p. 150, 1869.) II Voyage Pittoresqne, pi. xi, of the chapter entitled "Port San-Francisco et ses habitants." The date of this work is 1822. GENERAL HISTORY. 251 ou les voit en nombre prodigieux sur les rochers de la bale. Cette espece m'a paru se distinguier de ceux qui fr^quentent les lies Aleoutiennes; elle a la corps plus fluet et plus allonge, et la tete plus fine : quant a la couleur, elle passe forteraent au brun, tandis que ceux des iles A16outiennes sont d'une couleur plus grise, out le corps plus rond, les mouvements plus difficiles, la tete plus grosse et plus ^paissej la couleur du poll des moustaches plus noiratre que celui des iles Aleoutiennes."* It thus appears that Choris clearly recognized the larger and the smaller Sea Lions of the west coast of North America, and correctlj' pointed out their more obvious points of external difference. Hence Lesson's name Otaria californiana, founded on Choris's "Lion marin de la Californie," must be considered as applying exclusively to what has till now been commonly known as Zaiophus gillespii. Dr. Gill, however, in his "Prodrome," adopted ijrovisionally Lesson's name {californiana) for the present species, but at the same time asserted its identity with the Arctoceplialus monte- riensis of Gray (1859), and also suggested its i)robable identity with the so-called Otaria stelleri of Miiller. Peters, a few months later, came to the conclusion that Gill's suggestion was correct, since which time the name stelleri has been universally accepted for the larger northern Hair Seal. The Otaria stelleri of Tem- minck, t formerly supposed by Grayf and also by Peters § to include both the Australian Eared Seals (viz, Arctoceplialus cinereus and Zaloplius lohatiis), has finally been referred by the latter, after an examination of the original specimens in the Leyden Museum, to the so-called Zaloplms gillespii. \\ I be- lieve, however, that the skull of the young female figured in Fauna Japonica (pi. xxii, figg. 5 and 6) belongs to some other species. It certainly differs greatly in proportions, as well as in dentition, from the other skulls figured in that work (same plate), and called 0. stelleri. The northern Sea Lion having become generally recognized as specifically distinct from the Sea Lion of the southern seas. Dr. Gill, in 1866, separated the two genericallj'. This had indeed already been done practically by Dr. Gray, inasmuch as * Voy. Pittor. aut. du Moude, lies Al^outieuues, p. 13. t Fauna Japonica, Mam. marins, p. 10. iAnn. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d series, 1866, vol. xviii, p. 229. orts to be speaking of ''Sea Lions," I have recently become conTiuced (since the copy of this article was sent to the printer) that very little, if anything, in this paragraph and the next relates to any species of Eared Seal. In the first place, the locality is one not known to be frequented, except casually, by Otaries, while the account of the 'capture in nets and in the ice, and especially the reference to "breathing holes," renders it almost certain that the animals referred to are Phocids. HABITS. 269 until the hair starts — this process is called 'scouring'; then the hair is scoured otf and the bare hide is stretched to season — a process usually requiring about ten days — when it is taken down and rubbed between the hands to make it iiliable ; this completes the whole course of dressing it. The prepared skins are then converted into harness for the sledge-dogs and rein- deer, and water-proof bags ; if wanted for the soles of mocca- sins, or to cover their skin-boats, they are dried with the hair on, and become nearly as stiff as plates of iron. The blnbber of the animals, if killed in the fall or winter, is preserved by freezing, and is used for food, fuel, and lights, as desired ; while the same part of those taken in the spring and summer is put in the skins of young Seals, and placed in earthen vaults, where it keeps fresh until required for consumption. The residue of the animal is tumbled into a reservoir, sunk below the surface of the ground, where it is kept for the winter's supply of food for the dogs, which live upon the frozen flesh and entrails of the Seals, whose skin furnishes the tackle by which they trans- port the primitive sledge over the snow-clad wastes of Siberia and Kamschatka."* Since the foregoing was transmitted for pubHcation I have received from Captain Charles Bryant a very full account of this species, based on his many years' observations as United States Treasury Agent at the Fur Seal Islands, and kindly pre- pared by my request for use in the present connection. Although so much space has ab-eady been devoted to the history of this species, it seems deskable to give Captain Bryant's report nearly in full, although repeating in substance some of the details which have already been presented, since it contains some new points, and is at least based on long experience. Some portions, relating especially to the products of the Sea Lion and their uses, are omitted, since they are fully anticipated by w^hat has already been given. " From fifteen to twenty thousand Sea Lio^s," says Captain Bryant, "breed annually on the Prybilov or Fur Seal Islands. They do not leave the islands in winter, as do the Fur Seals, to return in spring, but remain during the whole year. They bring forth their young a month earlier than the Fur Seals, ' landing during the months of May and June. They advance but little above high tide-mark, and those of all ages land together. The strongest males drive out the weaker and mono- * Marine Mammalia, pp. 136-138. 270 EUMETOPIAS STELLERI STELLER'S SEA LION. polize the females and continue with them till September. They go with them into the water whenever they are disturbed, and also watch over the young. When in the water they swim about the young and keep them together until they have an opportunity to land again. The females also keep near, rushing hither and thither, appearing first on one side and then on the other of the groups of young, constantly uttering a deep hoarse growl at the intruder whenever they come to the surface. When left undisturbed they all soon land again, preferring to spend the greater portion of their time at this season on the shore. During the breeding season they visit the same parts of the shore as the Fur Seals, but the Sea Lions, by their supe- rior size and strength, crowd out the Seals, the latter passively yielding their places without presuming to offer battle to their formidable visitors. After having been disturbed the Sea Lions continue for some time in a state of unrest, occasionally uttering a low moaning sound, as though greatly distressed. Even after the breeding season they keep close to the shore near the breed- ing station until the severe weather of January. After this time they are seen only in small groups till the shores are free from snow and ice in the sx)ring. "The capture of these animals is laborious and hazardous, and must be managed by the most skilful and exx^erienced of the natives. They are so sensitive to danger and so keenly on the alert that even the screaming of a startled bird will cause the whole herd to take to the water. " The only place frequented by the Sea Lions that, by the nature of tne ground, is practicable for their capture, is ten or twelve miles from the village where all the natives reside. They keep so near the shore that the favorable time to get between them and the water is when the tide is lowest; and they are so quick of scent that the wind must blow from them toward the sea, so they may not smell the hunters as they at- tempt to ai)proach them. The chiefs select a party of fifteen or twenty of the best men, who leave the village prepared for an absence of a week or ten days, for the place selected for the hunt. I^ear this they have a lodging-house, where they wait for favoring conditions of wind and tide. Under cover of the darkness of night, the chief takes the lead and the men follow, keeping a little distance apart, creeping noiselessly along the shore at the edge of the receding tide until they get between the Sea Lions and the water. At a given signal the men start HABITS. 271 up suddenly, fire pistols, and make all the noise possible. The animals thus suddenly alarmed immediately start in whatever direction they chance to be headed ; those facing the water rush precipitately into it. These the hunters avoid, letting them pass them, and start at once after those heading inland, shout- ing at them to keep them moving until some distance from the shore. The Sea Lions, when once fairly in motion, are easily controlled and made to move in the desired direction till they reach some convenient hollow, where they are guarded by one or two men stationed to watch their movements and prevent their escape until enough have been obtained to make a herd for driving, numbering usually two or three hundred individ- uals. They sometimes capture in this way forty or fifty in a single night, but oftener ten or twenty, and many times none at all. As at this season Sea Lions of all ages and sizes con- gregate together, it often happens that females are caught while their cubs escape, or the reverse, but as the capture is con- tinued for several successive nights at the same place, and the new captives are driven to the herd already caught, the mothers and their young are again brought together. They recognize each other by their cries long before they meet, and it makes lively work for the herders to prevent the herd from rushing to meet the new comers. When the recruits join the herd the mothers and cubs rush together with evident pleasure, the mothers fondling their young, and the latter, hungered by sepa- ration, struggle to nurse them. After a sufiicient number have been thus obtained they are driven to the village for slaughter, in order that all parts of the animal may be utilized. " The distance to the village is, as already stated, about ten or twelve miles, and the route lies near the shore. Along the way are several small ponds through which they pass and which serve to refresh them on their slow toilsome journey. The journey is necessarily slow and tedious, for the Sea Lions are less well fitted for traveling on land than the Fur Seals, which are able to raise their bodies fiiom the ground and gallop off like a land animal. The Sea Lions travel by bending the pos- terior part of the body to the right or left, extending their long flexible necks in an opposite direction to balance themselves, and then slowly raising their bodies by their fore limbs and plunging forward, by which movement they thus gain an ad- vance of only half a length at a time. When they arrive in sight of the ponds they make a hurried scramble for them, and, 272 EUMETOPIAS STELLERI STELLER'S SEA LION. rushing in pell-mell, roll and tumble in the water as though it afforded immense relief to their heated and wearied bodies. When it is convenient to do so they are allowed to rest over night in the water, by which they acquire fresh vigor for the comijletion of the journey. This severe and unnatural exertion overheats and exhausts these poor beasts and necessitates long halts to enable them to rest and cool. It usually requires five days to make the journey, averaging two miles per day. Three men conduct the herd, and camp at night with their charge. On starting they kill a young cub for their subsistence, using the flesh for food and the blubber for fuel in cooking it and making their tea. "After two days' travel the animals become very tired, and as soon as they are permitted to halt they drop at full length with their limbs extended. But their rest is not peaceful, for some restless one soon starts up and flounders over the others as if seeking a better place. This disturbs the whole herd, which constantly keeps up a low moaning apparently expressive of sore distress. A most apt description of such a scene was once given by a military officer who was seated with me on the edge of a sand-dune watching a herd resting in this condition. After a long silence he observed, ' This is the first thing I have ever seen or heard that realizes my youthful conception of the tor- ment of the condemned in purgatory.'" "When the herd is once fairly halted and at rest it requires from half an hour to an hour to get it moving again in march- ing order. The process is quite novel and worth describing. The Sea Lions have now become so accustomed to their captors that they will sooner fight than run from them, and they are too much deafened by their own noise to hear or fear any other sound. As they lie on the ground in a compact mass, one of the men takes an umbrella (before the introduction of umbrellas a flag was used) and goes twenty to thirty yards to the rear of the herd and apjiroaching stealthily until he is quite near sud- denly expands the umbrella and runs with it along the edge of the herd ; then closing it he retires to repeat the maneuver. This has the effect to rouse the rear rank, which thus suddenly alarmed idi^uges forward and arouses those in front, which immediately begin struggling and biting. The return of the man with the umbrella communicates another shock and adds another wave to the sluggish mass. This is repeated at intervals of four or five minutes till the successive shocks have aroused HABITS. 273 the whole herd, when, with much roaring and bellowing, the whole mass b'egins to move, gradually extending itself in a long irregular line in open order, each animal lumbering along as best it can. By shouting and waving flags at the rear and on the flanks of the herd, they are kept moving until it is neces- sary to halt them again for rest. Seen when thus moving in a long irregular line, the slow heaving motion of their bodies and the swaying of their long flexible necks give a grotesque appearance to the scene and suggest anything but a herd of Lions. The island, being composed of volcanic rock, is full of subterranean fissures covered thinly with soil and vegetation, and the earth so resounds with the noise of the tread of the Sea Lions that the sound may be heard to the distance of two miles. The approach of a herd to the village is always an occa- sion of interest and excitement to all of the inhabitants, who go out en masse to meet them and escort them to the slaughter- ing ground, where they are allowed to rest and cool before they are killed. "The Sea Lions are too formidable to be killed with clubs like the Fur Seals. When all is ready for the slaughter the herd is started up a sloping hillside ; the hunters follow, armed with rifles, and shoot the full-grown males from behind, the back of the skull being the only part a ball can penetrate. After all of these have been killed, the head of the column is checked and turned back so that the animals become massed together, and piled on each other five or six deep. In this way those below are held by those above while the hunters, armed with short lances, watch their opportunity to rush up to the struggling mass and thrust their lances into some vital part of the doomed beasts. This is attended with some danger to the hunters, who sometimes receive serious wounds from being hit with the lances that the Sea Lions, in their death agonies, seize in their mouths and wrench from the hands of the hunters. "Nearly every part of these animals is valuable to the natives, but they have no commercial value outside of "Alaska. Their •skins are indispensable to the Sea Otter hunters of the Aleutian Islands, for the covering of their canoes in which they hunt these animals. The natives also use them for covering their large boats used in loading and unloading vessels. . . . Its flesh is preferred for food to that of the Fur Seal, that of the full-grown animal being finer in texture, lighter in color, and of a sweeter Misc. Pub. Ko. 12 1 1869, p. 150 (mainly, if not wholly; Cerros Island, L. Cal.). Lion Marin de la Califomie, Choris, Voy. Pittoresque. Sea Lion [o/ California'], Scammon, Overland Monthly, viii, 1872, 266 (in part). — GURNEY, Zoologist, 1871, 2762 (Southern California). — Stearns, Amer. Nat., x, 1876, 177 (in part). Loho marine, Spanish ; Sea Lion and California Sea Lion, English. Habitat. — Coast of California. ' External Characters. — Color dark chestnut - brown, darker (blackish-brown) on the limbs, ventral surface, and the * Spelled ^' gilliespii" hj Gray and most other writers, but " gillespii" hj M'Bain, who named it for his friend Dr. Gillespie. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 277 extreme posterior part of the body, but A^aryiug greatly in differ- ent individuals and at different seasons. Whiskers wliitisli or yellowisli-white, a few of them usually dusky at base. Length of adult male 7 to 8 feet; of adult female about 5.75 feet. Pelage short, harsh, and stiff. A series of a dozen specimens varies greatly in color — from yellow through various shades of brownish-yellow to dark red- dish-brown and even blackish-brown. At the season of moult they change from reddish-brown to yellowish or golden-brown. An adult female (M. C. Z. Coll., i!^o. 5787) taken about Septem- ber 1, 1877, is golden brownish-yellow, passing into dark brown on the limbs and ventral surface. Top of the nose, between and around the eyes, anterior edge of hand, and outer edge of foot, pale yellowish-white. Said by the collector (Mr. Paul Schumacher) to have just shed its coat. A nearly* adult male (M. C. Z, Coll., Ko. 5785), taken at the same date, is dull dark yellowish-brown, passing into blackish-brown on the limbs and ventral surface ; around base of hind limbs and tail and behind the axillte nearly black. A third (M. C. Z. Coll., No. 5788) is dingy yellowish-brown, lighter on top of head, hind neck, and over the shoulders, and darker posteriorly, beneath, and on the limbs, where the color becomes very dark chestnut-browTi, and blackish around the eyes and nostrils. A fourth, a very old male (M. C. Z. Coll., No. 5786), is dark yellowish-brown above, varied with dusky, and with small dots and narrow streaks of white, the white streaks and spots indicating the position of wounds received in fighting. A la;rge whitish spot on the back of the neck.* Lower surface pale yellowish posteriorly, passing into darker anteriorly. A sixth (M. C. Z. Coll., No. 5677), an adult female, has the body everywhere dark yellowish -brown, passing into darker on the limbs and ventral surface. Still another (M. C. Z. Coll., No. 5785), a nearly full-grown male, differs from the foregoing in being light yellowish on the chin and about the mouth, very dark or blackish on the throat and sides of neck ; breast yellowish-white ; sides of body and ventral sur- face very pale yellowish-white, as is also the central portion of upper surface of both fore and hind limbs ; top of head and greater part of dorsal surface very dark brown or blackish, slightly varied with white ; shoulders and breast washed with gray ; edges of the llippers very dark brown. * In this specimen the atlas is firmly anchylosed with the skull, the result, doubtless, of injury in early life, to -which, jierhaps, this whitish sjwt is due. 278 ZALOPHUS CALIFOKNIANUS CALIFORNIAN SEA LION. Three specimens observed alive in Central Park, Kew York City, in Aj)ril, 1878, differed very mucli in color. One (a male) was quite piu'e gray along the back, rather darker on the sides^' and yellowish-gray on sides of belly ; throat and breast pale yellowish-brown ; ventral surface and limbs dark brown ; sides of nose pale yellowish-white. Another (male) was dark broMm varied with black. The third (female) was deep brownish-yel- low on the throat and breast, blackish over the ventral surface and limbs ; general color above, deep brownish-black. Captain Scammon says:* "The color of the adult male is^ much diversified ; individuals of the same rookery being quite black, with scattering hairs tipped with dull tvhite, while others are of a reddish-brown, dull gray, or of light gray abo"^'e, darker below. The adult female is not half the bulk of the male, and its color is light brown." He refers i)articularly to one speci- men as being "black above, a little lighter below, Avith scatter- ing hairs of light brown or dull white." Young. — Captain Scammon says: "The young pups, or whelps, are of a slate or black color, and the yearlings of a chestnut-brown." In the Museum of Comparative Zoology are several young specimens taken at the Santa Barbara Islands by Mr. Paul Schumacher (M. C. Z. Coll., Nos. 5678 and 5679) that are everywhere nearly uniform dark reddish-brown. The skulls show that they were quite young, the milk canines and last milk superior molars on each side being still in place ; they were probably not more than two or three months old. The Museum also has a foetal specimen, received from the same lo- cality and collector. In this (M. 0. Z. CoU., No. 5839) the body is nearly uniform dark gray, with the top and sides of the head and the nape darker. Nose and face, to and around the eyes, black. Limbs brownish-black. The whiskers are mostly gray- ish-white, dusky at the base ; some of the shorter ones entirely blackish. Pelage. — In the adult animal the pelage is short, stift", and harsh, especially the new hair about the time of the moult. * Under tlio head of "Eumetopias stelleri" (Marine Mam., p. 128), but, jtidg- ing from the context, I tliink liis remarks are Tbased on the Sea Lions of tlio Santa Barbara Islands, and reaUy refer to the present species. The speci- mens sent by him to the National Museum under this name from these islands are really ZaJophus californianus. He spent much time at these islands, and his only detailed reference to the animals as seen by him in life relates tO' these islands and unquestionably to this species. SIZE. 279 In the foetal specimen tlie pelage is longer, and very soft to the touch, feeling like fur, but is simply soft straight hair, not at all like the underfur of the Fur Seals, or even the first coat of Callorhinus ur sinus, under the long soft hair of which is an abundance of soft silky underfur. In the foetal Zaloplms a very slight admixture of fine curly underfur can be detected on close inspection ; but in no sense is the first coat in this species comparable, in respect to underfur, with the first coat iu the Fur Seals. In the older specimens of Zaloplius^ above described, which have ah-eady acquired their second coat, the pelage is still longer and softer than in the adults. Size. — I am unable to give the dimensions of very old males. A male (M. 0. Z. Coll., No. 5786), in which the crests of the skuU are well developed, and the teeth slightly worn, but which is evidently only middle-aged, gives the following measure- ments : Total length from nose to end of tail* 2160 mm. ; to end of outstretched hind-fl[ipi)ers, 2542 mm. (collector's measurement from fresh specimen, "8 ft. 4 in."); hind foot (from body), 380 mm.; fore foot (from axilla), 300 mm. ; tail, 110 mm; ear, 35 mm. ; longest whisker, 225 mm. The collector gives the girth behind the axillae as 1337 mm. ("4 ft. 5 in."). Another speci- men (M. C. Z. Coll., ISTo. 5789, young male), with the crests of the skull wholly undeveloped, gives a length from nose to end of tail of 2140 mm.; to end of outstretched hind limbs, 2480 mm. (col- lector's measurement from fresh specimen, ''8 ft. 2 in.") ; hind- flipper, 340 mm. ; fore-flipper (from axilla), 370 mm. ; tail, 80 mm. ; ear, 33 mm.; longest whisker, 190 mm. The collector gives the girth behind the axilloe as 1220 mm. (" 4 ft."). A fuUy-adult female (M. C. Z. Coll., ^o. 5787) gives a length (from tip of nose to end of tail) of 1800 mm.; to end of out- stretched liind-flijjpers, 2054 mm. (collector's measurement from fresh specimen, "6 ft. 9 in."); girth behind axil] se, 1247 mm. (col- lector's measurement, " 3 ft. 9 in."); hind-flipper, 270 mm.; fore- flipper, 310 mm.; tail, 70 mm.; ear, 30 mm.; longest whisker, 110 mm. Another adult female (M. C. Z. Coll., No. 5788) gives the fol- lowing : ISTose to end of tail, 1570 mm. ; nose to end of outstretched * This measurement is by estimate based on the collector's measurement of the total length to end of outstretched hind-flipper, taken from the fresh specimen, the calculation being based on a study of the skeleton. The total length of head and body, as taken from the mounted specimen, is obviously much too short. 280 ZALOPHUS CALIFORNIANUS CALIFORNIAN SEA LION. hind-flippers, 1996 mm. (collectoi's measurement from fresli speci- men, "G ft. 7 in."); girth, behind axillae, 1068 mm. (collector's measurement, "3 ft. 6 in.") ; tail 80 mm.; ear, 34 mm.; longest whisker, 100 mm. The skeleton of an adult female (M. 0. Z. Coll., 'No. 6) has a total length to end of tail of 1706 mm. ; to end of phalanges of hind flipper, 1908 mm. The collector's measurements of the young (two or three months' old) specimens are : Male, nose to end of outstretched hind-flippers, "4 ft." (1220 mm.); girth, "2 ft." (610 mm.). Female, nose to end of outstretched hind- flippers, "3 ft. 8 in." (1120 mm.) ; girth, "1 ft. 11 in." (583 mm.). The fcetal specimen (M. C. Z. Coll., No. 5839, stuffed), already described, measures from nose to end of tail 850 mm.; from nose to end of out- stretched hind-flippers, 970 mm.; hind-flippers (from heel), 115 mm.; fore-flipper (from axilla), 200 mm.; tail, 45 mm.; ear, 25 mm.; longest whisker, 55 mm. Captain Scammon gives the following measurements of " Sea Lions," taken at Santa Barbara Island in April and May, 1871-73. They include an "adult female" (column 1); a male (column 2), " about ten months old," taken April 4, 1872 ; a female (column 3), "supposed to be a yearling"; and "a new- born female Sea Lion pup " (column 4), taken May 3, 1873. Length from tip of nose to end of liind-flippers Length from tip of nose to base of tail Length of hind-flippers Length of fore-flippers Girth hehind axillae Girth at base of hind-flippers lYom tip of nose to eye From tip of nose to ear Length of ear — Length of tail Length of longest whiskers From base of taU to posterior teats Prom base of tail to anterior teats Distance between posterior teats Distance between anterior teats Thickness of blubber L 1* ft. 6 Ml. 4 1 4 3 6 3J 8 2 6 2 10 5 8 01 2t /(. in. 4 10 3 m 0 114 1 3 2 8 0 llj 0 3i>j 0 7 0 0 0 1 24 5i 0 04 3: ft. in. 4 10 3 104 0 11 2i 7 1 3 6 24 0 OJ 4§ /(. in. 2 4 1 11 0 5J 7 3 6i 1| 4 0 IJ 0 Oi * Adult female. t Male, ten months old. t Female, about one year old; § Female, newly born. SIZE. 281 Measurements of the Skeleton of an Adult Female.* "Whole lengtli of skeleton (including skull) 1706 Length of skull 236 Length of cervical vertebrae 320 Length of dorsal vertebrge 640 Length of lumbar vertebrae 230 Length of caudal vertebrae (+ sacral) 280 Length of first rib, total - 140 Length of first rib, osseous portion 75 Length of first rib, cartilaginous portion 65 Length of second rib, total 173 Length of second rib, osseous portion 100 Length of second rib, cartilaginous portion i 73 Length of third rib, total 240 Length of third rib, osseous portion .- 158 Length of third rib, cartilaginous portion 82 Length of fourth rib, total 280 Length of fourth rib, osseous portion 185 Length of fourth rib, cartilaginous portion 95 Length of fifth rib, total 335 Length of fifth rib, osseous portion 220 Length of fifth rib, cartilaginous portion 115 Length of sixth rib, total 370 Length of sixth rib, osseous portion 250 Length of sixth rib, cartilaginous portion 120 Length of seventh rib, total 395 Length of seventh rib, osseous portion 270 Length of seventh rib, cartilaginous portion 125 Length of eighth rib, total 445 Length of eighth rib, osseous portion 295 Length of eighth rib, cartilaginous portion 150 Length of ninth rib, total 445 Length of ninth rib, osseous portion 290 Length of ninth rib, cartilaginous portion 155 Length of tenth rib, total 430 Length of tenth rib, osseous portion 280 Length of tenth rib, cartilaginous portion 150 Length of eleventh rib, total 413 Length of eleventh rib, osseous portion 280 Length of eleventh rib, cartilaginous portion .-. 133 Length of twelfth rib, total 395 Length of twelfth rib, osseous portion 260 Length of twelfth rib, cartilaginous portion 135 Length of thirteenth rib, total 362 Length of thirteenth rib, osseous x)ortion 247 Length of thirteenth rib, cartilaginous portion 115 Length of fourteenth rib, total 310 Length of fourteenth rib, osseous portion . 215 *No. 6159, Collection of Museuna of Comparative Zoology. 282 ZALOPHUS CALIFORNIANUS CALIFOKNIAN SEA LION. mm. Length of foui'teentli rib, cartilaginous portion 95 Length of fifteenth rib, total ^20 Length of fifteenth rib, osseous portion 180 Length of fifteenth rib, cartilaginous portion 40 Length of sternum, ossified portion 550 Length of sternum, 1st segment 110 Length of sternum, 2cl segment 50 Length of sternum, 3d segment 53 Length of sternum, 4th segment 50' Length of sternum, 5th segment 48 Length of sternum, 6th segment 47 Length of sternum, 7th segment 46 Length of sternum, 8th segment 38 Length of sternum, 9th segment 55 Length of scapula 180 Greatest breadth of scapula 250 Greatest height of its spine 18 Length of humerus 155 Antero-posterior diameter of proximal end of humerus 63 Transverse diameter of proximal end of humerus 65 Transverse diameter of distal end of humerus 57 Length of radius 155 Length of ulna 194 Longest diameter of upper end of ulna 67 Length of carpus 40 Length of 1 st metacarpus and its digit '218 Length of 2d metacarpus and its digit 188 Length of 3d metacarpus and its digit ^ 150 Length of 4th metacarpus and its digit 120 Length of 5th metacarpus and its digit 90 Width of manus at base of metacarpals 80 Total length of fore limb (excluding scapula) 568 Length of femur 90 Longest diameter of j)roximal end of femur 46 Longest diameter of distal end of femur 4& Least antero-posterior diameter of shaft of femur 13 Length of tibia 185 Length of tarsus 40- Length of 1st metatarsus and its digit 222 Length of 2d metatarsus and its digit 187 Length of 3d metatarsus and its digit 180 Length of 4tli metatarsus and its digit 180 Length of 5th metatarsus and its digit 183 Width of pes at base of metatarsals 57 Total length of hind limb ;'>37 Length of iuuominate bone l'^6 Greatest width of pelvis anteriorly 100 Length of ilium 70 Length of ischio-pubic bones 100 SKULL. 283 Measurements of the Metacarpal and Phalangeal Bones of an Adult Female* 1st digit. 2d digit. 3d digit. 4th digit. 5th digit. IjPTio"tli of maims to end of . 258 90 78 50 226 58 66 47 20 187 55 55 36 15 147 48 35 112 42 31 Lengtli of metacarpal of. Len o'th of 1 st phalanx of Len"'tli of 2(1 phalanx of 23 15 12 in Length of Sd phalanx of 1 Measurements of the Metatarsal and Phalangeal Bones of an Adult Female. Length of pes (posterior end of 03 calcis) to end of , Length of metacarpal of ; Length of 1st phalanx of Length of 2d phalanx of Length of 3d phalanx of Length of nail of 1st digit. 280 79 75 40 2d digit. 260 61 60 46 16 16 3d digit. 255 60 57 48 16 18 4th digit. 250 60 54 48 16 15 5th digit 250 65 58 37 00 Skull. — The skull in Zaloplius calif ornianus, as compared witli the skull in allied genera, is remarkable for the narrow- ness and great elongation of the facial portion, which is even much more elongated and slenderer than in ArctocepTialus. In its general configuration (excepting, of course, the great devel- opment of the sagittal and occipital crests in the very old males) it more resembles the Arctocephaline type than any other. The maximum breadth (*. e., at the zygomata) in the females barely equals or falls a little short of half the length, while in the old males it rather exceeds this proportion. In very old males the crests of the skull are enormously developed, and, con- trary to what usually obtains in the other genera of this family, are considerably developed in very old females. The superior outline (in old males) slopes rapidly from the high sagittal crest to the end of the nasals. The postorbital processes are long and rather narrow, and are directed backward in old agej the nasals are long and narrow, decreasing in width posteriorly. The superior edge of the intermaxillge is very narrow, and is prolonged backward nearly to the middle of the nasals. The postorbital cylinder is long and narrow, and often abruptly contracted posteriorly. The bony palate is nearly flat, but httle depressed, and is rather deeply emarginate posteriorly. The 'Specimen No. 6159, Coll. Mus. Comp. Zoology. 284 ZALOPHUS CALIFORNIANUS CALIFORNIAN SEA LION. palato-masillary suture is about opposite the hinder edge of the last molar. The pterygoid hamuli are small. The posterior uarial oi^eniug is wider than deep; the anterior has these two dimensions about equal. In Zaloj)hus the superior aspect of the skull, before the devel- oi^ment of the crest, is strikingly like that of Arcfocephalus, as indeed is also the inferior aspect, aside from the dental for- mula. In ZalopJms the auditory bullae are rather less swollen than in Arctocephalus, but in all other respects there is a strik- ing resemblance. The anteorbital portion of the skull, how- ever, is more attenuated, and relatively much longer. With this exception there is little difference in the general confor- mation of the skull in middle-aged females of these two genera, while both differ widely from Otaria, Uumetopias, and CallorM- nus. The great development of the crests of the skull late in life in ZalopJms gives it at that time a highly peculiar confor- mation. SKULL. 285 O t) W Pi o s s S 9 bo • fcX) O <1> to I— ( o t>5 © to . i> ^ •;saio XB^tdpoo jo [jtiSpg CO 00 O O O CO iH •saxjfpuoo 0% A'Bf ja^ox jo q:)ga9'2 OTi4: CS 1^ « bo -d ,a S f ) cS O 0 >; § tJL o o 1 .2 o m o > (Jl a2 •-! ^ □ t>= P. d a s tion seems to be based wholly upon this figure. Immediately preceding this is his description of the "Otarie de Steller, Otaria Stellerii, X.; Lion Marin, Leo marinus, Steller, de Bestils Marims,^^ etc., which closes with "Peut-etre I'Otarie de Steller est-il identique avec I'Otarie suivantf " While it may be urged that the Eumetopias steUeri also occurs in San Francisco Bay, Choris does not seem to have recognized it there, while he did observe a species that seemed to him to be different from the Sea Lions and Sea Bears of the Aleutian Islands, and in describing these differences he has indicated most clearly the distinctive i)oints of diflerence, as seen in the living animals, between these species. Furthermore, it turns out that the Zaiophus giUespii, auct., is still the common species of that locality and of the California coast generally. On this point Mr. Elliott, who has had ami)le opportunity of observing both species in life, t says: "I have no hesitation in i)utting this Eumetopias of the Prybilov Islands apart from the Sea Lion common at San Francisco and Santa Barbara, as a distinct animal," but adds, " I am not to be understood as saying that all the Sea Lions met with on the Californian coast are dif- } ferent from E. stelleri of Bering Sea. I am well satisfied that stragglers from the north are down on the Farallones, but they are not migrating back and forth every season ; and I am fur- ; thermore certain that not a single animal of the species most common at San Francisco was present among those breeding on the Prybilov Islands in 1872-'73."| If I am right in considering the Zaiophus gillespii, auct., as identical with Otaria californiana of Lesson, of which I think there is no reasonable doubt, the synonymy of this species has ' narrowly escaped further complications, Dr. GiU, in his first [mention of Eumetopias, saying: "Type, Otaria californiana I *Dict. class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 420. ^^ +1 have in hand, colored drawings of both species, made by hiiu from life, I which he has kindly placed at my disjiosal. ', t Cond. of Aflairs in Alaska, i>. 158. GENERAL HISTORY. 293 Lesson = Arctoceplialus montenensis Gray." But he cites as type of ZaIo2)hus, in the same connection, " Otaria Gillespii Macbain," and subsequently, in the same paper, so character- izes his genera Eumetopias and Zalophus as to leave no doubt that Enmetoiyias relates to the Otaria stelleri of Midler, and Zalojyhus to the Otaria gillespii of M'Bain. He fiu'ther says that his Eumetopias califormanus "is identical with the Otaria monteriensis of Gray, and possibly also with Otaria Stelleri Midler."* The Otaria stelleri of the Fauna Japonica is unquestionably a Zalophus and not a Eumetopias, but is probably not identical with the Zalophus of the California coast, although, as already stated, so considered by Peters, t Not only do the skulls figured by Temminek show that the species is not Eumetopias stelleri, but his comparative remarks respecting its relationship to 0. juhata indicate unmistakably the same thing. Although I at one time accepted Peters's determination of Temminck's Otaria stelleri, a subsequent examination, in the light of much uew material and information, has led me to doubt its correct- ness. The range of Zalophus ealifornianus { = gillespii) has not been reported as extending northward on the American coast beyond California, and no specimens of this species (except one cited by Gray, the identification of which seems open to ques- tion) have been thus far recognized from Japan or any portion of the Asiatic coast. Temminek, with good series of the Japan species and of the Zalophus lobatus before him (he seems not to have had the true E. stelleri), was unable to recognize any ap- preciable differences between them. In comparing his Otaria stelleri with the Otaria australis of Quoy and Gaimard, he says: "TJn crane absolument semblable a celui figure paries voyageurs dont nous venous de parler [Quoy et Gaimard] a ete d^crit sous le nom d'Arctocephalus lobatus, par Gray, Spic. Zool., I, p. 1, pi. 4, fig. 2 et 2 a; ce crane provenant de la collection de feu Brookes fait maintenant partie du Musee des Pays-Bas ; il ne se distingue en effet par aucun caractere essentiel de celui de * Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, pp. 7, 11, and 13 (footnote). t Peters says: " Uebrigens zweifle icli jetzt aucli gar nicht mehr daran, dass O. GiUiespii Macbain nnd 0. japonica Schlegel [Ms. = 0. stelleri, Fauna Japonica] zu derselben Art gelioren, da die Schadel beider niclit alleiu in der Form, sondern anch in der Grtisse miteinander iibereinstimmen. Denn der alte Scliiidel von O. Gilliespii ist 0.™ 295 lang, wiibrend alte Schiidel des Leidoner Museums von 0. japonica 0.™ 270 bis 0.™ 310 lang siud." — Monatsh. Akad. Berlin, 1S66, j). 669. 294 ZALOPHUS CALiFORNIANUS — CALIFORNIAN SEA LION. I'Otaria australis ct de ceux de I'Otarie de Steller, tires de nos individus du Japon. Le Musee des Pays-Bas enfin vient de recevoir, comuie nous I'avons constate plus haut, un tres-jeuno individu d'une Otarie, prise sur les iles Houtman i)res de la cote occidentale de la IJ^ouvelle Hollande, et qui ne parait differer ni de I'Otarie australe de Quoy et Gaimard, ni du Lion marin de Steller. II parait resulter de ces donnees que TOtarie de Steller n'habite pas seulement le nord de I'ocean pacifique, mais qu'elle se trouve aussi dans les parties australes de cette mer."* It appears to me i»robable that if we change the phrase "I'Otarie de Steller" in the last sentences above quoted to read Zalo- phus lohatus, we have the case correctly stated.t Indeed, Gray, in his earlier papers (down to 1866), positively referred the Otaria stelleri of Temminck to his Arctocephalns lohatus. Later | he says it "includes both the Australian Eared Seals, viz, ArctocepJialus cinereus and WeopJwca lobata,'' but finally § doubt- *Faun. Jap., Mam. Marins, p. 8. t Just what Temminck's young skulls referred to Otaria stelleri are seems not so clear, they having six superior molars on each side. As elsewhere stated, I have found supernumerary molars in about one skull in ten in adult specimens of Zaloplms californianus, and occasionally in other species of Eared Seals, hut Temminck describes all his four young skulls as having each six superior molars on each side, or alveoli indicating their recent I)resence, but the probabilities are entirely against the sixth being super- numerary. In referring to his ' ' Otaria stelleri, " he says : ' ' la sixieme molaire de la machoire su]i6rieure est sujette atomber al'^poque de I'apparition des dents iJermanents," and gives this as one of the characters which distin- guish it from O. juhata. What he had before him is hard to recognize, for the skulls he described had long passed Ihe age when all traces of the tem- porary dentition are lost. It is only supposable that the young skulls be- longed to some six-molared sjiecies ; for no si^ecies of Otary is known to lose at any stage the hinder parr of upper permanent molars, and thus undergo a change in the dental formula from M. ^^i^ to M. ^szA . At one *=> '^ 5 — 5 5 — 5 time (Bull. Mas. Comp. Zool., vol. ii, p. G2) I thought it probable that the young skull here ligured (as well as the other young skulls Temminck de- scribes) might have been that of Callorhinns ursinus, but the form of the nasals and the frontal extension of the interinaxillaries in the one figured show that such could not have been the case. Dr. Gray at one time re- ferred it without doubt to ArctocepJialus cinereus, which is probably its cor- rect allocation, although later he doubtfully assigned it to his Phocarctos elongatus (Hand-List, 1S74, p. 31), but a little further on in the same work (p. 42) he says, ''figures 5 and 6 [of Temminck's plate xxii] are evidently Gt/psophoca," l)ut thinks they may belong to an undescribed species. tSuppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, p. 24. ^ Hand-List of Seals, 1B7G, p. 42. GENERAL HISTORY. 295 fully accepted Peters's reference of it to the Zalophus giUeHpii. Peters liimself first (in 1867) referred the species (except the figure of the young skulls) to Zalophus lohatus^ which were as- signed to Arctoceplialus cinereus, but later, as above stated, he identified it with ZaJoplms gillespii. * The references to this species are still very few. Aside from Choris's account, and Lesson's (based on Ohoris's) and Fischer's (based on Lesson's) and Temminck's, the first of importance is M'Bain's descriiition of a skull from California in 1858, which specimen was redescribed and figured from a cast by Graj', in 1859. Dr. Gray, as late as 1871, t appears to have seen only this specimen, but in 1874 J cites (without full description) a skull from Japan. § Aside from this its Japan record still rests wholly on Dr. Peters's determination of "Schlegel's" {%. e., Temminck's II) specimens in the Ley den Museum. Dr. Gill, in 1866, had examined a skull from California in the museum of the Smithsonian Institution, which led him to separate the species generically from the other Eared Seals. This skull, and another (belonging to the museum of the Chicago Acad- emy of Sciences), also from California, I was able to describe in detail in 1870. *i\ These Californian skuUs are the only ones thus far described, ** butScammon,inhis ''Marine Mammalia," under the name ^^ Eumetopias steUeri,''^ has given detailed measure- *Mouatsb. der Akacl. der Wissenscli. zu Berlin, 1866, (1867), pp. 272, 276, 668. t Supj)!. Cat. Seals and Whales, p. 28. t Hand-List of Seals, j). 41. § "1589&. Skull, 12i^ iuclies long, with canines very large ; no other teeth ; no lower jaw; frontal crest very high. Japan, 73. 3. 12. 1." II Dr. Peters cites Schlegel as the author of that part of the "Fauna Ja- ponica" relating to the Mammals, although published as "par C. J. Tem- minck." Misled by Peters, I made the same en-or in my paper on the Eared Seals, published in 1870. HThey were not figured in the regular edition of my x^aper on the Eared Seals (Bull. Mus. Comp. ZooL, vol. ii, No. 1), but two photographic plates, representing both specimens, were added to afewof the author's copies (about twenty-five), Avhich were sent to some of the more prominent workers in this field. These interpolated plates have been referred to by Dr. Gray (Hand- List of Seals, p. 42) as though they formed a part of the original work. * * During the last year, I may here add, as an indication of the amount of material relating to this species now accessible, that I have examined not less than a dozen skins, representing adults of both sexes, and young of various ages from a foetal specimen upward, and more than twenty skulls, likewise embracing young, even with the milk dentition, and both sexes of various ages, aud two comiilete skeletons. 296 zALOPnus californianus — californtan sea lion. ments of what I take to be examples of tliis species from the Farallone and Santa Barbara Islands. * Habits. — Several more or less full accounts of the habits of the Californian Sea Lions have been given by different writers, who have, however, failed to distinguish the two species occur- ring along the Californian coast, and consequently their descrip- tions are not wholly satisfactory. The large Northern species certainly occurs, and rears its young, as far south as the Faral- lones, but probably exists there onlj- in small numbers, while I have seen no evidence of its presence at Santa Barbara Island. Even Captain Scammon, in his account of the Sea Lions of California, has not distintly recognized the two species occur- * Captaiu Scammou published his first account of the Sea Lious in the "Overland Monthly" magazine (vol. viii, pp. 268-272, March, 1872), in an ar- ticle entitled "About Sea Lions," which is substantially the same as that in the "Marine Mammalia," with the omission of figures and about two pages of tabulated measurements and other details, based on specimens subse- quently obtained at the Farallone and Santa Barbara Islands. In a foot- note in the "Marine Mammalia" (p. 125), he refers to his former article as follows: "Since the publication of the article 'About Sea Lions,' in the 'Overland Monthly' of September, 1871 [lege March, 1872!], we have had opportunity of making additional observations upon these animals at the Farallone Islands, where we saw the largest females we have ever met with on the California coast. Hence, what we have formerly taken to be the Eumetopias Stelleri may prove to be the Zalophus GiUcspii 'I ; but if such be the fact, both species inhabit the coast of California, at least as far south as the Farallones. Moreover, both species, if we may be allowed the expres- sion, herd together in the same rookeries. On making a series of observa- tions upon the outward forms of Sea Lions, it will be found that a confusing variety exists in the figures of these very interesting animals, especially in the shape of the head — some having a short muzzle with a full forehead ^Eumetojnas steUei-i'] ; others with forehead and nose somewhat elongated {^Zalophus californianus ^=giUespi, auct.]; and still others of a modified shape, between the two extremes \_E. stelleri, female ?]." In this connection it may be noted that four of the five specimens of which Captain Scammon gives measurements in the "Marine Mammalia," were taken after the publication of the article in the "Overland Monthly," namely, No. 1, "full-grown male," Farallones, July 17, 1872; Xo. 3, male "about ten months old," Santa Bar- bara Island, April 4, 1872; No. 1 Ms, female, supposed to be a yearling, and No. 2 Ms, female, new-born pup, same locality, May 3, 1873. The other. No. 2 (referred to in the "Overland Monthly" paper), adult female, Santa Barbara Island, April 12, 1871. The first (No. 1, full-grown male) I refer with little hesitation to E. stelleri, and the second (No. 2, adult female), to Z. califor- nianus, especially as I find skulls in the National Museum, received from Captain Scammon, agreeing respectively with these in locality, sex, and HABITS. 297 ring there, and his description doubtless refers in part to both species, but unquestionably relates mainly to the present one.* His " Sketch of a sealing- season upon Santa Barbara Island," in 1852, presumabV^^ relates exclusively to Zalophus calif or - nianus, but in addition to this I quote a few paragraphs from his general account of "the Sea Lion," since it is the testimony of a trustworthy eye-witness. "On approaching an island, or point, occux^ied by a numerous herd," he observes, " one first hears their long, plaintive bowlings, as if in distress ; but when near them, the sounds become more varied and deafening. The old males roar so loudly as to drown the noise of the heaviest surf among the rocks and caverns, and the younger of both sexes, together with the 'clapmatches,' croak hoarsely, or send forth sounds like the bleating of sheep or the barking of dogs ; in fact, their tumultuous utterances are beyond description. A rookery of matured animals presents a ferocious and defiant appearance ; but usually at the approach of man they become alarmed, and, if not opposed in their escape, roll, tumble, and sometimes make fearful leaps from high jirecipitous rocks to hasten their flight. Like all the others of the Seal tribe, they are gregarious, and gather in the largest numbers during the ' pupping season,' which varies in different latitudes. On the California coast it is from May to August, inclusive, and upon the shores of Alaska it is said to be from June to October, dur- ing Avhich period the females bring forth their young, nurse them, associate with the valiant males, and both unite in the care of the little ones, keeping a wary guard, and teaching them, by their own i>arental actions, how to move over the broken, slimy, rock-bound shore, or upon the sandy, pebbly beaches, and to dive and gambol amid the surf and rolling ground-swells. At first the pups manifest great aversion to the water, but soon, instinctively, become active and playful in the element; so by the time the season is over, the juvenile crea- tures disappear with the greater portion of the old ones, only a few of the vast herd remaining at the favorite resorts through- out the year. During the pupping season, both males and fe- males, so far as we could ascertain, take but little if any food, particularly the males, though the females hav^e been observed * That Captain Scammon confouiiderl the. two species of Northern Sea Lions is evident not only from his published -writings, but from his having transmitted to the National Museum specimens oi Znlnphm from Santa Bar- bara Island, labelled by him ^^ Eumetoplm sfellcri.^' 298 ZALOPPIUS CALIFORNIANUS CALIFORNIAN SEA LION. to leave their charges and go off, apparently in search of sub- sistence, but they do riot venture far from their young ones. That the Sea Lion can go without food for a long time is un- questionable. One of the superintendents of Woodward's Gar- dens informed me that in numerous instances they had received Sea Lions into the aquarium which did not eai a morsel of nour- ishment during a whole month, and aj)peared to suffer but little inconvenience from their long fast. "As the time approaches for their annual assemblage, those returning or coming from abroad are seen near the shores, ap- pearing wild and shy. Soon after, however, the females gather upon the beaches, cliffs, or rocks, when the battles among the old males begin for the supreme control of the harems; these struggles often lasting for days, the fight being kept uj) until one or both become exhausted, but is renewed again when suf- ficiently recuperated for another attack ; and, really, the atti- tudes assumed and the passes made at each other, equal the amplification of a professional fencer. The combat lasts until both become disabled or one is driven from the ground, or per- haps both become so reduced that a third party, fresli from his winter migration, drives them from the coveted charge. The vanquished animals then slink off to some retired spot as if dis- graced. ISTevertheless, at times, two or more will have charge of the same rookery; but in such instances frequent defiant growlings and petty battles occur. So far as we have observed upon the Sea Lions of the California coast, there is but little at- tachment manifested between the sexes ; indeed, much of the Turkish nature is apparent, but the females show some affec- tion for their offspring, yet, if alarmed when upon the land, they will instantly desert them and take to the water. The young cubs, on the other hand, are the most fractious and savage little creatures imaginable, especially if awakened from their nearly continuous sleeping; and frequently, when a mother reclines to nurse her single whelp, a swarm of others will perhaps contend for the same favor. "To give a more detailed and extended account of the Sea. Lions we will relate a brief sketch of a sealing season on Santa Barbara Island. It was near the end of May, 1852, when we arrived, and soon after the rookeries of ' clapmatches,' which were scattered around the island, began to augment, and large numbers of huge males made their appearance, belching forth sharp, ugly howls, and leaping out of or dart- HABITS. 299 ing tlirougli tlie water witli surprising velocity, frequently diving outside the rollers, the next moment emerging from the crest of the foaming breakers, and waddling up the beach with head erect, or, with seeming effort, climbing some kelp-fringed rock, to doze in the scorching sunbeams, while others woidd lie sleeping or playing among the beds of sea- weed, with their heads and outstretched limbs above the sur- face. But a few days elapsed before a general contention with the adult males began for the mastery of the different rooker- ies, and the victims of the bloody encounter were to be seen on all sides of the island, with torn lips or mutilated limbs and gashed sides, while now and then an unfortunate creature would be met with minus an eye or with the orb forced from its socket, and, together with other wounds, presenting a ghastly appearance. As the time for ' hauling-up ' drew near, the island became one mass of animation ; every beach, rock, and cliff, where a seal could find foothold, became its resting-place, while a countless herd of old males capped the summit, and the united clamorings of the vast assemblage could he heard, on a calm day, for miles at sea. The south side of the island is high and preciiiitous, with a projecting ledge hardly perceptible from the beach below, upon which one immense Sea Lion man- ■ aged to climb, and there remained for several weeks — until the season was over. How he ascended, or in what manner he re- tired to the Avater, was a mystery to our numerous ship's crew, as he came and went in the night ; for ' Old Gray,' as named by the sailors, was closely watched in his elevated position dur- ing the time the meu were engaged at their work on shore. * " None but the adult males Avere captured, which was usually done by shooting them in the ear or near it; for a ball in any other part of the body had no more effect than it would in a Grizzly Bear. Occasionally, however, they are taken with the club and lance, only shooting a few of the masters of the herd. " * Eelative to tlie Sea Lious leaping from giddy lieiglits, an incident oc- cnrred at Santa Barbara Island, the last of the season of 1852, which we will here mention. A rookerj- of about twenty individuals was collected on the brink of a precipitous clift', at a height at least of sixty feet above the rocks which shelved from the beach below; and our party were sure in their own minds, that, by surprising the animals, we could drive them over the cliff. This was easily accomplished ; but, to our chagrin, when we arrived at the point below, where we expected to find the huge beasts help- lessly mutilated, or killed outright, the last animal of the whole rookery was seen idungiug into the sea." 300 ZALOPHUS CALIFORNIANUS CALIF 3RNIAN SEA LION. This is easily accoinplislied with an experienced crew, if there is sufficieut ground back from the beach for the animals to re- treat. During our stay, an instance occurred, which not only displayed the sagacity of the animals, but also their yielding- disposition, when hard pressed in certain situations, as if nat- urally designed to be slain in numbers equal to the demands of their human pursuers. On the south of Santa Barbara Island was a plateau, elevated less than a hundred feet above the sea, stretching to the brink of a clift' that overhung the shore, and a narrow gorge leading up from the beach, through which the animals crowded to their favorite resting-place. As the sun dipped behind the hills, fifty to a hundred males would congre- gate upon the spot, and there remain until the boats were low- ered in the morning, when immediately the whole herd Avould quietly slip off into the sea and gambol about during the day, returning as they saw the boats again leave the island for the ship. Several unsuccessful attempts had been made to take them ; but at last a fresh breeze commenced blowing directly from the shore, and prevented their scenting the hunters, who landed some distance from the rookery, then cautiously ad- vanced, and suddenly yelling, and flourishing muskets, clubs, and lances, rushed up within a few yards of them, while the pleading creatures, with lolling tongues and glaring eyes, were (piite overcome with dismay, and remained nearly motionless. At last, two overgrown males broke through the line formed by the men, but they paid the i)enalty with their lives before reaching the water. A few moments passed, when all hands moved slowly toward the rookery, which as slowly retreated. This maneuvre is termed ' turning them,' and, when once accom- l)lished, the disheartened creatures appear to abandon all hope of escape, and resign themselves to their fate. The herd at this time numbered seventy-five, which were soon dispatched, by shooting tlie largest ones, and clubbing and lancing the others, save one young Sea Lion, which was spared to see whether he would make any resistance by being driven over the hills beyond. The poor creature only moved along through the prickly i)ears that covered the ground, when compelled by his cruel i)ursuers ; and, at last, with an imploring look and writhing in pain, it held out its fin-like arms, which were pierced with thorns, in such a manner as to touch the sympathy of the barbarous sealers, who instantly put the sufferer out of its mis- ery by a stroke of a heavy club. As soon as the animal is HABITS. 301 killed, tlie longest spires of its whiskers are pnlled oat, then it is skinned, and its coating of fat cut in sections from its body and transported to the vessel, where, after being ' minced,' the oil is extracted by boiling. The testes are taken out, and, with the selected spires of whiskers, find a market in China — the former being nsed medicinally, and the latter for personal orna- ments. "At the close of the season — which lasts about three months, on the California coast — a large majority of the great herds, both males and females, return to the sea, and roam in all directions in quest of food, as but few of them could find sus- tenance about the waters contiguous to the islands, or i)oints on the mainland, which are their annual resorting-places. They liv^e upon fish, moUusks, crustaceans, and sea-fowls ; always with the addition of a few pebbles or smooth stones, some of which are a pound in weight.* Their principal feathery food, however, is the penguin in the southern hemisphere, and the gulls in the northern ; while the manner in which they decoy and catch the gaviota of the Mexican and California coasts dis- plays no little degree of cunning. When in pnrsuit the animal dives deeply nnder water and swims some distance from where it disapi)eared ; then, rising cautiously, it exposes the tip of its nose above the surface, at the same time giving it a rotary mo- tion, like that of a water-bug at play. The unwary bird on the * "The enormous quantity of food wliicli ■would be requh'ed to maintain tlie herd of many thousands, Avhich, in former years, annually assembled at the small island of Santa Barbara, would seem incredible, if they daily obtained the allowance given to a male and female Sea Lion on exhibi- tion at AVoodward's Gardens, San Francisco, California, where the keeper informed me that he fed them regularly, every day, forty pounds of fresh fish " [That the destruction of fish by the Sea Lions on the coast of California is very great is indicated by the following item, which recently went the rounds of the newspapers: "In a recent meeting at San Francisco of the Senate Committee on Fisheries, the State Fish Commissioners, and a com- mittee representing the fishermen of the coast, the question as to the destruc- tive performances of the sea-lions in the harbor was actively discussed. One of the fishermen's representatives said that it was estimated that there were 25,000 sea-lions within a radius of a few miles, consuming from ten to forty pounds each of fish per day ; the sea-lions were protected while the fishermen were harassed by the game laws. Another witness declared that salmon captured in the Sacramento river often bore the marks of injury from sea-lions, having barely escaped with life; but it was supposed that the salmon less frequently fell victims to the amphibian than did other fishes that cannot swim as fast." — Country, January 26, 1878.] 502 ZALOPHUS CALIFOKNIANUS CALIFORNIAN SEA LION. wing, seeing tlie object near by, alights to catch it, while the Sea Lion at the same moment settles beneath the waves, and at one bound, with extended jaws, seizes its screaming prey, and instantly devours it.[*] " A few years ago great numbers of Sea Lions were taken along the coast of Upper and Lower California, and thousands of barrels of oil obtained. The number of Seals slain exclu- sively for their oil would apjpear fabulous, when we realize the fact that it requires on an average, throughout the season, the blubber of three or four Sea Lions to produce a barrel of oil. Their thick, coarse-grained skins were not considered worth preparing for market, in a country where manual labor was so highly valued. At the present time, however, they are valued for glue-stock, and the seal-hunters now realize more compara- tive profit from the hides than from the oil. But while the civilized sealers, plying their vocation along the seaboard of California and Mexico, destroy the Lobo mcwino, for the x>roduct of its oil, skin, testes, and whiskers, the simple Aleutians of the Alaska region derive from these animals many of their in- dispensable articles of domestic use "t To Captain Scammon's graphic account I add a few lines from the pen of a non-scientific writer respecting the Sea Lions of the Farallones: "The Sea Lions, which congregate by thou- sands upon the cliffs, and bark and howl and shriek and roar in the caves and upon the steep sunny slopes, are but little dis- turbed, and one can easily aj)proach them within twenty or thirty yards. It is an extraordinarily interesting sight to see these marine monsters, many of them bigger than an ox, at play in the surf, and to watch the superb skill with which they know how to control their own motions when a huge wave seizes them, and seems likely to dash them to pieces against the rocks. They love to lie in the sun upon the bare and warm rocks ; and here they sleep, crowded together, and lying upon each other in inextricable confusion. The bigger the animal the greater his ambition appears to be to chmb to the highest summit ; and when a huge, slimy beast has with infinite squirm- ing attained a solitary peak, he does not tire of raising his [* This account appeared originally in Captain Scammon's account of tlie "Islands off tlie West coast of Lower California," in J. Eoss Browne's "Ee- sources of the Pacific Slope/' second part, p. 130 (1869), and has been quoted by Mr. Gurney in the ''Zoologist" for 1871, p. 2762.] t Marine Mammalia, pp. 130-135. HABITS. 303 sharp - pointed, maggot -like head, aud comphiceiitly looking about him. They are a rough set of brutes, — rank bullies, I should saj^ ; for I have watched them repeatedly, as a big fel- low shouldered his way among his fellows, reared his huge front to intimidate some lesser seal which had secured a favorite sjjot, and first with howls, and if this did not suffice, with teeth and main force, expelled the weaker from his lodgment. The smaller Sea Lions, at least those wliich have left their mothers, appear to have no rights which any one is bound to respect. They get out of the way with abject promptness, which proves that they live in terror of the stronger members of the community; but they do not give up their places without harsh complaint aud piteous groans."* Dr. John A. Veatch, in his account of the Cerros or Cedros Island, situated off the coast of Lower California (between the parallels of 28° and 2S^o), doubtless refers to this species uuder the name of Otariajuhata. He says : " He [the Sea Lion] is more prolific [than the Sea Elephant], aud there are fewer induce- ments for his destruction. He is, however, by no means beyond danger from the oil-man. At certain seasons, when the Lion chances to have a little fat on his bones, he is slaughtered most mercilessly. Fortunately for him his skin is nearl}^ worth- less, or tliere would be double inducement for his destruction. Toward the north end of the island there is a great breeding- place for these animals. It is a small bay, two or three miles in length, and perhaps three-fourths of a mile in breadth, sur- rounded on the land by a i)erpendicular cliff, and on the ocean- side by a belt of kelp. It is thus protected both from winds and waves. It is bordered with a sandy beach, some 200 paces in breadth. The access by land is exceedingly difficult, and can only be gained by careful clambering down where breaks and fissures offer hand and foot-hold. This sequestered aud quiet place is the comfortable and appropriate resort of the lionesses to bring forth and rear their young. It is, indeed, a great seal- luirsery. JNIy first visit to this interesting locality was in the latter part of the month of July [1859]. Seals, in countless uumbers, literally covered the beach. They were of everj' con- ceivable size, from the young ones, seemingly a few days old, np to the full-grown animal. So unconscious of danger were the little ones, that they scarce made au effort to get out of the * Charles Nordhoff, "The Farallon Islands," in Harper's Magazine, vol. xlviii, p. 620, April, 1874. 304 ZALOPHUS CALIFORNIANUS CALIFOENIAN SEA LION, way. I ]jic*ked up many of them in my Lands; after a brief strnggle, the little captive would yield, and seemed to fear na further harm. Hundreds slept so soundly that I rolled them over before they could be induced to open their great baby eyes. While thousands slept and basked on the shore, an equal number floated lazily in the water, or dipped and dived about in sport. "The mother-seals were more timid than their joung, but ' seemed less alarmed than surprised at my approach. The look : of startled inquiry was so human and feminine — nay, lady-like, that I felt like an intruder on the privacy of the nursery. ' "I could not discover any individual claim set up by the - mother for any particular little lion, but, like a great socialistic community, maternal love seemed to be joint-stock property, and each infant communist had a mother in every adult female. 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H !h 00 o ft '* ■a o =3 •jeqnmu 9tiSoxb:jbo 832 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. Geographical Distribution and Migration. — The Fur Seal is well known to have been formerly abundant on the western coast of North America, as far south as California, but the exact southern limit of their range I have been unable to determine. Captain Scammon speaks of having seen them " on one of the San Benito Islands, on the coast of Lower Califor- nia," and again says, " On the coast of California many beaches were found fronting gullies, where [Fur] Seals in large numbers formerly gathered ; and, as they there had plenty of ground to retreat upon, the sealers sometimes drove them far enough back to make sure of the whole herd, or that portion of them the skins of which were desirable."* He also states that the ** Fur Seal and Sea Elephant once made the shores [of Guadalupe Island] a favorite resorting-place," and refers to their former occurrence on Cedros Island, in latitude 28°.t Although at one time abundant on the California coast, they are by no means numerous there now, having been nearly exterminated by un- restricted destruction by the sealers. The writer above cited refers also to their capture by the Indians at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Seals appear here and on the neighboring coast, he adds, " some years as early as the first of March, and more or less remain till July or August ', but they are most plentiful in April and May. During these two months the Indians devote nearly all their time to sealing when the weather will permit." He reports their increase there in later years, and that while only a few dozens were annually taken there from 1843 to 1864, fully five thousand were taken in 1869.| Captain Bryant has given a similar report, referring especially to their abundance along the coasts of Oregon, Washington Territory, and British Columbia in 1869, as compared with for- mer years. He says those taken "were mostly very young Seals, none appearing to be over a year old. Formerly in March and April the natives of Puget Sound took large num- bers of pregnant females, § but no places where they have resorted to breed seem to be known off this coast." He thinks it probable, however, that they may occupy rocky ledges off * Marine Mamin. , pp. 152, 154. t J. Ross Browne's Resources of the Pacific Slope, second part, p. 128. t Marine Mamm., p. 154. § There are six skiills in the National Museum from Puget Sound and the neighboring coast (collected at several different points by Messrs. Scammon an Swan), all of which are females. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 333 shore which are rarely visited by boats.* In his MS. report just received he states that a half-breed hunter told him that he found in summer " on Queen Charlotte's Island, groups of these animals consisting of two or more beach-masters with a dozen or more females and pups, but no half-grown males." As is well known, the Prybilov or so-caUed " Fur Seal Isl- ands," off the coast of Alaska, form the great breeding-ground of the Fur Seals, to which hundreds of thousands annually resort to bring forth their young. The Prybilov Group con- sists of four small islands, known respectively as Saint Paul's, Saint George's, Otter, and Walrus Islands. The two last named are of small size, and are not used as breeding-grounds by the Seals, although Otter Island is visited by a large number of" non- breeding Seals." Saint Paul's Island is the largest, containing an area of about 33 square mUes, and having a coast-line of about forty-two miles, nearly one-half of which is sand-beach. Of this, sixteen and a half miles, according to Mr. Elliott, are occupied in the breeding-season by the Fur Seals. Saint George's Island is somewhat smaller, with only twenty-nine miles of shore-line. It presents a bold coast, a grand wall of basalt extending continuously for ten miles, with no passage- way from the sea. It has, in aU, less than a mile of sand-beach, and only two and a quarter miles of eligible landing grounds^ for the Seals. A few old male Fur Seals are said to make their appearance at the rookeries on these islands between the 1st and 15th of May, they acting, as it were, the part of pioneers, since their number is not much increased before the first of June. At about this date, and with the setting in of the humid, foggy weather of summer, the male Seals begin to land by " hundreds and thousands," to await the arrival of the females, which do not appear before about July first. The young are born soon after, and toward the last of this month the rookeries begin to> lose their compactness and definite boundaries, but they are not fully broken up till about the middle of September. The Seals begin to leave the islands about the end of October, the greater x)roportion departing in November, while some remain till the end of the following month, and even later. The number of Fur Seals i)resent on Saint Paul's Island in July, 1872, was estimated by Mr. Elliott to exceed three million^ and on Saint George's Island in July, 1873, at about one hun- * BuU. Mus. Comp. Zool., ii, p. 88. 334 CALLOEHINUS UESINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. dred and sixty-tbree thousand.* Although these islandi? form by far their most populous resorts, they are said to occur in considerable numbers on some of the islands to the northward, but I am unable to find definite statements as to their numbers or favorite stations. Mr. Elliott, after examining Saint Mathew's and Saint Lawrence Islands, became convinced that they were not only not resorted to as breeding stations by the Fur Seals, but that these islands, by their constitution and climatic condi- tions, were unsuitable for this purj^ose, and adds, " it may be safely said that no land of ours in the north is adapted to the wants of that animal, except that of Saint Paul and Saint George."t Mr. W. H. Dall states that " They have never been found in Bering Strait, or within three hundred miles of it."| In early times these animals are well known to have been abundant on Behring's and Copper Islands. According to Ki^aschenini- kow, they were so numerous upon Behring's Island about the middle of the last century as to cover the whole southern shore of the island. Their range on the Asiatic coast is given by Stel- ler and others as extending southward along the Kamtschatkan coast to the Kurile Islands. Krascheninikow states that they \ * As of interest in the present connection, I quote tl^e following from Dam- pier respecting the abundance of the Southern Fur Seal at the Island of Juan Fernandez, two hundred years ago, or about a century before tjie beginning of the Seal slaughter there, which in less than a generation nearly exterminated the species at that locality. Dampier and his party spent fifteen days on this island in the year 1683. He says: "Seals swarm as thick about this Island [ " of John Fernando," as he terms it, ] as if they had no other jdace in the World to live in ; for there is not a Bay nor Rock that one can get ashoar on, but is full of them. . . . These at John Fernan- do's, have fine thick short Furr ; the like I have not taken notice of any where but in these Seas. Here are always thousands, I might say j)ossibly millions of them, either sitting on the Bays, or going and coming in the Sea round the Island, which is covered with them (as they lie at the top of the Water play- ing and sunning themselves) for a mile or two from the shore. When they come out of the Sea they bleat like Sheep for their young ; and though they pass through hundreds of others young ones before they come to their own, yet they will not suiler any of them to suck. The young ones are like Puppies, and lie much ashore, but when beaten by any of us, they, as well as the old ones, will make towards the Sea, and swim very swift and nimble ; tho' on shore they lie very sluggishly, and will not go out of our way unless Ave beat them, but snap at us. A blow on the Nose soon kills them. Large Ships might here load themselves with Seals Skins and Trane- oyl; for they are extraordinary fat."— ^ Neiv Voyage Bound the World, ''fifth edition, corrected," 1703, vol. i, pp. 88, 90. t Cond. of Aff. in Alaska, pp. 217, 224. ; Alaska and its Resources, p. 493. GENEEAI. HISTORY. 335 appei»red there, however, only in spring and in September, none being seen there from the beginning of June till the end of August, at which time he says they return from the south with their young. Yon Schrenck speaks of their occurrence in the Ochotsk Sea and the Tartarian Gulf as far south as the 46th degree of latitude, or to the southern point of Saghalien Island. The natives reported to him the occurrence of great numbers of the animals on the eastern coast of that island. Captain Scammon also refers to their abundance twenty years since on the eastern side of Saghalien.* Except during the season of reproduction, these animals ap- pear to lead a wandering life, but the extent and direction of their migrations are not yet well known. Steller spoke of their migrations as being as regular as those of the various kinds of sea-fowl, and they are recorded as arriving with great regularity at the Prybilov Islands, but where they pass the season of winter is still a matter of conjecture. General History. — The Xorthern Fur Seal was first made known to science by Steller in 1751, under the name Urstis marinus. During his visit to Kamtschatka and its neighboring islands, in 1742, he met with these animals in great numbers * Captain Scammou relates in an oif-hand way, merely as an interesting incident of sealing life, the following : "In the midst of the Crimean War, an enterprising firm in New London, Connecticnt, fitted ont a clipper bark, which was officered and manned expressly for a sealing voyage in the Okhotsk Sea. The captain was a veteran in the business, and many thonght him too old to command, bnt the result of the voyage proved him equal to the task. The vessel proceeded to Robin Island — a mere volcanic rock, situ^ ated on the eastern side of the large island of Saghalien. Many outlying rocks and reefs are about it, making it dangerous to approach, and affording but slight shelter for an anchorage. Here the vessel (of about three hun- dred tons) lay, with ground-tackle of the weight for a craft of twice her size. Much of the time fresh winds prevailed, accompanied by the usual ugly ground-swell ; and, in consequence of her being long, low, and sharp, the deck was at such times frequently flooded ; nevertheless, she ' rode-out the whole season, though wet as a half-tide rock,' and a. valuable cargo of skins was procured, which brought an unusually high price in the Etiropean market, on account of the regular Russian supply being cut off in conse- quence of the war. This is only given as one of the many that may be re- lated of sealing life." — Marine Mammalia, pp. 150-152. In this connection I can hardly help adding that it is to be regretted that Captain Scammon has not favored us with more of these "incidents," from the important bear- ing they have upon the former distribution and abundance of this and other species of Seal, and that he has not given more explicit references to the localities at which the Fur Seals were formerly hunted on the southern por- tion of the North American coast and elsewhere. 336 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. at Behring's Island, where he spent some time among them", and carefully studied their habits and anatomy, a detailed account of which appeared in his celebrated memoir entitled " De Bestiis Marinis," in the Transactions of the St. Petersburg Academy for the year 1749.* This important essay was the source of nearly all of the accounts of this animal that appeared prior to the beginning of the present decade. The twenty-eight (piarto pages of Steller's memoir devoted to this species, gave not only a detailed account of its anatomy, with an extensive table of measurements, but also of its remarkable habits, and ligures of the animals themselves. A little later Krascheninikow, in his History of Kamtschatka,t under the name " Sea Cat," gave also a long account of its habits, ajiparently based mainly on Stel- ler's notes,! but it embraces a few particulars not given in "De Bestiis Marinis." Steller's descrij)tion of the habits of this animal has been largely quoted by Buffon, Pennant, Schreber^ Hamilton, and other general writers. Buflbn, Pennant, Schreber, Gmelin, and nearly all writers on the Pinnipeds, down to about 1820, confounded the Northern Fur Seal with the Fur Seals of the Southern hemisphere, blend- ing their history as that of a single species. P^ron, in 181G, first recognized it as distinct from its southern allies, and it was so treated somewhat later by Demarest, Lesson, Fischer, Gray, and other systematic writers, § but its distinctive characters were not •Nov. Comm. Acad. Petrop., ii, pp. 331-359, pi. xv, 17J>1. This, as is well known, is a posthumous paper, published six years after Steller's death, Steller dying of fever November 12, 1745, while on his way from Siberia to St. Petersburg. The description of the Sea Bear was written at Behring's Island in May, 1742. tHist. Kamtehatka (English edition), translated from the Russian hy James Grieve, pp. 123-130, 1764. t Krascheninikow, it is stated, "received all of Mr. Steller's papers," ta aid him in the preparation of his "History of Kamtschatka." SNilsson and Miiller in 1841, and Wagner in 1846 and 1849, on the other hand, still considered all the Sea Bears as belonging to a single species. Wagner, in 1849 (Arch, fiir Naturg., 1849, pp. 37-49), described the osteo- logical characters of the Northern species from three skeletons in th& Munich Museum received from Behring's Sea. One of these was apparently that of a full-grown female ; a second was believed to be that of a half-grown male, while the third belonged to a very young animal, in which the per- manent teeth were still not wholly developed. Wagner compares the species with Steller's Soa Lion, and with the figures of the skulls of the Southern Sea Bears given by F. Cuvier, Blainville, and Quoy and Gaimard, and notes various ditferences in the form of the teeth and skull, but believes that these differences must be regarded as merely variations dependent upon age. GENERAL HISTORY. 337 clearly set forth till 1859, wlieu Dr. J. E. Gray described aud figured its skidl, and showed that the Northern species was not even congeneric with the Sea Bears of tlie South. Very few specimens of either the Northern or Southern Sea Bears appear to have reached European museums prior to about that date, so that naturalists had not previously been able to make a direct comparison of this species with any of its Southern afifines. Dr. Gray, in referring to this point in 1859, wrote as follows : "I had not been able to see a specimen of this species in any of the museums which I examined on the Continent or in En^-- land, or to find a skull of the genus [Arctocephalus] from the North Pacific Ocean, yet I felt so assured, from Steller's de- scription and the -geographical position, that it must be distinct from the Eared Fur Seals from the Antarctic Ocean and Aus- tralia, with which it had usually been confounded, that in my 'Catalogue of Seals in the Collection of the British Museum' [1850] I regarded it as a distinct species, under the name of Arctocephalus ursinus, giving an abridgment of Steller's descrip- tion as its specific character." "The British Museum," he adds, "has just received, under the name Otaria leonina, from Am- sterdam, a specimen [skull and skin] of the Sea Bear from Behring's Straits, which was obtained from St. Petersburg";* which is the specimen already spoken of as figured by Dr. Gray. From the great difterences existing between this skull and those of the southern Sea Beai-s, Dr. Gray, a few weeks later, separated the northern species from the genus Aretoce- phalus, under the name CallorhinusA It seems, however, that there were two skulls of Steller's Sea Bear in the Berlin Museum as early as 1841,^ and three skeletons of the same species in the Museum of Munich in 1849,§ yet Dr. Gray appears to have been the first to compare this animal with its southern relatives, and to positively decide its affinities. Misled, however, by erroneous information respecting speci- mens of Eared Seals received at the British Museum from Cali- fornia, a skin of the Callorhinus ursinus was doubtfully described by this author, in the paper in which the name CallorUnus was proposed, as that of his Arctocephalus monteriensis, which is a *Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1859, p. 102. tlbicL, 1859, 359. I See ArcMv fur Natiirgescli., 1841, p. 334. § Ibid., 1849, 39. Misc. Pub. No. 12 22 338 CALLORHINUS UKSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. Hair Seal. This skin was accompanied by a young skull, pur- porting, by the label it bore, to belong to it, but Dr. Gray observes that otherwise he should have thought it too small to have belonged to the same animal. Seven years later,* he de- scribed the skull as that of a new species {Arctoceiilialus cali- fornianus), still associating with it, however, the skin of the C'aUorMmis urshius. The skull he subsequently considered as that of a young A. monteriensis ( = Eumetopias stelleri) j and refer- ring his A. californianus to that species, he was consequently led into the double error of regarding the Eumetopias stelleri as a Fur Seal (as alreadj^ explained under that species and else- where in the present paper), and of excluding the CallorMnns ursimis from the list of Fur Seals. To this I called attention in 1870, and in 1871 Dr. Gray correctly referred his A. monteri- ensis and A. californianus in jiart (the " skin only") to Gallo- rliinns ursinus. t What may be termed the second or modern epoch in the general history of this species began in 1869, when Captain C. M. Scammon published a highly important contribution to its biology,! he describing at considerable length, from personal observation, its habits, distribution, and products, as well as the various methods employed for its capture. The following year Mr. W. H. Dall devoted a few pages § to its history, in which he made many important suggestions relative to the sealing business. During the same year I was able to add not only something to its technical history, || but also to make pub- lic an important communication on its habits kindly placed at my disposal by Captain Charles Bryant, jj Government agent in charge of the Fur Seal Islands of Alaska. In 1874, Captain Scammon republished his above-mentioned paper,** adding thereto a transcriiit of Captain Bryant's observations already noted. Almost simultaneously with this appeared Mr. H. W. Elliott's exhaustive Eeport on the Seal Islands of Alaska,tt in " Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, p. 51. t Suppl. Cat. Seals aud Whales, p. 15 ; Hand-List of Seals, 32. X Overland Monthly, vol. ill, Nov. 1869, pp. 393-399. § Alaska and its Resources, 1870, pp. 492-498. II BuU. Mus. Comp. Zool., ii, pp. 73-89. irihid., pp. 89-108. ** Marine Mammalia, 1874, pp. 141-163. tt Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska, 4to, unpaged, 1873 [1874]. FIGURES. 339 •which the present species properly comes in for a large share of the author's attention. The work is richly illustrated with l^hotogTaphic plates, taken from Mr. Elliott's sketches, about twenty-five of which are devoted to the Fur Seal. The text of this rare and privately distributed work, has been since re- l^rinted,* with some changes and additions, and has been widely circulated. It contains very little relating to the Fur Seal that is strictly technical, but the general history of its life at the Prybilov Islands is very fully told, while the commercial or economic phase of the subject is treated at length. A few minor notices of Ihis species have since appeared (mostly popu- lar articles in illustrated magazines, chiefly from the pen of Mr. Elliott), but nothing relating to its general history requiring special notice in the i)resent connection. Figures. — The first figures of the !Rorthern Sea Bear were given by Steller, in his paper already cited. They represent an adult male, in a quite natural attitude, and a female reclining on her back. In respect to details, these early figures were naturally more or less rude and inaccurate. They were copied, however, by Buffbn, Schreber, Pennant, and other early writers, and are the onlj^ representations of this species known to me that were made prior to about the year 1839, except Choris's plate of a group of these animals entitled " Ours marins dans I'ile de St. Paul",t published in 1822. This represents three old males, surrounded by their harems, and indicates A^ery faith- fully the mode of groujiing and the ^^ariety of attitudes as- sumed hj these animals when assembled on the rookeries. Hamilton, in 1839, gave a figure of the "Sea Bear of Steller (Otaria ursimifX which he tells us is "fi:om the engra^ving of the distinguished Naturalist of the Eurick*,§ the original of which I have not seen. This represents a male and female, the latter reclining on its side, with a pup resting on its right flipper. The first figure of the skull is that published by Graj' in 1859,11 — a \dew in profile of the skuU of an adult male. A wood-cut of tlie same was given in 1866,^ and a fine lithographic * Condition of Affairs in Alaska, 1875, pp. 107-151. t Voy. pittor. autour du Monde, lies Al^ontiennes, pi. xv. X Marine AmpMbiiae, pi. xxi. § Ibid., p. 266. II Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1859, pi. Ixviii. H Cat. Seals and Whales, p. 45, fig. 16. 340 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. plate in 1874,* representing' the skull in profile, from above and from below.t In 1870 I gave figures of two adult male skulls (two views of each), of an adult female skull (three views), of a very young skull (three views), and of the scapula, dentition, etc. These, so far as known to me, are the only figures of the skull or other details of structure thus far published. In 1874 Captain Scammon gave figures of the animal, | a zinc- ograph of an old male, § from a sketch by Mr. Elliott, a wood-cut of the head of a female seen from below (drawn by Elliott), |1 two outline figures representing the female as seen from below and in profile, and two others in outline illustrating " attitudes of the Fur Seals." ^ Mr. Elliott, in his first Report on the Seal Islands, ** in a series of over two dozen large photogTaj)hic plates (from India ink sketches from nature) has given an ex- haustive presentation of the phases of Fur Seal life so faithfully studied by him at St. Paul's Island. Among these may be mentioned especially those entitled "The East Landing and Black Buttes — The beach covered with young Fur Seals"; " The North Shore of St. Paul's Island " (giving an extensive view of the rookeries); "Lukannon Beach" (Fur Seals playing in the surf, and rookeries in the distance); "Old male Fur Seal, or ' Seecatch ' " (as he appears at the end of the season after three months of fasting) ; " Fur Seal Harem " (showing the rela- tive size of males, females, and young, various attitudes, posi- tions, etc.); 'Fur Seal males, waiting for their 'harems'" (the females beginning to arrive); Fur Seal "Rookery" (breeding- grounds at Polavina Point) ; " Fur Seal Harem" (Reef Rookery, foreground showing relative size of males and females); "Fur Seal Pups at Sleep and Play"; "Hauling Grounds" (several views at different points); "Cai^turing Fur Seals"; "Driving Fur Seals"; "Killing Fur Seals — Sealing gang at work," etc. The only other pictorial contributions to the history of the ' * Hand-List of Seals, pi. xix. ' 1 1 infer this to he the same specimen in eacli case, not only from the re- semblance the figures hear to each other, hut from Dr. Gray, so far as I can discover, referring to only the single skull from Behring's Strait, re- ceived in 1859. t Marine Mammalia, pi. xxi, two figures. § Ibid., p. 143. II Ibid., p. 145. IT Ibid., p. 149. ** Report on the Prybilov Grouj), of Fur Seal Islands, of Alaska, unpaged, and plates not numbered. HABITS. 341 Fur Seal of noteworthy importance is Mr. Clark's colored plate, * on which are represented a nearly full-grown male, a female and a pup, prepared from skins sent to the British Museum by the Alaska Commercial Comj^any. In these the attitudes are excellent and the coloring fair. Habits. — The liabits of the Fur Seal of the north seem to have been well known to Steller and his companions a century and a quarter ago, and their seemingly marvellous accounts of them prove to have been only to a slight degree erroneous. As a matter of historic interest, and for comparison with our pres- ent knowledge of the subject, as well as in some respects sup- plementary to it, I herewith subjoin a few extracts from the ac- count left us by Krascheninikow, based partly, apparently, on his own observations, but largely on those of his fellow-trav- eller, Steller. " The Sea Cat ", says Krascheninikow, t " is about half the size of the Sea Tjion ; in form resembling the Seal, but thicker about the breast, and thinner towards the tail. They have the snout longer than the Sea Lions, and larger teeth ; with eyes like cow's eyes, short ears, naked and black paws, and black hair mixed with gray, which is short and brittle. Their young- are of a bluish black color. " The Sea Cats are caught in the spring and in the month of Sejyfemher, about the river Sheepanova; at which time they go from the Kurilskoy Island to the American coast ; but the most are catched about the cape of Kronotzkoy, as between this and the cape Sliupinskoy the sea is generally calm and affords them properer places to retire to. Almost all the females that are caught in the spring are pregnant; and such as are near their time of bringing forth then- young are immediately opened and tlie young taken out and skinned. I^one of them are to be seen from the beginning of June to the end of August, when they return from the south Avith their young. The natives were formerly at a loss to conceive where such, great herds of preg- nant fat animals retired in spring, and why they returned so weak and lean was owing to their fatigue. .... "The male and female differ so much in the form and strength of their bodies, that one who does not carefully exam- ine them would take them for different species of animals ; be- sides the females are wild and fearful. The male has from *^ Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1S78, 271, pi. xs. 1 1 use here Grieve's Englisli translation from the Kussian, published in 1764. 342 CALLORHINUS UESINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. eight to fifteen, and even sometimes fifty females, wliom he guards with such jealousy that he does not allow any other to come near his mistresses : and though many thousands of them lie upon the same shore, yet every family keeps apart ; that is, the male with his wives, young ones, and those of a year old, which have not yet attached themselves to any male; so that sometimes the family consists of 120. They likewise swim at sea in such droves. Such as are old, or have no mistresses, live apart ; and the first that our people found upon Bering's Island were such old ones, and all males, extremely fat and stinking. These sometimes lie asleep a whole month without nourishment, and are the fiercest of all, attacking all that pass them, and their pride or obstinacy is such that they will rather die than quit their place. When they see a man coming near them some of them rush ui^on him and others lie ready to sustain the battle. They bite the stones that are thrown at them, and rush the most violently upon him who throws them ', so that though you strike out their teeth with stones, or put out their eyes, yet, even blind, they will not quit their place : nay, they dare not leave it, for every step that any one moves off he makes a new enemy, so that though he could save himself from the attacks of men, his own brethren would destroy him ; and if it hap- pens that any one seems to retire the least, then others draw near no [to] prevent his running away ; and if any one seems to suspect the courage of another, or his design to run away, he falls ui)on him. This suspicion of one another is sometimes car- ried so far, that for a whole verst one sees nothing but these^ bloody duels; and at such time one may pass between them without any manner of danger. If two fall upon one, then some others come to support the weakest ; for they do not allow of unequal combat. During these battles the others that are swim- ming in the sea raise their heads, and look at the success of the combatants ; at length becoming likewise fiercer, they come out and increase the number. .... "When two of them only fight the battle lasts fre- quently for an hour : sometimes they rest awhile, lying bj' one another; then both rise at once and renew the engagement. They fight with their heads erect, and turn them aside from one another's stroke. So long as their strength is equal they tight with their fore paws ; but when one of them becomes weak the other seizes him with his teeth, and throws him upon the grouu'd. When the lookers on see this they come to the assist- HABITS. 343 ance of the vanquished. The wounds they make with their teeth are as deep as those made with a sabre ; and in the month of July you will hardly see one of them that has not some wound upon him. After the end of the battle they throw them- selves into the water to wash their bodies. The occasions of their quarrels are these : — The first and most bloody is about their females, when one endeavors to carry off the mistress of another, or the young ones that are females ; the females that are present follow the conqueror. The second is about their places, when one comes too near that of another, which they don't allow, either for want of room, or because they are jeal- ous of their coming too near their mistresses. The third is owing to their endeavouring to do justice, and end the*quarrels of others. .... "Another reason of the Sea Cats going in the spring to the eastwards to the Desert Islands must be, that resting and sleeping without nourishment for three months, they free themselves from the fat which was troublesome to them, in the same manner as the bears who live the whole winter without nourishment ; for in the months of June, July, and August, the old ones do nothing but sleep upon the shore, lying in one place like a stone, now and then looking at one another, and yawn- ing and stretching, without meat or drink; but the young ones begin to walk in the beginning of July. When this animal lies upon the shore and diverts himself, his lowing is like that of a cow ; when he fights he growls like a bear ; when he has con- quered his enemy, he chirps like a cricket ; but being vanquished or wounded, he groans or mews like a cat ; coming out of the water, he commonly shakes, strokes his breast with his hinder paws, and smooths the hair upon it. The male lays his snout to that of the females, as if he was kissing her. When they sleep in the sun they hold up their paws, wagging them as the dogs do their tails. They lie sometimes upon their backs, at other times like a dog upon their bellies ; sometimes contract- ing, at other times extending themselves. Their sleep is never so sound but that they awake at the approach of any person, how softly soever he goes, and are presently ujion their guard ; besides their smell and hearing are surprisingly acute. '^ They swim so fast that they can easily make ten versts in an hour; and when they happen to be wounded at sea they seize the boats of the fishers with their teeth, hnd drag them along with such swiftness that they appear to fly and not to swim 344 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. upon the* water. By this means the boat is frequently over- turned and the people drowned, unless he who steers it be very skillful, and observes the course of the animal They fasten their fore paws in the rocks, and thus draw up their body, which they can move but slowly in such places, but upon a plain, one is in danger of being overtaken by them. Upon Bering's Island there are such numbers of them that they cover the whole shore; so that travellers are frequently obliged for safety to leave the sands and level country and go over the hills and rocky i^laces. It is remarkable that in this island the Sea Cats are found only upo» the south coast which looks towards Kamtsclmtka. The reason for this may be, that this is the first land they meet with going east from the Kronotzkoy pass."* Steller and Krascheninikow both evidently considered the " Sea Cats " dangerous to man, both on land and in the sea. They also attributed to them a degree of magnanimity and intelligence in relation to their contests with each other uncon- firmed by modern observers. In several respects the accounts of these authors — in the main virtually identical — border uiK)n the mythical, but, generally speaking, are remarkably free from exaggeration, considering the times at which they were written. As already stated, they formed the source of all our knowl- edge of these strange beasts i)rior to the beginning of the pres- ent decade. Choris makes only very brief mention of them and says very little about their habits, t Veniaminov, in his '^Zaineska" published at Saint Petersburg, in Eussian, in 1840, and known to me only as quoted and translated by Mr. H. W. Elliott,! has given valuable statistical information respecting the sealing business as prosecuted by the Eussians at the Pry- bilo V Islands, but seems to have given no detailed account of their habits. Our first imi)ortant recent information respecting the economy of these animals is that given by Captain Charles * Kraschenlnikow's Hist. Kamtscliatka, Grieve's Englisli translation, pp. 123, 131. tHis account in full is as follows: "L'ours marins, en russe sivoidch, con- Tre par millidrs les rivages des Lies Kotoviya [Islands of Saint Paul and Saint George], ou sont jet^es abondauiment des plantes marines (fucus). On entend de tr^s-loin le cri de ces animavix, lorsqu'on est en mer. Les femelles sont beaucoup plus petites que les males ; elles oat le corps plus fluet et decouleur jaunatre. Les males ont jusqu'a six pied de liaut lors- qu'ils Invent la tete ; les jeunes sont ordinaixement d'un brun noir ; il parait que les femelles ne font jamais jilus d'un petit." — From the description of "lies S. Georges et S. Paul," iu "Yoy. pittoresq. autour du Monde. " * Condition of Affairs iu Alaska, pp. 241-242. HABITS. 345 Bryant, in 1870.* Mr. Elliott's account, published three or four years later, is far more detailed, and respecting most points maybe considered as fairly exhaustive of the subject, more than thirty pages of his report being devoted exclusively to the habits of the species. Captain Bryant has now kindly placed at my disposal a communication embodying the results of his eight years' observations on these animals, prepared by my request expressly for the present work. While replete with new information, it does not, to any great extent, duplicate the account of the habits of the species published by Mr. Elliott, being devoted mainly to a detailed history of the changes in the relative preponderance of the different classes of Seals resulting from the different systems of selecting the animals to be killed for their furs, and to other features of the general subject not hitherto fully presented. Its importance as a con- tribution to the economic phases of the subject can scarcely be overrated, while at the same time it forms a most valuable contribution to the biology of the species. Believing it desira- ble to present in the present connection a full and connected history of the species, I offer no apology for tlie copious extracts from Mr. Elliott's graphic account of the habits of the Fur Seal which here follow : . "The fur seal {Callorliinus ursimis), which repairs to these islands to breed in numbers that seem alrnost fabulous, is by far the highest organized of all the Pinnipedia, and, indeed, for that matter, when laud and water are fully taken into account, there is no other animal superior to it from a purely physical point of view ; and few creatures that can be said to exhibit a higher order of instinct, approaching even intelligence, belong- ing to the animal kingdom " Observe it as it comes leisurely swimming on toward the land ; how high above the water it carries its head, and how deliberately it surveys the beach, after having stepped w^ow it ; it may be truly said to step with its fore flipi)ers, for they reg- ularly alternate as it moves up, carrying the tiead well above them, at least three feet from the ground, with a perfectly erect neck. .... "We observe as the seal moves along that, though it handles its fore limbs in a most creditable manner, it brings up its rear in quite a different style ; for after every second step ahead with the fore feet it arches its spine, and with it drags "" Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. ii, pp. 89-108. 346 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. and lifts together the hinder limbs to a fit position nnder its body for another movement forward, by which the spine is again straightened ont so as to take a fresh hitch np on the posteriors. This is the leisnrely and natural jnovement on land, when not disturbed, the body being carried clear of the ground. "The radical difference in the form and action of the hinder feet cannot fail to strike the eye at once. They are one-seventh longer and very much lighter and more slender ; they, too, are merged in the body like those anterior ; nothing can be seen of the legs above the tarsal joint "Kow, as we look at this fur seal's progression, that which seems most odd is the gingerly manner (if I may be allowed to nse the expression) in which it carries these hind flippers. They are held out at right angles from the body directly oppo- site the pelvis, the toe-ends and flaps slightly wa^'ing and curl- ing or drooping over, supported daintily, as it were, above the earth, only suffering its weight behind to fall ujion the heels^ which are opposed to each other scarcely five inches apart. " We shall, as we see him again later in the season, have to notice a different mode of i^rogression, both when lording it over his harem or when he grows shy and restless at the end of the breeding-season, and now proceed to notice him in the order of his arrival and that of his family, his behavior during-^ the long period of fasting and unceasing activity and vigilance and other cares which devolve upon him, as the most eminent of all polygamists in the brute world ; and to fully comprehend this exceedingly interesting animal, it will be necessary to refer to my drawings and paintings made from it and its haunts. [*] " The adult males are first to arrive in the spring on the ground deserted by all classes the preceding year. "Between the 1st and 5th of May, usually, a few bulls will be found scattered over the rookeries pretty close to the water. They are at this time quite shy and sensitive, not yet being satisfied with the land, and a great many spend day after day before coming ashore idly swimming out among the breakers a little distance from the land, to which they seem somewhat reluctant at first to rex^air. The first arrivals are not always the oldest bulls, but may be said to be the finest and most am- bitious of their class. They are full grown and able to hold their stations on the rocks, which they immediately take up after coming ashore. [* See Mr. Elliott's "Report on the Prybilov Group, or Fur Seal Islands, of Alaska," especially the plates already mentioned at p. 340.] HABITS. 347 " I am not able to say authoritatively that these animals come back and take up the same position on the breediug-giounds occupied by them during the preceding season. From my knowledge of their action and habit, and from what I have learned of the natives, I should say that very few, if any of them, make such a selection and keep these places year, after year. One old bull was pointed out to me on the Eeef Gar- butch Rookery as being known to the natives as a regular visitor at, close by, or on the same rock every season during the past three years, but he failed to re-appear on the fourth ; but if these animals came each to a certain place and occupied it reg- ularly, season after season, I think the natives here would know it definitely ; as it is, they do not. I think very likely, how- ' ever, that the older bulls come back to the same rookery-ground where they spent the previous season, but take up their posi- tions on it just as the circumstances attending their arrival will permit, such as fighting other seals which have arrived before them, &c. "With the object of testing this matter, the Russians, during the early part of their possession, cut oft" the ears from a given number of young male seals driven ux) for that purpose from one of the rookeries, and the result was that cropped seals were found on nearly all the difierent rookeries or ' hauling-grounds ' on the islands after. The same experiment was made by agents two years ago, who had the left ears taken off from a hundred young males which were found on Lukannon Eookery, Saint Paul's Island ; of these the natives last year found two on Xo- vastosh-nah Eookery, ten miles north of Lukannon, and two or three from English Bay and Tolstoi Eookery, six miles west by water; one or two were taken on Saint George's Island, thirtv-six miles to the southeast, and not one from Lukannon was found among those that were driven from there ; and, prob- ably, had all the young males on the two islands been driven up and examined, the rest would have been found distributed quite equally all around, although the natives say that they think the cutting off of the animal's ear gives the water such access to its head as to cause its death ;, this, however, I think requires confirmation. These experiments would tend to i)rove that when the seals approach the islands in the spring they have nothing but a general instinctive appreciation of the fitness of the land as a wliole^ and no especial fondness for any pai^tic- ular sj>ot. 348 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NOETHERN FUR SEAL. " The lauding of the seals upon the respective rookeries is influenced greatly by the direction of the wind at the time of approach to the islands. The prevailing winds, coming from the northeast, north, and northwest, carry far out to sea the odor or scent of the pioneer bulls, which have located them- selves on different breeding-grounds three or four weeks usu- ally in advance of the masses ; and hence it will be seen that the rookeries on the south and southeastern shores of Saint Paul's Island receive nearly all the seal-life, although there are miles of ehgible ground on the north shore, "To settle this question, however, is an exceedingly difficult matter ; for the identification of individuals, from one season to another, among the hundreds of thousands, and even millions, that come under the eye on a single one of these great rook- eries, is really impossible. " From the time of the first arrivals in May up to the 1st of June, or as late as the middle of this month, if the weather be clear, is an interval in which everything seems quiet ; very few seals are added to the pioneers. By the 1st of June, however, or thereabouts, the foggy, humid weather of summer sets in, and with it the bull-seals come up by hundreds and thousands, and locate themselves in advantageous positions for the recep- tion of the females, which are generally three weeks or a month later, as a rule. "The labor of locating and maintaining a position in the rookery is really a serious business for those bulls which come in last, and for those that occupy the water-line, frequently resulting in death from severe wounds in combat sustained. " It appears to be a well-understood principle among the able- bodied bulls that each one shall remain undisturbed on his ground, which is usually about ten feet square, jirovided he is strong enough to hold it against all comers; for the crowding in of fresh bulls often causes the removal of many of those who, though equally able-bodied at first, have exhausted themselves by fighting earlier, and are driven by the fresher animals back farther and higher up on the rookery. " Some of these bu4s show wonderful strength and courage. I have marked one veteran, who was among the first to take up his position, and that one on the water-line, where at least fifty or sixty desperate battles were fought victoriously by him with nearly as many difi'erent seals, who coveted his position, and when the fighting season was over, (after the cows have HABITS. 349 mostly all hauled up,) I saw him, covered with scars and gashes raw and bloody, an eye gouged out, but lording it bravely over his harem of fifteen or twenty cows, all huddled together on the same spot he had first chosen, " The fighting is mostly or entirely done with the mouth, the opponents seizing each other with the teeth and clenching the jaws; nothing but sheer strength can shake them loose, and that elfort almost always leaves an ugly wound, the sharp canines tearing out deep gutters in the skin and blubber or shredding the flippers into ribbon-strips. '' They usually approach each other with averted heads and a great many false passes before either one or the other takes the initiative by griping; the heads are darted out and back as quick as flash, their hoarse roaring and shrill, piping whistle never ceases, while their fat bodies writhe and swell with exer- tion and rage, fur flying in air and blood streaming down — all combined make a picture fierce and savage enough, and from its great novelty, exceedingly strange at first sight. " In these battles the parties are always distinct, the offensive and the defensive; if the latter proves the weaker he ^vith- draws from the position occupied, and is never followed by his conqueror, who complacently throws up one of his hind flippers, fans himself, as it were, to cool himself from the heat of the conflict, utters a peculiar chuckle of satisfaction and contempt, with a sharj) eye open for the next covetous bull or ' see-catch.' * " The period occupied by the males in taking and holding their positions on the rookery ofi'ers a favorable opportunity in which to study them in the thousand and one different atti- tudes and postures assumed between the two extremes of des- perate conflict and deep sleep — sleep so sound that one can, by keeping to the leeward, approach close enough, stepping softly, to pull the whiskers of any one taking a nap on a clear place ; but after the first touch to these whiskers the trifler must jump back with great celerity, if he has any regard for the sharp teeth and tremendous shaking which will surely overtake him if he does not. "The neck, chest, and shoulders of a fur-seal bull comprise more than two-thirds of his whole weight, and in this long thick neck and fore limbs is embodied the larger portion of his strength ; when on land, with the fore feet he does all climbing * '' ' See-catch/ native name for the bulls on the rookeries, especially those which are able to maintain their position." 350 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. over rocks, over the grassy hummocks back of the rookery, the hind flippers being gathered up after every second step for- vravd, as described in the manner of walking; these fore feet are the propelling j)ower when in water, almost exclusively, the hinder ones being used as rudders chiefly. " The covering to the body is composed of two coats, one be- ing of short, crisp, ghstening over-hau^, and the other a close, soft, elastic pelage, or fur, which gives distinctive value to the pelt. "At this season of first ' hauling up ' in the sirring, the pre- vailing color of the bulls, after they dry off and have been ex- posed to the weather, is a dark, dull brown, with a sprinkling of hghter brown-black, and a number of hoary or frosted-gray coats ; on the shoulders the over-hair is either a gray or rufous- ocher, called the 'wig;' these colors are most intense ui^on the back of the head, neck, and spine, being lighter underneath. The skin of the muzzle and flippers, a dark bluish black, fading to a reddish and purplish tint in some. The ears and tail are also similar in tint to the body, being in the case of the former a trifle lighter ; the ears on a bull fur-seal are from an inch to an inch and a half in length ; the pavilions tightly rolled up on themselves so that they are similar in shape and size to the lit- tle finger on the human hand, cut off at the second (phalangeal) joint, a shade more cone-shaped, for they are greater in diame- ter at the base than at the tip. " I think it probable that the animal has and exerts the power of compressing or dilating this scroll-like pavilion to its ear, accordingly as it dives deep or rises in the water ; and also, I am quite sure that the hair-seal has this control over the meatus externus, from what I have seen of it; but I have not been able to verify it in either case by observation ; but such opportunity as I have had, gives me undoubted proof of the greatest keen- ness in hearing ; for it is impossible to apjjroach one, even when sound asleep ; if you make any noise, frequently no matter how slight, the alarm will be given instantly by the insignificant- looking auditors, and the animal, rising up with a single motion erect, gives you a stare of astonishment, and at this season of defiance, together with incessant surly roaring, growling, and ' spitting.' " This spitting, as I call it, is by no means a fair or full expres- sion of the most characteristic sound and action, pecuhar, so far as I have observed, to the fur-seals, the buUs in particular. » HABITS. 351 • It is the usual prelude to their combats, and follows somewhat in this way : when the two disputants are nearly within reach- ing or striking distance, they make a number of feints or false passes at one another, with the mouth wide open and lifting the lips or snarling, so as to exhibit the glistening teeth, and with each pass they expel the air so violently through the larynx as to make a rapid choo-choo-choo sound, like the steam- puffe in the smoke-stack of a locomotive when it starts a heavy train, and especially when the driving-wheels slip on the rail. ''AH the bulls now have the power and frequent inclination to utter four entirely distinct calls or notes — a hoarse, resonant roar, loud and long; a low gurgling growl; a chuckling, sibi- lant, piping whistle, of which it is impossible to convey a.n ade- quate idea, for it must be heard to be understood ; and this spitting, just described. The cows* have but one note — a hol- low. i)rolonged, hla-a-ting call, addressed only to their pups ; on all other occasions they are usually silent. It is something like the cry of a calf or sheep. They also make a spitting sound, and snort, when suddenly disturbed. The pups ' hla-at ' also, with little or no variation, the sound being somewhat weaker and hoarser than that of their mothers for the first two or three weeks afterbirth; they, too, spit and cough when aroused sud- denly from a nap or driven into a corner. A number of pups crying at a short distance off bring to mind very strongly the idea of a flock of sheep ' baa-aa-inr/.' '• Indeed, so similar is the sound that a number of sheep brought up from San Francisco to Saint George's Island during the summer of 1873 were constantly attracted to the rookeries, running in among the seals, and had to be driven away to a good feeding-ground by a small boy detailed for the purpose. * "Without explanation I may be considered as making use of misapplied terms in describing tbese animals, for the inconsistency of coupling * pups ' -with 'cows' and 'bulls,' and 'rookeries' with the breeding-grounds of the same, cannot fail to be noticed; but this nomenclature has been given and used by the English and American whalemen ^nd sealing-parties for many years, and the characteristic features of the seals suit the odd naming exactly, so much so that I have felt satisfied to retain the style throughout as rendering my description more intelligible, especially so to those who are engaged in the business or may be hereafter. The Russians are more con- sistent, but not so 'pat.' The bull is called 'see-catch,' a term implying strength, vigor, «fcc. ; the cow, 'matkah,' or mother; the pups, 'kotickie,' or little seals ; the non-breeding males, under six and seven years, ' hoUus- chickie,' or bachelors. The name applied collectively to the fur-seal by them is ' morskie-kot,' or sea-cat." 352 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. • " The sound arising from these great breeding-grounds of the fur-seal, where thousands upon thousands of angry, vigilant buU^ are roaring, chuckling, piping, and multitudes of seal- mothers are calling In hollow, bla-ating tones to their young\ which in turn respond incessantly, is simply indescribable. It is, at a slight distance, softened into a deep booming, as of a cataract, and can be heard a long distance off at sea, under favorable circumstances as far as five or six miles, and fre- quently warns vessels that may be approaching the islands in thick, foggy weather, of the positive, though unseen, proximity of land. iSTight and day, throughout the season, the din of the rookeries is steady and constant. " The seals seem to suffer great inconvenience from a com- paratively low degree of heat ; for, with a temj)erature of 46<2 and 48° on land, during the summer, they show signs of dis- tress from heat whenever they make any exertion, pant, raise their hind flippers, and use them incessantly as fans. With the thermometer at 550-60°, they seem to suffer even when at rest, and at such times the eye is struck by the kaleidoscopic appear- ance of a rooker}^, on which a million seals are spread out in every imaginable position their bodies can assume, all indus- triously fanning themselves, using sometimes the fore flippers^ as ventilators, as it were, by holding them aloft motionless, at the same moment fanning briskly with the hind flipper, or flip- pers, according as they sit or lie. This wavy motion of flapping and fanning gives a. peculiar shade of hazy indistinctness to the whole scene, which is difiBcult to express in language ; but one of the most prominent characteristics of the fur-seal is this fanning manner in which they use their flippers, when seen on the breeding-grounds in season. They also, when idling, as it were, off shore at sea, lie on their sides, with only a partial ex- Ijosure of the body, the head submerged, and hoist up a fore or hind flipper clear of the water, while scratching themselves or enjoying a nap ; but in this position there is no fanning. I say ' scratching,' because the seal, in common with all animals, is preyed upon by vermin, a species of louse and a tick, peculiar to itself. "All the bulls, from the very first, that have been able to hold their i)ositions, have not left them for an instant, night or day, nor do they do so until the end of the rutting-season, which subsides entirely between the 1st and 10th of August, begin- ning shortly after the coming of the cows in June. Of necessity,. HABITS. 353 therefore, this caiises them to fast, to abstain entirelj^ from food of any kind, or water, for three months at least, and a few of them stay four months before going into the water for the first time after hauling np in May. " This alone is remarkable enough, but it is simply wonderful when we come to associate the condition with the unceasing activity, restlessness, and duty devolved upon the bulls as heads and fathers of large families. They do not stagnate, like bears in caves ; it is evidently accomplished or due to the ab- sorption of their own fat, with which they are so liberally suid- plied when they take their positions on the breeding-ground, and which gradually diminishes while they remain on it. But still some most remarkable provision must be made for the en- tire torpidity of the stomach and bowels, consequent upon their being empty and unsupplied during this long period, which, however, in spite of the violation of a supposed physiological law, does not seem to affect them, for they come back just as sleek, fat, and ambitious as ever in the following season. "I have examined the stomachs of a number which were driven up and killed immediately after their arrival in spring, and natives here have seen hundreds, even thousands, of them during the killing- season in June and July, but in no case has anything been found other than the bile and ordinary secretions of healthy organs of this class, with the exception only of find- ing in every one a snarl or cluster of worms {N^ematoda), from the size of a walnut to that of one's fist, the fast apparently having no effect on them, for when three or four hundred old bulls were slaughtered late in the fall, to supply the natives with 'bidarkee' or canoe skins, I found these worms in a lively condition in every paunch cut open, and their presence, I think, gives some reason for the habit which these old bulls have of swallowing small bowlders, the stones in some of the stomachs weighing half a pound or so, and in one paunch I found about five pounds in the aggregate of larger pebbles, which in grinding against one another must destroy, in a great measure, these intestinal pests. The sea-lion is also troubled in the same way by a similar species of worm, and I have pre- served a stomach of one of these animals in which are more than ten pounds of bowlders, some of them alone quite large. The greater size of this animal enables it to swallow stones which weigh two and three pounds. I can ascribe no other cause for this habit among these animals than that given, as Misc. Pub. No. 12 23 354 CALLOEHINUS URSINUS — NORTHERN FUR SEAL. they are of the highest type of the carnivora, eating fish as a regular means of subsistence ; [*] varying the monotony of this diet with occasional juicy fronds of sea- weed, or kelp, and per- haps a crab, or such, once in a while, provided it is small and tender, or soft-shelled. " Between the 12th and 14th of June the first of the cow-seals come up from the sea, and the bulls signalize it by a universal, spasmodic, desperate fighting among themselves. " The strong contrast between the males and females in size and shape is heightened by the air of exceeding jieace and amiability which the latter class exhibit. " The cows are from 4 to 4^ feet in length from head to tail, and much more shapely in their proportions than the bulls, the neck and shoulder being not near so fat and heavy in propor- tion to the i)osteriors. "When they come up, wet and dripping, they are of a dull, dirty-gray color, darker on the back and upi)er parts, but in a few hours the transformation made by drying is wonderful; you would hardly believe they could be the same animals, for they now fairly glisten with a rich steel and maltese-gray luster on the back of the head, neck, and spine, which blends into an almost pure white on the chest and abdomen. But this beauti- ful coloring in turn is altered by exposure to the weather, for in two or three days it will gradually change to a didl, rufous ocher below, and a cinereous-brown and gray-mixed above ; this color they retain throughout the breeding-season up to the time of shedding the coat in August. " The head and eye of the female are really attractive ; the expression is exceedingly gentle and intelligent; the large, lus- trous eyes, in the small, well-formed head, apparently gleam with benignity and satisfaction when she is perched up on some convenient rock and has an opportunity to quietly fan herself. " The cows appear to be driven on to the rookeries by an ac- curate instinctive appreciation of the time in which their period of gestation ends ; for in all cases marked by m;yself, the pups are born soon after landing, some in a few hours after, but most usually a day or two elapses before delivery. [*The habit of swallowing stones is one aj)j)areutly common to all of tlie Pinnipeds. The common belief among sealers and others is that they take in these stones as ballast. Compare on this jioint a quotation already given respecting the Southern Sea Lion (Otariajithata), antea, p. 311. Mr. Elliott's explanation appears to be more reasonable than most that have been pro- posed.] HABITS. 355 "They are noticed and received by the bulls on the water- line station with much attention ; they are alternately coaxed and urged up on to the rocks, and are imtnediately under the most jealous supervision ; but owing to the covetous and ambi- tious nature of the bulls which occupy the stations reaching way back from the water-line, the little cows have a rough-and- tumble time of it when they begin to arrive in small numbers at first ; for no sooner is the pretty animal fiiirly established on the station of bull number one, who has installed her there, he perhaps sees another one of her style down in the water from which she has just come, and in obedience to his polygamous feeling, he devotes Idmself anew to coaxing the later arrival in the same winning manner so successful in her case, when bull number two, seeing bull number one off his guard, reaches out with his long strong neck and picks the unhappy but pas- sive creature up by the scruff of hers, just as a cat does a kit- ten, and deposits her on his seraglio-ground ; then bulls number three, four, and so on, in the vicinity, seeing this high-handed operation, all assail one another, and especially bull number two, and have a tremendous fight, perhaps for half a minute or so, and during this commotion the cow generally is moved or moves farther back from the water, two or three stations more, where, when all gets quiet, she usually remains in -peace. Her last lord and master, not having the exposure to such diverting temptation as had her first, he gives her such care that she not only is unable to leave did she wish, but no other bull can seize upon her. This is only one instance of the many different trials and tribulations which both parties on the rookery subject themselves to before the harems are filled. Far back, fifteen or twenty stations deep from the water-line sometimes, but gen- erally not more on an average than ten or fifteen, the cows crowd in at the close of the season for arriving, July 10 to 14, and then they are able to go about pretty much as they please, for the bulls have become greatly enfeebled by this constant fighting and excitement during the past two. months, and are quite content with even only one or two partners. " The cows seem to haul in compact bodies from the water up to the rear of the rookeries, never scattering about over the ground ; and they will not lie quiet in any position outside of the great mass of their kind. This is due to their intensely gregarious nature, and for the sake of protection. They also select land with si)ecial reference to the drainage, having a 356 CALLOEHINUS URSINUS NOETHERN FUR SEAL. great dislike to water-puddled ground. This is well shown on Saint Paul. " I have found it difficult to ascertain the average number of cows to one bull on the rookery, but 1 think it will be nearly correct to assign to each male from twelve to fifteen females, occupying the stations nearest the water, and those back in the rear from five to nine. I have counted forty-five cows all under the charge of one bull, which had them jjenned up on a flat table-rock, near Keetavie Point; the bull was enabled to do this quite easily, as there was but one way to go to or come from this seraglio, and on this path the old Turk took his stand and guarded it well. "At the rear of all these rookeries there is always a large number of able-bodied bulls, who wait patiently, but in vain, for families, most of them having had to fight as desperately for the privilege of being there as any of their more fortunately- located neighbors, who are nearer the water than themselves ; but the cows do not like to be in any outside position, where they are not in close company, lying most quiet and content in the largest harems, and these large families i)ack the surface of the ground so thickly that there is hardly moving or turning room until the females cease to come up from the sea ; but the inaction on the part of the bulls in the rear during the rutting- season only serves to qualify them to move into the i)laces va- cated by those males who are obliged to leave from exhaustion, and to take the positions of jealous and fearless protectors for the young pups in the fall. "The courage with which the fur-seal holds his position, as the head and guardian of a family, is of the very highest order, compared with that of other animals. I have repeatedly tried to drive them when they have fairly established themselves, _ and have almost always failed, using every stone at my com- ^mand, making all the noise I could, and, finally, to put their courage to the full test, I walked up to within 20 feet of a bull at the rear and extreme end of Tolstoi Eookery, who had four cows in charge, and commenced with my double-barreled breech-loading shot-gun to i^epper him all over with mustard- seed or dust shot. His bearing, in spite of the noise, smell of powder, and pain, did not change in the least from the usual attitude of determined defense which nearly all the bulls as- ,sume when attacked with sliowers of stones and noise; he would dart out light and left and catch the cows, which tim- HABITS. 357 idly attempted to run after each report, and fling and drag tliem back to their i)laces ; then, stretching u]) to his full height, look me directly and defiantly in the face, roaring and spitting most vehemently. The cows, however, soon got away from him ; but he still stood his ground, making little charges on me of 10 or 15 feet in a succession of gallops or lunges, spitting furiously, and then retreating to the old position, back of which he would not go, fully resolved to hold his own or die in the attemi)t. "This courage is all the more noteworthy fi-om the fact that, in regard to man, it is invariably of a defensive character. The seal, if it makes you turn when you attack it, never follows you much farther than the boundary of its station, and no ag- gravation will comjoel it to become offensive, as far as I have been able to observe. "The cows, during the whole season, do great credit to their amiable expression by their manner and behavior on the rook ery; never fight or quarrel one with another, and never or sel dom utter a cry of pain or rage when they are roughly handled by the bulls, who frequentlj" get a cow between them and tear the skin from her back, cutting deep gashes into it, as they snatch her from mouth to mouth. These wounds, however, heal rapidly, and exhibit no traces the next year. "The cows, like the bulls, vary much in weight. Two were taken from the rookery nearest Saint Paul's Village, after they had been delivered of their young, and the respective weights were 56 and 101 pounds, the former being about three or four years old, and the latter over six. They both were fat and in excellent condition. "It is quite out of the question to give a fair idea of the posi- tions in which the seals rest when on land. They may be said to assume every i>ossible attitude which a flexible body can be put into. One favorite position, especially with the cows, is to perch upon a point or top of some rock and throw their heads back upon their shoulders, with the nose held aloft, then, clos- ing their eyes, take short naps without changing, now and then gently fanning with one or the other of the long, slender hind flippers ; another, and the most common, is to curl themselves up, just as a dog does on a hearth-rug, bringing the tail and • the nose close together. They also stretch out, laying the head straight ^\'ith the body, and sleep for an hour or two without moving, holding one of the hinder flippers up all the time, now and then gently waving it, thiB eyes being tightly closed. 358 CALLORHINUS UESINUS— NORTHERN FUR SEAL. " The sleep of the fur-seal, from the old bull to the young pup, is always accompanied by a nervous, muscular twitching and slight shifting of the flippers ; quivering and uneasy rolling of the body, accompanied by a quick folding anew of the fore flip- pers, which are signs, as it were, of their having nightmares, or sporting, perhajjs, in a visionary way far off in some dream- land sea ; or disturbed, perhaps more probably, by their intes- tinal parasites. I have studied hundreds of all classes, steal- ing softly up so closely that I could lay my hand on them, and have always found the sleep to be of this nervous descrii^tion. The respiration is short and rapid, but with no breathing (un- less your ear is brought very close) or snoring sound ; the heav- ing of the flanks only indicates the action. I have frequently thought that I had succeeded in finding a snoring seal, espe- cially among the pups, but a close examination always gave some abnormal reason for it, generally a slight distemper, by which the nostrils were stopped up to a greater or less degree. "As I have said before, the cows, soon after landing, are de- livered of their young. "Immediately after the birth of the pup, (twins are rare, if ever [occurring],) it finds its voice, a weak, husky hlaat, and begins to paddle about, with eyes wide open, in a confused sort of way for a few minutes until the mother is ready to give it attention, and, still later, suckle it; and for this purpose she is provided with four small, brown nipples, jflaced about eight inches apart, lengthwise with the body, on the abdomen, be- tween the fore and hinder flippers, with some four inches of space between them transversely. The nipiiles are not usually visible ; only seen through the hair and fur. The milk is abun- dant, rich, and creamy. The pups nurse very heartily, gorging themselves. "The pup at birth, and for the next three months, is of a jet- black color, hair, eyes, and flippers, save a tiny white patch just back of each fore foot, and weighs from 3 to 4 pounds, and 12 to 14 inches long ; it does not seem to nurse more than once every two or three days, but in this I am most likely mistaken, for they may have received attention from the mother in the night or other times in the day when I was unable to watch them. - "The apathy with which the young are treated by the old on the breeding-grounds is somewhat strange. I have never seen a cow caress or fondle her offspring, and should it stray but a HABITS. 35^ short distance from the harem, it can be picked up and killed before the mother's eyes, without causing her to show the slightest concern. The same indifference is exhibited by the bull to all that takes place outside of the boundary of his se- raglio. While the pups are, however, within th,i limits of his harem-ground, he is a jealous and fearless protector; but if the little animals pass beyond this boundary, thf.i they may be carried off without the slightest attention in \ iieir behalf from their guardian. "It is surprising to me how few of the -^v.y)^ get crushed to death while the ponderous bulls are floundering over them when engaged in fighting. I have seen two bulls dash at each other with all the energy of furious rage, meeting right in the midst of a small 'pod' of forty or fifty pups, trampling over them with their crushing weights, and bowling them out right and left in every direction, without injuring a single one. I do not think more than 1 per cent, of the pups born each season are lost in this manner on the rookeries. " To test the vitality of these little animals, I kept one in the house to ascertain how long it could live without nursing, hav- ing taken it immediately after birth and before it could get any taste of its mother's milk ; it lived nine days, and in the whole time half of every day was spent in floundering about over the floor, accompanying the movement with a persistent hoarse blaatiug. This exi)eriment certainly shows wonderful vitaUty, and is worthy of an animal that can live four months without food or water and preserve enough of its latent strength and ^igor at the end of that time to go far off to sea, and return as fat and hearty as ever during the next season. "In the pup, the head is the only disproportionate feature when it is compared with the proportion of the adult form, the neck being also relatively shorter and thicker. I shall have to speak again of it, as it grows and changes, when I finish with the breeding-season now under consideration. " The cows ai^pear to go to and come from the water quite fre- quently, and usually return to the spot, or its neighborhood, where they leave their pups, crying out for them, and recogniz- ing the individual replies, though ten thousand around, all to- gether, should blaat at once. They quickly single out their own and attend them. It would be a very unfortunate matter if the mothers could not identify their young by sound, since their pups get together like a great swarm of bees, spread out 360 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. upon the ground in 'x^ods' or groups, while they are young, and not very large, but by the middle and end of September, until they leave in j!:^ovember, they cluster together, sleeping and frolicking by tens of thousands. A mother comes w]} from the water, where she has been to wash, and perhaps to feed, for the last day or two, to about where she thinks her pup should be, but misses it, and finds instead a swarm of pups in. which it has been incorporated, owing to its great fondness for society. The mother, without at first entering into the crowd of thousands, calls out, just as a sheep does for her lambs, lis- tens, and out of all the din she — if not at first, at the end of a few trials — recognizes the voice of her offspring, and then ad- vances, striking out right and left, and over the crowd, toward the position from which it replies ; but if the pup at this time happens to be asleep she hears nothing from it, even though it were close by, and in this case the cow, after calling for a time without being answered, curls herself up and takes a nap, or lazily basks, and is most likely more successful when she calls again. ^' The pups themselves do not know their mothers, but they are so constituted that they incessantly cry out at short inter- vals during the whole time they are awake, and in this way a mother can pick, out of the monotonous blaating of thou- sands of pups, her own, and she will not permit any other to suckle. "Between the end of July and the 5th or 8th of August the rookeries are comj)letely changed in ajDpearance ; the systematic and regular disposition of the families, or harems, over the whole extent of ground has disappeared ; all order heretofore existing seems to be broken up. The rutting-season over, those bulls which held positions now leave, most of them very thin in flesh and weak, and I think a large proportion of them do not come out again on the land during the season ; and such as do come, api)ear, not fat, but in good flesh, and in a new coat of rich dark and gray-brown hair and fur, Avitli gray and grayish-dcher 'wigs' or over-hair on the shoulders, forming a strong contrast to the dull, rusty-brown and umber dress in which they appeared during the summer, and which they had begun to shed about the 15th of August, in common with the cows and bachelor seals. After these bulls leave, at the close of their season's work, those of them that do return to the land do not come back until the end of September, and do not haul HABITS. 361 up on the rookery-gToimds as a rule, preferring to herd together, as do the j^oimg males, on the sand-beaches and other rocky lloints close to the water. The cows, pups, and those bulls which have been in retirement, now take possession, in a very disorderly manner, of the rookeries; also, come a large number of young, three, four, and live year old males, who have not been permitted to land among the cows, during the rutting- season, by the older, stronger bulls, who have savagely fought them off whenever they made (as they constantly do) an attempt to land. " Three-fourths, at least, of the cows are now oft' in the water, only coming ashore to nurse and look after their i)ups a short time. They lie idly out in the rollers, ever and anon turning- over and over, scratching their backs and sides with their fore and hind flippers. Nothing is more suggestive of immense comfort and enjoyment than is this action of these animals. They appear to get very lousy on the breeding-ground, and the frequent winds and showers drive and spatter sand into their fur and eyes, making the latter quite sore in many cases. They also pack the soil under foot so hard and solid that it holds water in the surface depressions, just like so many rock basins, on the rookery; out and into these puddles they flounder and patter incessantly, until evai)oration slowly abates the nuisance. " The pups sometimes get so thoroughly j)lastered in these muddy, slimy puddles, that their hair falls olf in patches, giving them the appearance of being troubled with scrofula or some other plague, at first sight, but thej' are not, from my observa- tion, i^ermanently injured. " Early in August (8th) the pups that are nearest the water on the rookeries essay swimming, but make slow and clumsy prog- ress, floundering about, when over head in depth, in the most awkward manner, thrashing the water with their fore flippers, not using the hinder ones. In a few seconds, or a minute at the most, the youngest is so weary that he crawls out upon the rocks or beach, and immediately takes a recuperative nap, repeating the lesson as quick as he awakes and is rested. They soon get familiar with the water, and delight in it, swimming in endless evolutions, twisting, turning, diving, and when ex- hausted, they draw up on the beach again, shake themselves as young dogs do, either going to sleep on the spot, or having a lazy frolic among themselves. " In this matter of learning to swim, I have not seen any 362 CALLORHINUS URSINUS — NORTHERN FUR SEAL. ' driving' of the young pups into the water by the old in order to teach them this process, as has been affirmed by writers on the subject of seal life. " The pups are constantly shifting, at the close of the rutting- season, back and forth over the rookery in large squads, some- times numbering thousands. In the course of these changes of position they all come sooner or later in contact with the sea ; the pup blunders into the water for the first time in a most awkward manner, and gets out again as quick as it can, but so far from showing any fear or dislike of this, its most natural element, as soon as it rests from its exertion, is immediately ready for a new trial, and keeps at it, if the sea is not too stormy or rough at the time, until it becomes quite familiar with the water, and during all this period of self-tuition it seems to thoroughly enjoy the exercise. "By the loth of September all the pups have become familiar Avith the water, have nearly all deserted the background of the rookeries and are down by the water's edge, and skirt the rocks and beaches for long distances on ground previously un- occupied by seals of any class. "They are now about five or six times their original weight, and are beginning to shed their black hair and take on their second coat, which does not vary at this age between the sexes. They do this very slowly, and cannot be called out of molting or shedding until the middle of October, as a rule. " The pup's second coat, or sea-going jacket, is a uniform, dense, light pelage, or under-fur, grayish in some, light-brown in others, the fine, close, soft, and elastic hairs which compose it being about one-half of an inch in length, and over-hair, two- thirds of an inch long, quite coarse, giving the color by which you recognize the condition. This over -hair, on the back, neck, and head, is a dark chinchilla-gray, blending into a white, just tinged with a grayish tone on the abdomen and chest. The upper lip, where the whiskers or mustache takes root, is of a lighter-gray tone than that which surrounds. This mustache consists of fifteen or twenty longer or shorter whitish-gray bristles (one-half to three inches) on each side and back of the nostrils, which are, as I have before said, similar to that of a dog. "The most attractive feature about the fur-seal pup, and upward as it grows, is the eye, which is exceedingly large, dark, and liquid, with which, for beauty and amiability, together with HABITS. 363 intelligence of expression, those of no other animal can be com- pared. The lids are well supplied with eyelashes. " I do not think that their range of vision on land, or out of the water, is very great. I have had them (the adults) catch sight of my person, so as to distinguish it as a foreign character, three and four hundred i)aces off, with the wind blowing strongly from them toward myself, but generally they will allow you to approach very close indeed, before recognizing your strange- ness, and the pups will scarcely notice the form of a human being until it is fairly on them, whereupon they make a lively noise, a medley of coughing, spitting, snorting, blaating, and get away from its immediate vicinity, but instantly resume, however, their, previous occupation of either sleeping or play- ing, as though nothing had happened. "But the power of scent is (together with their hearing, be- fore mentioned) exceedingly keen, for I have found that I would most invariably awake them from soundest sleep if I got to the windward, even when standing a considerable distance off. " To recapitulate and sum up the system of reproduction on the rookeries as the seals seem to have arranged it, I would say, that — " First. The earliest bulls appear to land in a negligent, indo- lent way, shortly after the rocks at the water's edge are free from ice, frozen snow, &c. This is generally about the 1st to the 5th of May. They land first and last in perfect confideftce and without fear, very fat, and of an average weight of five hundred pounds ; some staying at the water's edge, some going away back, in fact all over the rookery. " Second. That by the 10th or 12th of June, all the stations on the rookeries have been mapped out, fought for, and held in waiting for the cows by the strongest and most enduring bulls, who are, as a rule, never under six years of age, and sometimes three, and even occasionally four times as old. "Third. That the cows make their first appearance, as a class, by the 12th or 15th of June, in rather small numbers, but by the 23d and 25th of this month they begin to flock up so as to fill the harems very perceptibly, and by the 8th or 10th of July they have most all come, stragglers excepted ; average weight eighty pounds. " Fourth. That the rutting-season is at its height fi'om the 10th to the 15th of July, and that it subsides entirely at the end of this month and early in August, and that it is confined entirely to the land. 364 CALLOEHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. " Fiftli. That the cows bear their first young when three years of age. "Sixth. That the cows are limited to a single pup each, as a rule, in bearing, and this is born soon after landing; no excep- tion has thus far been witnessed. " Seventh. That the bulls who have held the harems leave for the water in a straggling manner at the close of the rutting- season, greatly emaciated, not returning, if at all, until six or seven weeks have elapsed, and that the regular systematic distribution of families over the rookeries is at an end for the season, a general medley of young bidls now free to come up from the water, old males who have not been on seraglio duty, cows, and an immense majority of pups, since only about 25 per cent, of their mothers are out of the water at a time. " The rookeries lose their compactness and definite bounda- ries by the 25th to 28th July, when the pups begin to haul back and to the right and left in small squads at first, but as the season goes on, by the 18th August, they swarm over three and four times the area occupied by them when born on the rook- eries. The system of family arrangement and definite compact- ness of the breeding-classes begins at this date to break up. " Eighth. That by the 8th or 10th of August the pups born nearest the water begin to learn to swim, and by the 15th or 20th of September they are all familiar more or less with it. "'Ninth. That by the middle of September the rookeries are entirely broken up, only confused, straggling bands of cows, young bachelors, pups, and small squads of old bulls, crossing and recrossing the ground in an aimless, listless manner ; the season is over, but many of these seals do not leave these grounds until driven off' by snow and ice, as late as the end of December and 12th of January. '■'■['''■ Hauling-grounds.'''' — ] This recapitulation is the sum and substance of my observations on the rookeries, and I will now turn to the consideration of tlie hauling-grounds, upon which the yearlings and almost all the males under six years come out from the sea in squads from a hundred to a thousand, and, later in the season, by hundreds of thousands, to sleep and frolic, going from a quarter to half a mile back from the sea, as at English Bay. "This class of seals are termed 'holluschukie' (or 'bachelor seals') by the natives. It is with the seals of this division that these people are most familiar, since they are, together with a HABITS. 365 few thousand pups and some old bulls, the only ones driven uj) to the killing-grounds for their skins, for reasons which are ex- cellent, and which shall be given further on. "Since the 'holluschukie' are not permitted by their own kind to land on the rookeries and rest there, they have the choice of two methods of landing and locating. " One of these opportunities, and least used, is to pass up from and down to the water, through a rookery on a pathway left by common consent between the harems. On these lines of passage they are unmolested by the old and jealous bulls, who guard the seraglios on either side as they go and come ; generally there is a continual file of them on the way, travel- ing up or down. "As the two and three year old holluschukie come u]) in small squads with the first bulls in the spring, or a few days later, these common highways between the rear of the rookery-ground and the sea get well defined and traveled over before the arrival of the cows ; for just as the bulls crowd up for their stations, so do the bachelors, young and old, increase. These roadways may be termed the lines of least resistance in a big rookery ; they are not constant ; they are splendidly shown on the large rookeries of Saint Paul's, one of them (Tolstoi) exhibiting this feature finely, for the hauling-ground lies up back of the rook- ery, on a flat and rolling summit, 100 to 120 feet above the sea- level. The young males and yearlings of both sexes come through the rookery on these narrow pathways, and, before reaching the resting-ground above, are obliged to climb up an almost abrupt bluff, by following and struggling in the little water-runs and washes which are worn in its face. As this is a large hauling-ground, on which fifteen or twenty thousand commonly lie every day during the season, the sight always, at aU times, to be seen, in the way of seal climbing and crawling, was exceedingly novel and interesting. They climb over and up to places here where a clumsy man might at first sight say he would be unable to ascend. "The other method by which the 'holluschukie' enjoy them- selves on land is the one most followed and favored. They, in this case, repair to the beaches unoccupied between the rook- eries, and there extend themselves out all the way back from the water as far, in some cases, as a quarter of a mile, and even farther. I have had under my eye, in one straightforward sweep, from Zapad-nie to Tolstoi, (three miles,) a million and a 366 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. half of seals, at least, (about the middle of July.) Of these I estimated fully one-half were pups, yearlings, and ' holluschu- kie.' The great majority of the two latter classes were hauled out and packed thickly over the two miles of sand-beach and flat which lay between the rookeries ; many large herds were back as far from the water as a quarter of a mile. "A small flock of the younger ones, from one to three years gld, will frequently stray away back from the hauling-ground lines, out and up onto the fresh moss and grass, and there sport and play, one with another, just as puppy-dogs do ; and when weary of this gamboling, a general disposition to sleep is suddenly manifested, and they stretch themselves out and curl up in all the positions and all the postures that their flexible spines and ball-and-socket joints will permit. One will lie ux3on his back, holding up his hind flippers, lazily waving them in the air, while he scratches or rather rubs his ribs with the fore hands alternately, the eyes being tightly closed ; and the breath, indicated by the heaving of his flanks, drawn quickly but regu- larly, as though in heavy sleep ; another will be flat upon his stomach, his hind flippers drawn under and concealed, while he tightly folds his fore feet back against his sides, just as a fish will sometimes hold its pectoral fins ; and so on, without end of va- riety, according to the ground and disposition of the animals. " While the young seals undoubtedly have the power of going without food, they certainly do not sustain any long fasting periods on land, for theu" coming and going is frequent and irregular ; for instance, three or four thick, foggy days will sometimes call them out by hundreds of thousands, a million or two, on the different hauling-grounds, where, in some cases, they lie so closely together that scarcely a foot of ground, over acres in extent, is bare ; then a clearer and warmer day will ensue, and the ground, before so thickly packed with animal- life, will be almost deserted, comparatively, to be filled again immediately on the recurrence of favorable weather. They are in just as good condition of flesh at the end of the season as at the first of it. "These bachelor seals are, I am sure, without exception, the most restless animals in the whole brute creation -, they frolic and lope about over the grounds for hours, without a moment's cessation, and their sleep after this is short, and is accompanied with nervous twitchings and uneasy movements ; they seem to be fairly brimful and overrunning with warm life. I have never HABITS. 367 observed anything like ill-humor grow out of their playing to- gether ; invariably well pleased one with another in all their frolicsome struggles. "The pups and yearlings have an especial fondness for sport- ing on the rocks which are just at the water's level, so as to be alternately covered and uncovered by the sea-rollers. On the bare summit of these water- worn spots they struggle and clam- ber, a dozen or two at a time, occasionally, for a single rock ; the strongest or luckiest one pushing the others all off, which, however, simply redouble their efforts and try to dislodge him, who thus has, for a few moments only, the advantage ; for with the next roller and the other jiressure, he generally is ousted, and the game is repeated. Sometimes, as well as I could see, the same squad of 'holluschukie' jdayed around a rock thus situated, off ' Nah Speel' rookery, during the whole of one day; but, of course, they cannot be told apart. "The ' holluschukie,' too, are the champion swimmers; at least they do about all the fancy tumbling and turning that is done by the fur-seals when in the water around the islands. The grave old bulls and their matronly companions seldom indulge in any extravagant display, such as jumijing out of the water like so many dolphins, describing, as these youngsters do, beautiful elliptic curves, rising three and even four feet from the sea, with the back slightly arched, the fore flippers folded back against the sides, and the hinder ones extended and pressed together straight out behind, plumping in head first, re-appearing in the same manner after an interval of a few sec- onds. "All classes will invariably make these dolphin-jumps [*] when they are suddenly surprised or are driven into the water, turn- ing their heads, while sailing in the air, between the 'rises' and ' plumps,' to take a look at the cause of their disturbance. They all swim with great rapidity, and may be fairly said to dart with the velocity of a bird on the wing along under the water ; and in all their swimming I have not been able yet to satisfy myself how they used their long, flexible, hind feet, other than as steering mediums. The propelling motion, if they have any, is so rapid, that my eye is not quick enough to catch it ; the fore feet, however, can be very distinctly seen to work, [*Mr. J. H. Blake, who accompanied Professor Agasslz on the Hassler Ex- pedition to South America in 1871, as artist of the expedition, observed the Southern Sea Lions (Otariajuiata) performing similar evolutions.] 368 CALLORHINUS UESINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. feathering forward and sweeping back flatly, opposed to the water, with great rapidity and energy, and are evidently the sole propulsive i)ower. "All their movements in the water, when in traveling or sport, are quick and joyous, and nothing is more suggestive of intense satisfaction and great comfort than is the spectacle of a few thousand old bulls and cows, off' and from a rookery in August, idly rolling over, side by side, rubbing and scratching with the fore and hind flippers, which are here and there stuck up out of the water like lateen-sails, or ' cat-o'-nine tails,' in either case^ as it may be. "When the 'holluschukie' are up on land they can be readily separated into two classes by the color of their coats and size, viz, the yearlings, and the two, three, four, and five year old bulls. " The first class is dressed just as they were after they shed their pup-coats and took on the second the previous year, in September and October, and now, as they come out in the spring and summer, the males and females cannot be distin- guished apart, either by color or size; botli yearling sexes having the same gray backs and white bellies, and are the same in behavior, action, weight, and shape. "About the 15th and 20th of August they begin to grow 'stagey,' or shed, in common with all the other classes, thejiups excepted. The over-hair requires about six weeks from the commencement of the dropping or falling out of the old to its full renewal. " The pelage, or fur, which is concealed externally by the hair, is also shed and renewed slowly in the same manner; but, being so much finer than the hair, it is not so apparent. It was to me a great surprise to ' learn,' from a man who has been heading a seal-killing party on these islands during the past three years, and the Government agent in charge of these in- terests, that the seal never shed its fur ; that the over-hair only was cast off and rei^laced. To prove that it does, however, is a very simj^le matter, and does not require the aid of a micro- scope. For example, take up a prime spring or fall skin, after every single over-hair on it has been plucked out, and you will have difficulty, either to so blow upon the thick, fine fur, or to part it with the fingers, as to show the hide from which it has grown; then take a 'stagey' skin, by the end of August and early in September, when all the over-Jiair is present, about HABITS. 369 one-third to one-half groion, and the first puff you exi)end upon it easily shows the hide below, sometimes quite a broad welt. This under-fur, or pelage, is so fine and delicate, and so much concealed and shaded by the coarse over-hair, that a careless eye may be pardoned for any such blunder, but only a very cas- ual observer could make it. "The yearling cows retain the colors of the old coat in the new, and from this time on shed, year after year, just so, for the young and the old cows look alike, as far as color goes, when they haul up on the rookeries in the summer. "The yearling males, however, make a radical change, com- ing out from their 'staginess' in a uniform dark-gray and gray- black mixed and lighter, and dark ocher, on the under and up- per i)arts, respectively. This coat, next year, when they come up on the hauling-grounds, is very dark, and is so for the third, fourth, and fifth years, when, after this, they begin to grow more gray and brown, year by year, with rufous-ocher and whitish-gray tijiped over-hair on the shoulders. Some of the very old bulls become changed to uniform dull grayish-ocher all over. " The female does not get her full growth and weight until the end of her fourth year, so far as I have observed, but does the most of her growing in the first two. "The male does not get his full growth and weight until the close of his seventh year, but realizes most of it by the end of the fifth, osteologically, and from this it may be, perhaps, truly inferred that the bulls live to an average age of eighteen or twenty years, if undisturbed in a normal condition, and that the cows attain ten or twelve under the same circumstances. Their respective weight, when fiilly mature and fat in the spring, will, I think, strike an average of four to five hundred i^ounds for the male and from seventy to eighty for the female. " From the fact that all the young seals do not change much in weight, from the time of their first coming out in the si)ring till that of their leaving in the fall and early winter, I feel safe in saying, since they, too, are constantly changing from land to water and from water to land, that they feed at irregular but not long intervals during the time they are here under obser- vation. 1 do not think the young males fast longer than a week or ten days at a time as a class. "They leave evidences of their being on these great repro- ductive fields, chiefly on the rookeries, such as hundreds of Misc. Pub. :N^o. 12 24 370 CALLORHINUS UESINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. the dead carcasses of those of them that have been infirm, sick, killed, or which have crawled off to die ^com death-wounds re- ceived in some struggle for a harem ; and over these decaying, putrid bodies, the living, old and young, clamber and patter, and by this constant stirring up of putrescent matter give rise to an exceedingly disagreeable and far-reaching ^ funk,' which has been, by all the writers who have spoken on the subject, re- ferred to as the smell which these animals have in rutting. If these creatures have any such odor pecuUar to them when in this condition, I will frankly confess that I am unable to dis- tinguish it from the fumes which are constantly being stirred up and rising out from these decaying carcasses of old seals and the many i)ups which have been killed accidentally by the old bulls while fighting with and charging back and forth against one another. " Thej', however, have a peculiar smell when they are driven and get heated 5 their steaming breath exhalations possess a disagreeable, faint, sickly tone, but it can by no means be con- founded with what is universally understood to be the rutting- odor among animals. The finger rubbed on a little fur-seal blubber will smell very much like that which is appreciated in their breath coming from them when driven, only stronger. Both the young and old fur-seals have this same breath-smell at all seasons. "By the end of October and the 10th of IJ^Tovember the great mass of the 'hoUuschukie' have taken their departure ; the few that remain from now until as late as the snow and ice will permit them to do, in and after December, are all down by the waters edge, and hauled up almost entirely on the rocky beaches only, deserting the sand. The first snow falling makes them uneasy, as also does rain-fall. I have seen a large haul- ing-ground entirely deserted after a rainy day and night by its hundreds of thousands of occupants. The falling drops spatter and beat the sand into thek eyes, fur, &c., I presume, and in this way make it uncomfortable for them. " The weather in which the fur-seal delights is cool, moist, foggy, and thick enough to keep the sun always obscured so as to cast no shadows. Such weather, continued for a few weeks in June and July, brings them up from the sea by millions; but, as I have before said, a little sunlight and the temi^erature as high as 50° to 55°, will send them back from the hauling- grounds almost as quickly as they came. These sunny, warm. MODE OF CAPTURE. 371 ■days are, however, on Saint Paul's Island, very rare indeed, and so the seals can have but little ground of complaint, if we may presume that they have any at all."* The Chase. — The manner of capturing the Fur Seals has greatly varied at different times and at different localities. Krascheninikow states that on Behring's Island, a century and a quarter ago, the common way of killing them was to first strike out their eyes with stones, and then beat out their brains with clubs. This he says was a work of so much labor that "three men were hardly able to kill one with 300 strokes." In consequence of their seldom landing on the Kamtschatka coast, the same writer states that the natives were accustomed to pursue them in boats, " and throw darts or harpoons at them." He says they had to be particularly cautious not to let the wounded Seal " fasten upon the side of the boat and overturn it," to prevent which he says some of the fishermen stood ready "with axes to cut off his paws."t Captain Scammon thus describes the pursuit of the Fur Seal by the Indians of Vancouver Island: "When going in imrsuit of seals, three or four natives embark in a canoe at an early hour in the morning, and usually return the following evening. The fishing-gear consists of two spears, which are fitted to a l^ronged pole fifteen feet in length ; to the spears a line is at- tached, which is fastened to the spear-pole close to, or is held in the hand of, the spearman, when he darts the weapon. A seal-club is also I)ro^■ided, as well as two seal-skin buoys — the latter being taken in the canoe to be used in rough weather ; or if a seal, after being speared, can not be managed with the line in hand, a buoy is 'bent on', and the animal is allov/ed to take its own course for a time. Its efforts to escape, by diving repeatedly, aud plunging about near the surface of the water, soon exhaust the animal somewhat ; and when a favorable time is presented, the spearman seizes the buoy, hauls in the line until within reach of the seal, and it is captured by being clubbed. But generally the line is held in the hand when the spear is thrust into the seal 5 then the i)ole is instantly withdrawn, and the canoe is hauled at once to the floundering creature, which is dispatched as before described. Indians from the Vancouver shore frequently start in the night, so as to be on the best seal- * Coudition of Aiiairs in Alaska, pp. 123-150. t Hist. Kamtsch. (English ed.), p. 130. 372 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. ing ground in the morning. This locality is said to be south- Avest of Cape Classet, five to fifteen miles distant." * In hunting Seals for their commercial products the common method of killing them appears to have generally been by club- bing them, as is at present practiced on the Seal Islands of Alaska, one or two heavy blows upon the head being sufficient to dispatch them. The method of attack is very much like that practiced in destroying herds of Walruses, already described. A large party cautiously land, when possible, to the leeward of a rookery, and then, at a given signal, rush ujion the Seals, with loud shouting, and with their clubs soon destroy large numbers. It has generally been practiced "without system or restraint,, resulting in the speedy destruction of large rookeries. As is well known, the Southern Sea Bears or Fur Seals {Arctoceplialus ^^ falMandicus,''^ A. forsteri, A. ^^cinereus," etc.) were long since- practically exterminated at many localities where they were formerly very abundant, as has been the case with the Northern Fur Seal on our own Californian coast. At one time the same destructive and ruinous policy was pursued by the Eussians at the Prybilov Islands, but the folly of such a practice was soon pei'ceived, and through government interference their extermi- nation there has been happily prevented. Their destruction is at present regulated by the United States Government, the * whole matter being judiciously and systematically managed. The manner of taking and killing the Seals, and the method adopted to x>revent their decrease, has been described in detail by Mr. Elliott, and is here appended. "Taking the Seals. — By reference to the habits of the fur- seal, it is plain that two-thirds of all the males that are born (and { they are equal in number to the females born) are never j)er- mitted by the remaining third, strongest by natural selection^ '' to land upon the same ground with the females, which always ■* herd together en masse. Therefore, this great band of bachelor seals, or ' holluschuckie,' is compelled, when it visits land, ta live apart entkely, miles away frequeutlj^, from the breeding- grounds, and in this admirably perfect manner of nature are those seals which can be properly killed without injury to the 'rookeries selected and held aside, so that the natives can visit and take them as they would so many hogs, without disturbing in the slightest degree the peace and quiet of the breeding- ' grounds where the stock is perpetuated. * Marine Mammalia, pp. 154, 155. MODE OF CAPTUEE. 373 "The manner in wliicli the natives cax)tnre and drive the holhiscliuckie up from the hauling-oronnds to the shinghtering-- fields near the villages and elsewhere, cannot be improved upon, and is most satisfactory. "In the early part of the season large bodies of the j'^oung bachelor seals do not haul up on land very far from the water, a few rods at the most, and the men are obliged to approach .slyly and run quickly between the dozing seals and the surf, before they take alarm and bolt into the sea, and in this way a dozen Aleuts, running down the long sand-beach of English Bay, some driving-morning early in June, will turn back from the water thousands of seals, just as the mold-board of a plow lays over and back a furrow of earth. As the sleeping seals are first startled they arise, and seeing men between them and the water, immediately turn, lope and scramble rapidly back over the land; the natives then leisurely walk on the flanks and in the rear of the drove thus secured, and direct and drive them ■over to the killing-grounds. "A drove of seals on hard or firm grassy ground, in cool and moist weather, may with safety be driven at the rate of half a mile an hour; they can be urged along with the expenditure of a great many lives in the drove, at the speed of a mile or a mile and a quarter even jyer hour, but this is highly injudicious and is seldom ever done. A bull seal, fat and unwieldy, cannot travel with the younger ones, but it can lope or gallop as it were over the ground as fast as an ordinary man can run for a hundred yards, but then it falls to the earth sujiine, utterly exhausted, hot and gasping for breath. "The seals, when driven thus to the killing-grounds, require but little urging; they are permitted to frequently halt and cool off, as heating them injures their fur; they never show fight any more than a flock of sheep would do, unless a few old seals are mixed in, AVhich usually get so weary that they prefer to come to a stand-still and fight rather than to move ; this action on their part is of great advantage to all parties concerned, and the old fellows are always permitted to drop behind and remain, for the fur on them is of little or no value, the pelage very much shorter, coarser, and more scant than in the younger, especially so on the parts posteriorly. This change in the condition of the fur seems to set in at the time of their shedding, in the fifth year as a rule. "As the drove progresses the seals all move in about the same 374 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. way, a kind of a walking-step and a sliding, shambling gallop,, •and the progression of the whole body is a succession of staits, made every few minutes, spasmodic and irregular. Every now and then a seal will get weak in the lumbar region, and drag his posterior after it for a short distance, but finally drops breath- less and exhausted, not to revive for hours, days per]i?ix)s, and often never. Quite a large number of the weaker ones, on the driest driving-days, are thus laid out and left on the road; if one is not too much heated at the time, the native driver usually taps the beast over the head and removes its skin. This will happen, no matter how carefully they are driven, and the death- loss is quite large, as much as 3 or 4 per cent, on the longer drives, such as three and four miles, from Zapadnie or Polavina to the village on Saint Paul's, and I feel satisfied that a consid- erable number of those rejected from the drove and jjermitted to return to the water die subsequently from internal injuries sustained on the drive from overexertion. I therefore think it improper to, extend drives of seals over any distance exceeding a mile or a mile and a half. It is better for all parties con- cerned to erect salt-houses and establish killing-grounds adja- cent to all of the great hauling-grounds on Saint Paul's Island should the business ever be developed above the j)resent limit. As matters now are, the ninety thousand seals belonging to the quota of Saint Paul last summer were taken and skinned in less than forty days within one mile from either the village, or salt-house on i?^ortheast Point. " Killing the Seals. — The seals when brought up to the kill- ing-grounds are herded there until cool and rested ; then squads or ' pods ' of fifty to two hundred are driven out from the body of the drove, surrounded and huddled up one against and over the other, by the natives, who carry each a long, heavy club of hard Avood, with which they strike the seals down by blows upon the head; a single stroke of a heavy oak bludgeon, well and fairly delivered, will crush in at once the slight, thin bones of a seal's skull, laying the creature out lifeless ; these strokes are usually repeated several times with each animal, but are very quickly done. " The killing-gang, consisting usually of fifteen or twenty men. at a time, are under the supervision of a chief of their own se- lection, and have, before going into action, a common under- standing as to what grades to kill, sparing the others which are MODE OF CAPTURE. 375 unfit, under age, &c., permitting them to escape and return to the water as soon as the marked ones are knocked down ; the natives then drag the slain out from the heap in which they have fallen, and spread the bodies out over the ground just free from touching one another so that they will not be hastened in 'heating' or blasting, finishing the work of death by thrusting into the chest of each stunned and senseless seal a long, sharp knife, which touches the vitals and bleeds it thoroughly; and if a cool day, another 'pod' is started out and disposed of in the same way, and so on until a thousand or two are laid out, or the drove is finished; then they turn to and skin; but if it is a warm day, every ' pod' is skinned as soon as it is knocked down. "This work of killing as well as skinning is performed very rapidly ; for example, forty-five men or natives on Saint Paul's during June and July, 1872, in less than four working- wrecks drove, killed, skinned, and salted the pelts of 72,000 seals. "The labor of skinning is exceedingly severe, and is trying'^ to an exj)ert, requiring long jiractice before the muscles of the back and thighs are so developed as to permit a man to bend doAVQ to and finish well a fair day's work. "The body of the seal, preparatory to skinning, is rolled over or put upon its back, and the native makes a single swift cut through the skin down along the neck, chest, and belly, from the lower jaw to the root of the tail, using for this purpose a large, sharp knife. The fore and hind flippers are then succes- sively lifted, and a sweeping circular incision is made through the skin on them just at the point where the body-fur endsj then, seizing a flap of the hide on either one side or the other of the abdomen, the man proceeds to rapidly cut the skin clean and free from the body and blubber, which he rolls over and out from the skin by hauling up on it as he advances with his work, standing all the time stooping over the carcass so that his hands are but slightly above it or the ground. This opera- tion of skinning a fair-sized seal takes the best men only a min- ute and a half, but the average time on the' ground is about four minutes. " I^othingis left of the skin upon the carcass save a small patch of each upper lij), on which the coarse mustache grows, the skin on the tip of the lower jaw, the insignificant tail, together with the bare hide of the flippers. "The blubber of the far-seal is of a faint yellowish white, and lies entirely between the skin and the flesh, none being depos- 376 CALLORIIINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. ited in between tlie muscles. Around the small and large intes- tines a uaoderate quantity of bard, firm fat is found. The blub- ber i^ossesses an extremely offensive, sickening odor, difficult to ■ wash from the hands. It makes, however, a very fair oil for lubricating, burning, &c. " The flesh of the fur-seal, when carefully cleaned from fat or blubber, can be cooked, and by most peoi)le eaten, who, did they not know what it was, might consider it some poor, tough, dry beef, rather dark in color and overdone. That of the pup, however, while on the land and milk-fed, is tender and juicy but insipid. ''The skins are taken from the field to the salt-house, where they are laid out open, one upon another, ' hair to fat,' like so many sheets of paper, with salt profusely spread upon the fleshy sides, in 'kenches' or bins. After lying a week or two salted in this style they are ready for bundling and shipi)ing, two skins to the bundle, the fur outside, tightly rolled up and strongly corded, having an average weight of twelve, fifteen, and twenty- two pounds when made uj) of two, three, and four year old skins respectively. "The company leasing the islands are permitted by law to take one hundred thousand, and no more, annually ; this they do in June and July; after that season the skins rapidly grow worthless by shedding, and do not pay for transportation and tax. The natives are paid forty cents a skin for the catch, and keep a close account of the progress of the work every day, as it is all done by them, and they know mthin fifty skins, one way or the other, when the whole number have been secured each season. This is the only occupation of some three him- dred and fifty people here, and they naturally look well after it. The interest and close attention paid by these Aleuts on both islands to this business was both gratifying and instructive to me while stationed there." In regard to the preparation and value of the skin Mr. Elliott states as follows : "The common or x)opular notioli regarding seal-skins is that they are worn by those animals just as they appear when offered for sale. This is a very great mistake ; few skins are less attractive than the seal-skin as it is taken from the creature. The fur is not visible, concealed entirely hy a coat of stiff over- hair, dull gray, brown, and grizzled. The best of these raw skins are worth only $5 to $10, but after dressing they bring PKEPARATION OF THE SKINS, 377 from $25 to $40; and it takes three of them to make a lady's sack and boa." * As an interesting supplement to this portion of the subject, I transcribe a letter from George C. Treadwell & Co., leading- furriers, and long familiar ^yitli the manner of prei^aring the skins, addressed to Mr. Elliott (dated Albany, October 22, 1874), in which the process of dressing the skins for market is Tery clearly set forth. The letter (extracted from Mr. Elliott's Eeport) is as follows : " The Alaska Commercial Comj)any sold in London, Decem- ber, 1873, about sixty thousand skins taken from the islands leased by our Government of the catch of 1873. The remain- der of the catch, about forty thousand, were sold in March. This company have made the collection of seal from these islands much more valuable than they were before their lease, by the care used by them in curing the skins, and taking them only when in season. We have worked this class of seal for several years — when they were owned by the Eussian American Fur Company, and during the first jear they were owned by our Government. "When the skins are received by us in the salt, we wash oft" the salt, placing them upon a beam somewhat like a tanner's beam, removing the fat from the flesh-side witL a beaming- knife, care being required that no cuts or uneven places are made in the pelt. The skins are next washed in water and placed upon the beam with the fur up, and the grease and water removed by the knife. The skins are then dried by mod- erate heat, being tacked out on frames to keep them smooth. After being fully dried they are soaked in water and thoroughlj* cleansed with soap and water. In some cases they can be uu- haired without this drying process, and cleansed before drying. After the cleansing process they pass to the picker, who dries the fur by stove-heat, the pelt being kept moist. When the fur is dry he places the skin on a beam, and while it is warm he removes the main coat of hair with a dull shoe-knife, grasping the hair with his thumb and knife, the thumb being protected by a rubber cob. The hair must be pulled out, not broken. After a portion is removed the skin must again be warmed at the stove, the pelt being kept moist. When the outer hairs have been mostly removed, he uses a beamiug-knife to work out the finer hairs, (which are shorter,) and the remaining * Condition of Afiairs in Alaska, pj). 80-85. 378 CALLORHINUS URSINUS — NORTHERN FUR SEAL. coarser hairs. It will be seen that great care must be used, as the skin is in that soft state that too much pressure of the knife would take the fur also ; indeed, bare spots are made ; carelessly- cured skins are sometimes worthless on this account. The skins are next dried, afterward dampened on the pelt side, and shaved to a fine, even surface. They are then stretched, worked, and dried ; afterward softened in a fulling-mill, or by treading them with the bare feet in a hogshead, one head being removed and the cask placed nearly upright, into which the workman gets with a few skins and some fine hard-wood saw- dust, to absorb the grease while he dances upon them to break them into leather. If the skins have been shaved thin, as required when finished, any defective spots or holes must now be mended, the skin smoothed and pasted with i)aper on the pelt side, or two x)asted together to protect the pelt in dyeing. The usual iDrocess in the United States is to leave the pelt suf- ficiently thick to protect them without i)asting. " In dyeing, the liquid dye is put on with a brush, carefully covering the jioiuts of the standing fur. After lying folded, with the points touching each other, for some little time, the skins are hung up and dried. The dry dye is then removed, another coat applied, dried, and removed, and so on until the required shade is obtained. One or two of these coats of dye are put on much heavier and pressed down to the roots of the fur, making what is called the ground. From eight to twelve coats are required to produce a good color. The skins are then washed clean, the fur dried, the pelt moist. They are shaved down to the required thickness, dried, working them some while drying, then softened in a hogshead, and sometimes run in a revolving cylinder with fine sawdust to clean them. The English process does not have the washing after dyeing. " I should, perhaps, say that, with all the care used, many skins are greatly injured in the working. Quite a quantity of English- dyed seal were sold last season for $17, damaged in the dye. " The above is a general process, but we are obliged to vary for diiferent skins ; those from various i)arts of the world require different treatment, and there is quite a difference in the skins from the Seal Islands of our country — I sometimes think about as much as in the human race." * History and Prospects of the Fur Seal Business at * Condition of Affairs in Alaska, pp. 85, 86. HISTORY AND PROSPECTS OF FUR SEAL BUSINESS. 379 THE Prybilov Islands. — From tlie speedy extermination of the Fur Seals of the Southern hemisphere at many points where they existed a century ago in apparently inexhaustible numbers,* the preservation of the Northern Fur Seals at the two small islands that now, so far as known, form their princii)al breeding- stations, becomes a matter of much zoological interest as well as of practical imi)ortance. The islands of Saint George and Saint Paul were discovered, respectively, in 1786 and 1787, and im- mediately after, it is stated, as many as six comi^anies established themselves at these islands, all vieing with each other in the de- struction of the Seals in consequence of the great commercial value of the skins. No record appears to have been kept of the number annually killed between 1787 and 1805, at which time the number of Seals frequenting the islands had greatly de- creased. Then follows for two years axessation of the slaugh- ter, which was resumed in 1808. Up to 1822 the destruction of Seal life was indiscriminate and wholly without restriction from government or other sources. In tliis year it was ordered that young Seals should be spared each year for the purpose of keeping up the stock. This order was so honestly enforced that in four years the number of Seals on Saint Paul's Island in- creased tenfold. The number annually taken these years was only 8,000 to 10,000, instead of 40,000 to 50,000, the number for- merly killed yearly. Subsequently the killing was allowed to greatly increase, which prevented any augmentation in the number of Seals. In 1834 the number allowed to be killed on Saint Paul's Island was reduced from 12,000 to 6,000. After this date the conditions of increase were more carefully studied and more carefully regarded, so that there was a gradual numer- ical increase from 1835 to 1857, when the rookeries are said to have become very nearly as large as now, the natives believing, however, that there has been, since the last-named date, a very gradual but steady increase. The great diminution seems to have set in about 1817, and to have continued till 1834, when, as Mr. Elliott expresses it, "hardly a tithe of the former num- bers appeared on the ground." From 1835 to 1857 there was a steady increase, when the maximum then reached appears to have been maintained. In regard to the number now x)resent on these islands, Mr. Elliott estimated, from a careful survey of the breeding-grounds, * See anted,, p. 334, .footnote, e. g., respecting their former abundance and early almost total extirpation at the Island of Juan Fernandez. 380 CALLORHINUS URSIXUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. that in 1873 there were on the Prybilov Islands '•'■over four mUUon seven hundred tJionsand " Fur Seals, and that one million are born there annually, divided about equally between males and females. So many of these are destroyed by their natural enemies during the following six months that only about one half return the succeeding spring. During the next winter about one-tenth of the remainder are also destroyed at sea, after which very few appear to die from natural causes. Only one- fifteenth of the annual increase of males can, in consequence of the peculiar habits of the animals, share in the office of repro- duction. Assuming the above statement to be a fair estimate of the number of Seals annually born on the islands, Mr. Elliott states it as his belief that, after making due allowance for the number that- perish at sea during early life, and for the perpet- uation of the stock, 18Q,000 young male Seals may be annually taken for their skins. "With regard to the increase of the seal-life," says Mr. Elliott, ^' I do not think it within the power of human management to promote this end to the slightest appreciable degree beyond its present extent and condition in a state of nature ; for it cannot fail to be evident, from my detailed description of the habits and life of the fur-seal on these islands during a great part of the year, that could man have the same supervision and con- trol over this animal during the ivhole season which he has at liis command while they visit the land, he might cause them to multiply and increase, as he would so many cattle, to an indefi- nite number, only limited by time and means ; but the case in question, unfortunately, takes the fur-seal six months out of every year far beyond the reach, or even cognizance, of any one, where it is exi)osed to known powerful and destructive natural enemies, and many others probably unknown, which prey upon it, and, in accordance with a well-recognized law of nature, keep it at about a certain number which has been for ages, and will be for the future, as affairs now are, its maximum limit of in- crease. This law holds good everywhere throughout the animal kingdom, regulating and jweserving the equilibrium of life in a state of nature. Did it not hold good, these Seal Islands and all Bering Sea would have been literally covered, and have swarmed with them long before the Eussians discovered them ; but there were no more seals when first seen here by human eyes in 1786-'87 than there are now, in 1874, as far as aH evi- dence goes." ENEMIES. 381 '^ What can be done to promote their increase ? We cannot cause a greater number of females to be born everj' year ; we do not touch or disturb these females as they grow up and live, and we save more than enough males to serve them. Xothing^ more can be done, for it is impossible to protect them from deadly enemies in their wanderings for food." " In view, therefore, of all these facts," continues Mr. Elliott, " I have no hesitation in saying quite confidently that, under the present rules and regulations governing the sealing inter- ests on these islands, the increase or diminution of the life will amount to nothing; that the seals will continue for all time in about the same number and condition."* Enemies of the Fur Seals. — Man, of course, stands first in importance as an enemy of the Fur Seals, but under the restric- tions respecting the killing these animals now enforced at the Prybilov Islands, does not aj)pear to have a very marked influence in effecting their decrease. That they suffer greatly from other animals is evident from the fact that only about one-half of the Seals annually born at the Seal Islands ever return there again. What these enemies are is not as yet well known, since it is only within a. few years that the matter has been so closely studied as to render it apj)arent that there is this very large decrease of young Seals during their absence from the islands. It has been known, however, for many years that Killer Whales (different species of Orca) prey habitually upon the young, from these having been found in their stomachs. Michael Carroll, Esq., in his " Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland " and in the reports on the Canadian Fisheries, alludes to the great destruction of young Seals on the Atlantic coast by this animal and by sharks and sword-fishes, and also by their being crushed in the ice. The Orca and the sharks are alluded to by Mr. Elliott as preying extensively upon the young Seals, and it may be that many others are destroyed by enemies not at present well known. * Since the foregoing was prepared for publication, I have re- ceived from Captain Bryant the subjoined account, based on long personal experience at Saint Paul's Island. Although in some points anticipated by Mr. Elliott's x)ublished Eeport, and covering to a great extent the same phases of the subject, it contains so much additional matter that at the expense of some * Condition of Affairs in Alaska, pp. 88, 89. 382 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. reiteration I have deemed it best to introduce it entire. The report is addressed as a personal communication to me in re- sponse to my earnest solicitation for the final results of his many years of observation upon the Alaskan Fur Seal. By way of explanation of the character of his report he observes : "The object I wish to attain in writing these notes is to i)ut on record the result of my observations on the Fur Seals of Saint Paul's Island during- eight years' residence as Treasury agent in charge of the interest of the United States Treasury Department. In order to do this some account of their habits and the condition of affairs on my first arrival there seems necessary as a starting point, in order that the changes that have since occurred may be more clearly understood. As you have had the result of my first season's observations there, [*] I need not be so diffuse in my descriptions as would be otherwise necessary, and you will understand that where any of my for- mer statements are omitted or changed it is due to correction made necessary by my longer exj)erience. I shall endeavor to make this report as brief as is consistent with the successful attainment of the objects before stated." '' History of the Fur-Seal Fishery at the Prybilov Islands, Alaska, from 1869 to 1877. — Preliminary and General Observations. — The island of Saint Paul is of purely volcanic origin, consisting of a collection of elevated cones and elongated ridges, connected by low valleys composed of beds of marine sand that has gradually been thrown on the shores by the action of the waves. This sand is of so light a character that when dry it readily drifts over the hills, thereby covering the lava surface. It also washes into the coves formed by the projecting points of land, where it constitutes broad, low beaches. The shores of the points and ridges which extend out into the sea are mostly composed of irregular masses of broken rock, washed by the surf and rains, so that no sand accumulates on them except in an occasional crack or gully. These rocky slopes are selected by the breeding Seals as the places for bringing forth tlieir young, they having a repug- nance to occupying the sandy spaces. " The male Fur Seal attains its full growth and strength at the age of six or seven years, when it weighs, at the time of land- [* See Bull. Mus. Comp. Zoo!., a-oI. ii, 1870, pp. 89-108.] CONDITION IN 1869. 383 ing, from three hundred and fifty pounds to four hundred ; in exceptional cases a weight of four hundred and fifty pounds is attained. The males acquire the power of procreation in the fourth year, and at five years share largely in the duty of repro- . belly, equidistant from the fore and hind flippers. During j lactation they are half an inch in length, but do not protrude beyond the overhair. The mode of copulation on land has already been described. When there was a full supply of breeding males copulation occurred mainly on the breeding- grounds, the half-bulls i)articif)ating to only a limited extent, and was rarely seen to occur in the water. Since 1874, owing to the decrease in the number of breeding males, a much larger i^roportion of the females receive the males in the water, .so that on any still day after the 20th of July, by taking a canoe 406 CALLORHINUS UESINUS — NORTHERN FUR SEAL. and goiug a little off-sbore, considerable numbers may be seen pairing, and readily approached so near as to be fully observed. They are then found in single j^airs, swimming in circles, some- times the one sometimes the other leading. They come together in approaching the surface from below, the male shooting onto the back of the female and firmly clasping her between his fore flippers. The time of contact is shorter than on land, not exceeding five minutes, but the operation is repeated two or three tunes, at intervals of fifteen or twenty minutes. They then separate, each going in a difl'erent direction. "Power of suspending Eespiration. — As these creatures spend so great a portion of their life at sea, it is interesting to know how long they are capable of remaining below the surface. When full-grown males, sleeping on the edge of the beach, are frightened into the water so suddenly that they do not recog- nize the nature of the disturbance, they invariably plunge and swim beneath the surface till obliged to rise to breathe. In such cases they remain from two to two and a half minutes under the surface and come up from one hundred and fifty to two hun- dred yards distant. If a boat passes among them they will foUow it at a distance of ten or fifteen yards. On coming to the surface they will stand erect with the whole of the body ante- rior to the fore limbs above the water, and in this position remain perfectly still for several seconds, then with a summer- sault and a splash, disappear for a minute or so to reappear again in some other direction, apparently enjoying the fun ; in no case have I timed them when they remained over two and a half minutes under water. I do not think their power of remain- ing below the surface equal to that of an experienced and well- trained pearl-oyster diver. This seems to indicate that they must feed on fishes living near the surface ; at least not on bot- tom-fish in deep waters. "Natural Enemies. — From the birth of the young Seals until they leave the island at four and a half months old, the loss of life from natural causes is very slight, not exceeding one-half of 1 per cent. At the time of thek departure they are excessively fat and clumsy, and easily fall a prey to the small Whale known as the Killer, their only positively-known enemy. These grow to a length of fifteen to eighteen feet, and go in schools of from five to a dozen or more, frequently attack- ing and killing full-grown Right Whales by eating out their EFFECT OF CLIMATIC INFLUENCES. 407 tongues; lience the name Killer, applied to them by whalemen. When the season arrives for the young Seals to enter the water these animals are seen near the island, creating great conster- nation among the Seals both young and old. They rarely ven- ture near shore, but in three cases where they have been caught young Seals have been found in their stomachs, leaving no doubt of their object in ax^proaching the island. I have also been informed by the natives of Bristol Bay that these same animals are formidable enemies to the young Walruses and Hair Seals. The Killers doubtless follow the Seals to their winter feeding-grounds and prey upon them. During the time the young Seals are absent from the island fidly 60 i^er cent, of their number are destroyed by their enemies before they arrive at the age of one year, and during the second year about 15 per cent, more are lost. Later they appear to be better able to protect themselves, but before they arrive at maturity at least 10 per cent, more are destroyed 5 so that if left entirely to themselves only 10 or 15 per cent, of the annual product would mature or reach the age of seven years. To what age the males attain, there is no means of definitely ascertaining. In the records of Shisenekoff, to which I have before alluded, it is stated that he observed one male occujiy the same rock for fourteen successive years. Only in five instances have I been able to identify the same Seal as occupying the same place. Four of these returned four years in succession, and the other, five years. They were probably eight years old when first ob- served, so that they attained at least to twelve years, which I think may be considered as their average length of life. As I have before stated, the large surplus of full-grown males exist- ing in 1869 nearly all disappeared in about six years ; and when we consider the fact of their severe labors during the breeding season, when they pass from ninety to one hundred and twenty days without food, engaged in a constant struggle for their positions, and performing the most exhaustive function of phys- ical life, six or seven years would seem to 'be the limit of the active period of their lives. "Effect of climatic Influences. — It remains now to notice the effect of the climate on these animals. The climate is very uniform at the islands during the period the Seals remain here. The months of April, May, June, and July are the most important portions of the year, as in August the Seals are all in a condition to go in the water and avoid the influences most 408 CALLORHINUS URSINUS ^NORTHERN FUR SEAL. injurious to them, namely, sunshine and rain. I here fiu^nish an abstract from the meteorological tables of 0. P. Fish, signal- officer resident on the island in 1874, this being the warmest year and the one most unfavorable to the Seals during my eight years' residence at the islands. Mean average for the month. ^ 3 6 a hi 4^ a % §1 October. 1 34° 80.4 38° 77.4 440 80.6 490 87.4 50° 83.8 47° 79.2 40° 76.2 37° Relative humidity 80.8 Proportion of cloudiness 83.6 76.1 88.0 97.0 82.2 75.5 78.0 73.2 Amount of rainfall 0.84 0.58 2.91 3.81 2.62 3.01 4.82 9.28 Number of days on which precipitation occurred 29 2.8 21 0.12 25 0.05 27 61.7 29 22.2 25 2.6 31 1.0 28 Proportion of foggy days 1.3 "During the months of May, June, and July the sun's rays are generally obscured, the sky has a leaden appearance, but there is very little fog until about the end of July, at which time also there are usually two or three days of heavy rain. In June and July there are occasionally days Avhen the sun shines clearly for two or three hours, but rarely longer. These days are dreaded by the sealers. At a temperature of 40°, with obscuration of the sun, the Seals lie quietly ; at 42° they manifest signs of discom- fort from heat, and lie on their sides, fanning themselves with their hind flipi^ers, occasionally changing sides. At 45° they are decidedly uncomfortable, and all that can go into the water to bathe and cool themselves, remaining there an hour or two. "The beachmasters, and the little Seals that have not yet learned to swim, remain on the land. When the sun shines for two or three hours, and the rocks become heated, there are oc- casional deaths among the beachmasters and very young pups from sunstroke, the symptoms being a nervous jerking of the limbs, followed by con"\ailsions and death. Fortunately these occurrences are rare, and it was only in 1874 that any appre- ciable number were lost from this cause. That year many young- Seals died about the first of August. With light rain or thick fog they endure a temperature of 50° without inconvenience. The same fatal results occur from overheating when driving, in which case if the animals are not skinned immediately the NUMBER REQUIRED BY THE NATIVES FOR FOOD. 409 fur is loosened and the skin becomes valueless. It occasionally happens that when a herd has been driven in during the night from a distance of five or six miles, they do not get sufficiently cool before seven o'clock. If the sun shines, in half an hour the whole herd show symptoms of discomfort, and soon become entirely unmanageable, breaking away from the watchers and rushing in all directions, heedless of obstacles, running into the village, entering open doors, and attempting to climb up the sides of the houses, piles of lumber, or any other object in their way, keeping on until convulsions and death result. At such times every available hand is required with club and knife to follow, knock dowTi, and skin before the pelt is damaged by the heat. The only remedy is to get them into the nearest water ^s fast as possible, as all thus treated are saved. After a bath of half an hour they can be driven again, and if allowed to lie quietly no further trouble is experienced. " They are also greatly disturbed by rain. They pay little at- tention to a slight drizzle, but when copious showers occur they all resort to the water until the rain is over, preferring this to the shore. "It thus appears that for the successful breeding of these animals certain meteorological conditions are indispensable, and that they require a place where they can land and remain un- disturbed for half the year. The geographical situation of these islands affords not only the isolation they require, but the requi- site humidity and exemption from extremes of heat and cold. If the islands had been especially created for the Seals they seemingly could not have been better adajited to their requii^e- ments. Hence, if not rudely disturbed by man, there need be no fear of their changing their place of breeding. "Number of Seals required for the Subsistence of THE Natives. — The principal subsistence of the native popula- tion is Seal-flesh. When the Seals arrive in spring, if the winter supply is not exhausted, it has become so stale as to render it necessary to commence killing fresh food as soon as enough young males for the purpose have landed, which usually occurs by the 20th of May. The skins of these animals are salted, and on the 1st of June (the legal time for taking Seals for their skins) all the skins of animals that have been taken for food are turned over l)y the Treasury agent to the agent of the <3omi)any as a part of the quota for tbat year. While the com- 410 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. pany are taking these animals for their skins, the natives sub- sist on the flesh of the animals so killed. When the company have obtained their full quota their control of the killing ceases, the Treasury agent directing the killing for food. From about the end of July until the Seals leave the island, there are re- quired for the subsistence of the natives three hundred ani- mals per week. Care is taken in killing for this purpose to- take such animals as will yield skins acceptable by the company as a part of the. next year's quota, but during the shedding season the skins are valueless. As this period lasts from the middle of August to October, the number of skins so lost is about two thousand. Besides this loss, in November, before the young Seals leave the islands for the winter, about 8,000 four-and-a-half-months-old young males are taken for a supply of blubber and Seal-flesh for use in winter while the Seals are absent from the islands. This is necessary, because at this sea- son the older Seals that have been so long ashore as to have become quite thin and poor, yield little blubber, while their flesh is tough and stringy. The blubber of the nursing Seals, is quite different from that of the older Seals, being finer in texture and firmer, with less proportion of oil, and is far prefer- able for food-purposes. The carcasses of these young Seals are dressed and suspended on poles in the open air, and are kept fresh nearly all winter by being frozen. It will be seen by this^ that the total number of animals killed annually for all purposes is 110,000. This, in the six years that have elapsed since the beginning of the lease, amounts to a total of 600,000 male Seals. Allowing the sexes to be produced in equal numbers (and so- far as can be judged this appears to be the fact), there have been added to the original stock of breeding females 000,000 over the number existing at the beginning of the lease ; and this agrees very nearly with the increased area now occujiied by them, which shows a total of not much less than 1,800,000> breeding females. "Winter Eesoets and Habits while absent from the. Islands. — Of the life of these animals while absent from the islands but little is known, nor is it known where their princi- pal feeding-grounds are. We know that the greater jiart pass through Ounimak and Aidvootan Straits, going east in autumn and west in spring; and that in ]3ecember, about six weeks- after they leave the islands, fishing parties of Indians at Sitk'i, WINTER EESORTS, ETC. 411 1,500 miles east of the Seal Islands, occasioually slioot and bring in tlie young Seal puj)s (they probably slioot the mothers, but they having too little blubber to float them they lose them). During the winter months considerable numbers of Seal-skins are taken by the natives of British Columbia ; some years as many as two thousand. These find their way to the San Fran- cisco market. On examining parcels of them I have found them to be mostly very young Seals, with no male skins among them old enough to show the sex. When at Victoria I made special inquiries about the sealmg, and found that most of the skins obtained there were taken in the water, but a half-breed hunter told me he had found in summer, on Queen Charlotte Island, groups of these animals consisting of two or more beachmasters, with a dozen or more females and pups, but no half-grown males. "Xor is it kno^n whether the different sexes associate during the period of their absence from the islands. The males inva- riably come to the island first, take up their positions and wait the arrival of the females, which come after the males have all arrived. They not only come by themselves, but they aU re- main till after the males have gone. I have made constant inquiries of all masters of vessels cruising for trade or whales^ in Behring's Sea with reference to the occurrence of these ani- mals in those waters, but in only one instance can I learn that they have been observed. In 1870 a vessel, becalmed for nearly a week one hundred miles north of the islands, in the month of August, reported seeing many Seals, nearly all old buUs. As at that time this class was largely in excess, it is i)ossible that these males were off to feed. The Alaska Commercial Company have a general depot of supplies at Onalaska, whence the mer- chandise for their trade is distributed in schooners to the differ- ent points on the main coast and the islands. The masters and oflicers of these schooners, who are familiar with the Seals, say they see smaU groups of small (apparently one- and two-year-old) Seals at all times during July and August. These, I think, may be young females, which, as already stated, do not visit the island tiU they are three years old." 412 FAMILY PHOCID^. FAMILY PHOCID^. EARLESS SEALS. Les Phoqiies nans oreilles ou Phoques proprement dits, BUFFON, Hist. Nat. Suppl., vi, 1782, 306. Phocacea inauriculata, Perox, Voy. aux Terr. Aiistr., ii, 1810, 37, foot-note. Phocido}, Gray, Ann. of Phil., xxvi, 1825, 340, in part, and also (in part only) of mimerous writers prior to about 1870. Pliocidcc, "Brookes, Cat. Mas., 1828, 36"; Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, .5.— Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., iv, 1869, 268, 342, 344.— Allex, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., ii, 1870.— Also of most authors since 1870. Fore limbs placed well forward; neck rather short; hind limbs not susceptible of being turned forward, and not capable of use in terrestrial locomotion. Manus and i)es entirely hairy ; nails of all the digits usually well developed (rudimentary in Ste- iwrhynckince). Digits of the manus subequal, usually decreas- ing slightly in size from the first to the fifth ; of the pes the first and fifth stouter than the three middle ones. Scapula small, the superior posterior angle rounded, the crests small, and the acromion process slightly developed. Femur with the trochan- ter minor undeveloped. Pubic bones approximated in the fe- males, and in the males apj)ressed posteriorly for about one- third of their length. Ilia short and broad, abruptly tm-ned outward and recurved anteriorly. Acetabula opposite first sacral vertebra. Skull with the postorbital process generally wholly undeveloped or rudimentary ; mastoid process swollen, continuous with the auditory bulhe ; no alisphenoid canal. Au: ditorj^ bullae greatly inflated. Incisors conical, variable in number (^l, |^o5 oi" f^i)' I^ental formula: Milk dentition, I. (variable, as in the adult, and probably of the same nuDiber), C. J-5J, M. 1^3 ; Permanent dentition, I. ~l, l^;, or |^J, C. J^J, M. 1^^. No external ear. Testes enclosed within the body. TECHNICAL HISTORY. Higher Groups. — As noticed in the history of the preced- ing families, the group formerly termed Fliocidcc was coexten- sive with the suborder Pinnipedia. Although Peron in 181G divided the Pinnipeds into Phocacea auriculatcv and Phocacea inauriculatw, and although F. Cuvier in 1824 separated them TECHNICAL HISTORY HIGHER GROUPS. 413 into two primary unnamed groups in accordance with whether the molar teeth were singie-rooted or had several roots, and later into three, based on the same characters coupled with the number of incisors, in his later classification his first division is equivalent to the Phocince and StenorhyncMnce of recent authors, his second, to the Gystophorimc of late authors, and his third comprises the Otaries. Nilsson, in 1837, made two primary divisions of the Pinnipedia^ the first comj)rising the genera Stenorhynchus, PelagiuSj and PJioca, and the other the genera Halichcerus, Trichechtis, Cystophora, and Otaria, or the Gray Seal, the Walruses, and the Otaries. Brookes, in 1828, was the first to accord to the Earless Seals the rank of a fam- ily. Gill, in 1866, however, was the first to effectually make clear their true position and relations to the other Pinnipeds, since which date their family rank has been very generally con- ceded, and the term Phocidoe has been restricted to the Earless Seals. Turner, in 1848, presented the same scheme of primary grouping of the Pinnipeds as that adopted by Gill, and pointed out at the same time the leading distinctions of the three groups, but he allowed to them merely the rank of subfamilies, the term Phocidcc still covering the whole of the Pinnipeds. The early classifications of Pinnipeds having been already pre- sented somewhat in detail (see antea, pp. 0-12), it is unnecessary to repeat them at length in the iiresent connection. It may sufl&ce to state that the classifications of the Phocidce^ with the exceptions already named, j)rior to 1866, generally embraced both Eared Seals and Earless Seals in the same primary di^^s- ion. This was the case in Gray's schemes of 1821 and 1825, in F. Cuvier's in 1824, in Nilsson's in 1837, in Wagner's in 1846, and in Giebel's in 1855, the two authors last named separating the Wakuses as one family, and combining all the rest of the Pinnipeds as another, called by them Phocina, with no subdi- visions higher than genera. Gray, in 1825, divided the Pho- eidw {=Pinmpedia, exclusive of the Walruses and with the addi- tion of Enhydris) into two primary groups and five secondary groups, of which latter the Earless Seals formed four and the Otaries a fifth. In 1837 he replaced the Walruses in Phocidce (but excluded Unliydris), and adopted the classification em- ployed by him till 1866. This includes two i^rimary divisions termed " Sections," and five secondary divisions termed "Sub- families," as follows : Section I. Subfamily 1. 8tenorhynchina, with, originally, the genera Leptonyx, Pelaghcs, and Steno- rliynchiis, to which were added later LobodMn and Ommatoplioca, 414 FAMILY PHOCIDJE. Subfamily 2. Phocina, witli, originally, the genera Phoca and Cal- locephalus, to which were added later Pagomys^ Pagophilus, and Halicyon. Subfamily 3. TricMsina (or TricJiechina, as spelled later), with the genera Halichcerus and Tricliecus (or Trichechus, as spelled later). Subfamily 4. Gystophorinu^ with the genera Cystophora and Morunga. Subfamily 5. Arctoceplialina (includ- ing all the Eared Seals). In 1866 Gill restricted the family PJiocidw to the Earless Seals — a group equivalent to Turner's subfamily Phocina — and divided it into three subfamilies, as follows : 1. PJiocince, includ- ing the genera Phoca, Pagomys, Pagophilus, Erignathiis, Hali- chcerus, and Monachus ; 2. Cystophorince, including the genera. Cystophora and Macrorhimis ; 3. Stenorhynchina;, with the gen- era Lohodon, Stenorhynchus, Leptonyx, and Ommatophoca. Gill's Phocinw is the equivalent of Gray's Phocina and TrichecMna, with the addition to the former of Monachus and the exclusion from the latter of Trichechus, while Gill's Cystophorince and Steno- rhyncMncc are the exact equivalents of Gray's groups of similar name, except tjiat Monachus is excluded from the latter. In 1869 Gray separated from the Phocidce the Walruses and the Otaries as distinct famihes, thereby restricting the Phocidce to the Earless Seals, as Gill had previously done, but divided the Phocidce into five " tribes." His classification of the group as presented by him in 1871 is as follows: Family Phocidce. Tribe I. Phocina, with the genera Callocephalus, Pagomys, Pago- philus, Halicyon, Phoca. Tribe II. Halichcerina, = genus Hali- chcerus. Tribe III. Monachina, = genus Monachus. Tribe TV. ■ Stenorhynchina, with the genera tStenorhynchus, Lohodon, Lep- tonyx, Ommatophoca. Tribe V. Oystophorina, with the genera Morunga and Cystophora. The difference between the two schemes consists (1) in "the equivalency of Gill's Phocince with Gray's first three " tribes," and (2) in the designations " sub- families" and "tribes." Gill's scheme of division of the family into three subfamilies has been adopted by most subsequent writers, even Gray himself adopting it in 1874. The three "subfamilies" now so currently accepted seem to be well- marked natural groups, but whether entitled to the rank thus accorded may perhaps be open to question. Genera. — The first dismemberment of the Linnfeau genus Phoca, after the removal of the Eared Seals by Peron in 1810,* * For a discussion of Pusa, Scopoli, 1777, see jyostm under the genus Hali- cliccrus. The term was gcuerically applied to what seems to have heen Phoca fcetida, hut fortunately slumbered for a century, when it was unhaj)- pily revived. TECHNICAL HISTORY GENERA. 415 was made by Nilsson in 1820,* who separated from the other Earless Seals the Gray Seal and the Crested Seal, which formed the types and sole representatives, respectively, of his genera Haliclioerus (tyiie, Hallchoerus griseus, Nils., = Fhoca grypus, Fabr.), and Cystophora (type, Cystophora borealis, Nils. = Phoca ^ristata, Erxl.). These genera became soon widely recognized, iind have been (with the exceptions soon to be noticed) since ciuTently. adopted. The next dismemberment was \drtually effected by Fleming t in 1822 by snggesting that the Monk or Mediterranean Seal might reqnire, with possibly others, to be placed in a genus Monachus, Avith the Phoca monachus of Her- mann as the type. J F. Cnvier§ in 1824, either ignorant of, or ignoring, the generic -separations made by Nilsson and Fleming (as he makes no ref- erence to them), divided the genus Phoca of preceding authors into five genera, namely : 1. Calloceplialus (type, Phoca vitulina, Linn.) ; 2. Stenorhynchus (type, Phoca leptonyx^ Blainv.) ; 3. Pela- gius (type, Phoca monachus, Hermann) ; 4. Stemmatopus (type, Phoca cristata, Erxleben); 5. MacrorMmis\\ (type, Phoca pro- * " Skand. Fauua, i, 1820, pp. 376, 382." tPhilosophy of Zoology, vol. ii, 1822, p. 187, foot-uote. t Fleming suggested rather tbau constituted the genus Monachus, for he .simply says of it in a foot-note under the genus Phoca : ' ' Some seals, as Ph. monachus, are said to have four incisors in each jaw. Such will be prob- ably constituted into a new genus, under the title Monachus." This is the whole basis of Fleming's genus Monachus, which is allowed precedence over F. Cuvier's genus Pelagius, based on a detailed account of the distinctive cranial characters of Phoca monachus, together with a figure of the skull. •Other Seals than Phoca monachus are not only "said to have," but are well known to have "four incisors in each jaw", and mention of Phoca monachus is all that saves Fleming's genus, for it cannot be said to be characterized, and ought not to be recognized to the prejudice of Pelagius. Upon Dr. Gray (Cat. Seals, Brit. Mus., 1850) appears to fall the responsibility of reviving the generic name Monachus, and renaming the species Monaclius alhiventer (ex Boddaert), although Nilsson appears to have previously employed it in 1837, but speedily abandoned it for Pelagius, F. Cuvier. Says Nilsson, " Ich liatte in der Vet. Academiens Handl. for 1837, p. 235, die hierher gehorige Art Monachus mediterraneus genannt, aber seitdem ich erfahreu, dass Fr. ■Cuvier dieselbe schou im Diet, d'hist. uat. unter dem Namem Pelagius mona- ■chtis beschrieben, scheint mir dieser Name wegen seiner Prioritat beibehalten werden zu miissen." — Wiegmann's Arch.filr Naturg., 1841, i, p. 308, foot-note. §Ann. duMus. d'Hist. Nat., vol. xi, 1824, pp. 174-200, pll. xii-xiv. II F. Cuvier's names appeared here only under the gallicized forms respect- ively of Callocephale, Stenorhinque, Pelage, Stemmatope, and Macrorhine. They were first Latinized as above by the same author in 1826 (Diet, des Scieu. Ifat., vol. xxix, 1826, pj). 544-552), but naturalists generally concur in assign- ing 1824 as the date of the introduction of these genera into systematic literature. 416 FAMILY PHOCIDiE. boscidea, P^ron = Phoca leonina, Linne, 1758). Of these genera two are synonyms, Stemmatojms being antedated four years hj Cystopliora of jSTilsson, and Pelagius* two years by Jfowa- chus of Fleming, in eacli case the two later names being the exact equivalents of the earlier ones. Yet Stemmatojnts and Pelagius had for a time considerable currency, particularly with French and Enghsh writers. The name Stenorhynclms was doubly preoccupied for genera of Articulates, and was thus un- tenable in its present connection. Callocephalus, as originally used by its author, and later for some years by him and others, embraced not only Phoca vituUna, but also foetida, groenlandica^ and harhata, as well as numerous nominal species referable to these. In this connection it should be noted that nothing was now left to represent the old Linnoean genus Phoca, which thus became wholly set aside. In 1827 Grayt proposed the genus Mlrounga (later changed by him to MorungaX), including under it Phoca cristata, Erxl., and Phoca prohoscidea, Peron, besides three nominal species referable in part or wholly to the latter. In 1830 Wagler§ renamed this genus Rhinophora (type, '•'Phoca prohoscidea^ Peron"). Dr. Gray, in 1837, 1| proposed the genus Leptonyx for Lesson's '■'■Otaria iceddeUVy which has been since generally current for tbat species, but with which, however, some authors (as Wagner, 1846, Giebel, 1855) have associated the Monk Seal of the Mediterranean and all the Antarctic Phocids, except the Sea-Elephant. The name, however, is antedated by Leptonyx, Swainson, 1832, api)lied to a genus of birds, and is hence untenable as used by Gray and others for a genus of Seals. In 1844 Dr. Gray introduced four additional genera among the Phocidce, which have since been more or less commonly adopted, either in a generic or subgeneric sense. These are Pagophilus (introduced originally as "a subgenus of Calloceph- alus^^) for the Harp Seal {Phoca grcenlandica) ; Lohodon (type, Phoca carcinophaga, Homb. and Jacq.) for the Antarctic Crab- eating Seal, and Ommaiophoca (type, 0. rossi, n. sp.), based on a species from the Antarctic seas here first described. He at the same time revived the Linnsean name Phoca, separating the * This name is variously written by different aiitliors, as Pelagias, Pelcujios, and Pelayius. t Griffitli's Anim. Kingd,,vo!. v, p. 179. tList Osteolog. Spec, in Brit. Miis., 1847, p. 33 (species, " Morunga ele~ phantina"). ^Natur. Syst. Amph., 1830, p. 27. II Charlesworth's Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. i, 1837, p. 582. TECHNICAL HISTORY GENERA. 417 Bearded Seal from CaUocepliaJiift to bear this name. Hence Gray's genus Phoca (tyjie and sole species PJioca harhata) had nothing in common with the Linntean genus of that name, being assigned to a sijecies unknown to Linne, so that Phoca, Gray, as here defined, was virtually a new genus. In 1854 the same author* proposed the genus Heliophoca for a nominal species which he himself ten years later referred to Monaclins alhiventer. In 18G4t he added Halicyon and Pago- mys, the first based on what he described as a new species from the west coast of North America, but which is merely the Phoca mtulina from the Pacific, and the other on the Ringed Seal {Phoca foetida), which is here made the type of a new genus. Pagomys, as will be shown later, is antedated by Pusa of Scopoli. In 1866 Dr. Gill, in his "Prodrome of a Monograr>h of the Pinnipedes," i: instituted the genus Erignathus for the Phoca harhata of authors (= Phoca., Grray), and insisted on the restora- tion of Phoca for the group represented by Phoca vitulina, and in defense of his position offered the following : "In the Syst. Nat., 10th ed., 1758, the first in which the binomial system was introduced, four species were included by Linnaeus in the genus Phoca: 1. P. ursimis, = Arctocephalus ursinus ; 2. P. leonina, = Macrorhimis leoninus ; 3. P. rosmarus, = Bosmarus ohesus ; 4. P. vitulina. The name Phoca must be retained for one of these, and as the third, second, and first species were succes- sively elevated to the rank of generic types, and the genus was thus by elimination restricted to the fourth species, for that and its allies the generic name must necessarily be reserved." In regard to the above it may be added that Linn^, in 1766, (Syst. Nat., 12th ed.) removed his Phoca rosmarus to Trichechus, while Peron, as early as 1816, and Desmarest in 1817 as well as in 1820 § referred the Phoca iirsina to Otaria, thus leaving under Phoca, as early as 1816, only Phoca leonina and Phoca vitulina. These, F. Cuvier, in 1824, made respectively the tj^pes of his genera "Macrorhine" {Macrorhinus), and "Callocephale" [Callo- cephalus), both in his paper entitled "De quelques especes de phoques et des groupes generiques entre lesquels eUes se parta- gent," II but CaUocephalus is the first genus mentioned, and Phoca *Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1854, p. 43. tlbicl., 1864, pp. 28, et seq. tProc. Essex lust., vol. t, 1866, pp. 4-13. §P^ron and Leseur's Voy. au Terres Aust., ii, 1816, p. 41; Noiiv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., vol. xxx, 1817, p. 595 ; Mamm., 1820, p. 249. II Mem. du Mus. d'Hist. Nat. xi, 1824, pp. 174-214. Misc. Pub. No. 12 27 418 FAMILY PHOCID^. mtulina is especially designated as the type. As both genera were published simultaneously, preference should be claimed for CallocepJialus, as it occurs eighteen pages earlier in the paper than Macrorhinns. Thus the process of elimination necessitates, on the principle above implied, and in accordance with a com- monly recognized rule in such cases, the restriction of Phoca to Linne's Phoca leonina. This, however, seems so contrary to the traditions of Phoca, which from 1735 to the present day has been generally associated by the majority of writers with vitu- lina and its nearest allies, that it seems an act of violence to transfer it to what is logically its legitimate connection with leonina, thereby making Macrorhinus a synonym of the restricted genus Phoca, notwithstanding that it has been universally ac- cepted for half a century for the Sea-Elephants, while P/ioc« has not for an equal length of time been looked uj)on as having any intimate relationship with that group. In view of the tradition and usage of the case it seems best to waive the technicality here involved and suffer Phoca to retain its time-honored asso- ciations.* As regards further subdivision of the Phocidm, Dr. Gray, in 1866, t proposed SaUphilus as a generic name for Peale's Sa- lichcerus antarcticus (= Phoca pealei. Gill), while Dr. Gill, in 1872,f substituted Leptonychotes for Leptonyx, Gray, (1836, nee * In tMs connection reference may be very properly made to Prof. Alfred Newton's Paper "On the Assignation of a Type to Linnsean Genera, with especial reference to the Genus Strix" (Ibis, 3d ser., vi, 1876, pp. 94-10.')), in which he very reasonably maintains that, as Linu6 had no notion of a type species as commonly used by modern systematists, we should make him "the interpreter of his own intentions" by imagining him " put in our place and called on to show which he woiild consider his type species according to modern ideas." This he claims can be accomplished by giving some degree of attention to the works of Linux's predecessors, which will enable one to hunt down almost every name used by him, since by far the greater part of Linnd's generic names were adopted by him froui preceding authors, "by whom the majority were used absolutely and in a specific sense. When this was the case," continues Professor Newton, "there can scarcely be a reasonable doubt that Linnseus, had he known our modern practice, would have designated as the type of his genus that species to which the name he adojjted as generic had formerly been specifically aijplied." As regards the present case, there can be no doubt that under this rule the proper type of the Linnrean genus Phoca is the common small Seal of the European shores, the Phoca vituUna of Linnd, and that CaUocephalns is strictly a synonym of Phoca. tAnn. and Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. xvii, 1866, p. 446. t Families of Mammals, j). 70. TECHNICAL HISTORY GENERA. 419 .Swaiosoii, 1821), and in 1873* institnted the genus Histriophoca for the Phoca fasciata of Shaw (= P. equestris, Pallas). Peters, in 1875, t finding that the old generic name Stenorhyn- {'hus of P. Cuvier, which had been currently received since 1824 as the generic designation of the Sea-Leopard of the Antarctic Seas, was preoccui^ied for a genus of Crustaceans to which it was applied by Lamark in 1819, as Avell as for a genus of insects in 1823, proposed in its place the name Ogmorhinus. Pinally Gill has recently revived the name Pusa (Scopoli, 1777) for the Gray Seal in place of Ralicharus, Nilsson, 1820, but, as will be shown later, Pusa is not tenable in this connection. At this point the following resume of the subject may be pre- sented, synonyms and untenable names being designated by thick type : 1735 — rhoca, Liuu6, covering fotir species, belonging to tliree families and four distinct genera. 1777 — Pusa, Scojioli, = Phoca foctida, Fabricius. ( HaJicliarus, 'Nilsson, = Phoca gryijus, Fabricius. ( Cystophora, Nilsson, ^ Phoca crisfata, Erxleben. 1822 — Monachus, Fleming, = Phoca monachus, Hermann. ■ Callocephalus, F. Cuvier, type, Phoca vituUna, Linn6. Stenorliynchus, F. Cuvier, = P/iocrt leptonyoc, Blainville. Preoccu- pied in carciuology and entomology. "^ Pelagius, F. Cuvier, =P/i oca monachus, Hermann. Stemmatopus, F. Cnyier, ^= Phoca cristata, Erxleben. -Macrorhhnm, F. Cuvier, = P/( oca leonina, Linn6. 1827 — Mirounga, Gray, = Cystophora, Nilsson, and Macrorhinus, F. Cuvier. 1830 — Rhinophora, Wagler, = P/ioca leonina, Linn6. 1836 — Leptonyx, Gray, = Stenoi-hynchus loeddelli, F. Cuvier. Preoccupied in ornitbology. ' PagophUus, Gray, ^^ Phoca groenlandica, Fabricius. Lobodon, Gray, = Phoca carcinophaga, Homb. and Jacq Oimnatophoca, Gray, = 0. rossi, n. sp.,, Gray, l^ Phoca, Gray, nee Limn€, ^ Phoca harhata, Fabricius. 1854 — Heliophoca, Gray, =ir. atlantica n. sp.. Gray, =:P7toca monachus, Her- mann. ^ Halicyon, Gray, = ff. richardsi n. sp., Gray=P/iOc« vitulina, Linn^. 1^ Pagonay s. Gray, =; Phoca foctkla, Fabricius. SErignathus, Gill, = P/ioca harlata, Fabricius. Haliphilus, Gray, ^=HaJicha:rus antarcticus, Peale, =PAoca vitulina, Liuu6. 1872 — Leptonycliotes, GiW, =^ Leptonyx, Gray, nee Swainson. 1873 — Histriophoca, Gill, = Phoca fasciata, Shaw. 1875 — Ogmorhinus, Peters, ^=Stenorhynchus, F. Cuvier, nee Lamark. Of the above-given list of twenty-five generic names, two *Auier. Nat., vol. vii, 1873, p. 179. tMonatsb. Kongl. Preuss. Akad. d Wissens. zu Berlin, 1875, p. 393. 1824 1844 420 FAMILY PHOCIDJi: {Stenorhynclms and Xejj/o/j^/ii;) Avere preoccupied in otlier de- partments of zoology, and consequently untenable ; ten were exclusively based on four si)ecies, so tliat six of tliese ten may be set down as j)ure synonyms. The remaining thirteen have at times been more or less current, either in a generic or sub- generic sense. But leading writers have employed several of them with widely differing scopes. Calloccphalus, as at first used, was synonymous with Fhoca, as commonly interpreted, Cal- locephalus being employed for all of the smaller species of the- family {vitulina, fcetida, grcenlcmdica, fasciafa, caspica, &c, with all their numerous synonyms, as well as for harhata). In the subjoined history of the species of the family, the varying sig- nificance attached by different writers to the more prominent generic names will become sufficiently ai)parent, but in the pres- ent connection a few examples may be cited. In 1820, Desmarest placed all the Pinnii)eds, except the Walruses, under PJioca, which he divided into two subgenera ("sous-genre") — Phoca (including all the Phocidw of recent au- thors) and Otaria { = Otariid(v of late writers), in this following Peron's classification of 1816. F. Cuvier, in 1821, divided the Earless Seals into five genera, which classification was followed by the same writer in 182G, and by Lesson in 1827, when he adopted strictly the generic nomenclature of F. Cuvier, but abandoned it in 1828. Gray, at about the same date, employed only two genera, Phoca and Mirounga, while Fischer, in 1829, placed all the species once more in Phoca. Nilsson, in 18.37, recognized five genera, — Stenorhynchiis, Pela- gius, Phoca, Halichcerus, and Cystophora. Gray, in 1844 and in 1850, adopted ten, — Lohodon, Leptonyx, Omonatophoca, Sfeno- rhyjichus, Pelagius, Callocephalus, Pagophihis, Phoca (with one species), IlaUchoerus, Morunga, and Cystophora. Wagner, in 184G, adopted four, — Haliclicerus, Phoca (with six species), Lep- tonyx (with five species), and Cystophora. Turner, in 1849, ad- mitted eight, — Morunga, Cystophora, Halichcerus, Onimatophora (typographical error for Ommatophoca), Lohodon, Lcptonyx, Sten- rhynchus, and Phoca. Giebel, in 1855, adopted the same genera as Wagner in 184(3. Gray, in 1866 and in 1871, admitted thir- teen,— Lohodon, Leptoyiyx, Ommatophoca, Stenorhynchiis, Mona- chus, Callocephalus, Pagomys, PagophUns, HaUcyon, Phoca, Hali- choorus, Morunga, and Cystophora; Gill, in 1866 and 1872, twelve, — Phoca, Pagomys, Pagophihis, Prignathus, HciUchoerus, Monachns, Cystophora, Macrorhinus, Lohodon, Stcnorhynchus, Lcptonyx, and Onunatophoca ; in 1877, twelve, — Phoca, Pagophilus, PrignathuSy TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 421 Histriophoca, Pusa, Monachus, Cystophora, MacrorMnus, Lohodon, Ogmorhinus, Leptonychotcs, and Ommatophoca. AVliile Dr. Gill recoguized the same number of genera in 1877 as in 1866, the nomenclature is quite different ; but this is due mainly to simply changes of names, as the substitution of Pusa for Halichcerus, of OgmorMnus for Stoiorhynchus, and of Leptonychotes for Lep- tonyx; but in the later enumeration Pagomya is omitted and His- trioplioca is added. So far as the number of genera is concerned, tlie greatest differ- ence of oiiinion has always obtained in respect to the Pliocincc^ all the members of which groui) are confined to the ]S"orthern Hemisphere. Gray, after 1801 (1861-1874), uniformly recog- nized seven ; Gill, 1866-1877, six, only two of which {Halichce- rus and 3Tonac]ius, about which authors generally have for many years been in unison) were the exact equivalents of Gray's genera; but the chief disagreement consisted in Gill's use of Phoca for what Gray termed Callocephalus, and of Urignafhns for what Gray termed Phoca. Lilljeborg*, in 1874, referred all of the species of the Phocinw, except Halicha^rus grypus (and Mo- nachns alhiventer, which latter is not there treated), to the genus Phoca, and von Heuglin the same year did the same, except that Pagomys, Pagophilus, and CaUocephaJus (the latter being applied to C. harhata) were recognized as subgenera under Phoca. The classification and nomenclature of Giebel (1855), Blasius (1857), Malmgren (1863), and Holmgren (1865) are, generically, the same as Lilljeborg's in 1874. The tendency has, in short, been to refer all the species of Phocinw, with the two exceptions al- ready specified, to the Linntean genus Phoca. Species. — Although Seals have figured in works on natural history since the time of Rondelet, Olaus Magnus, and Gesner «- , (1554-1555), it is unnecessary in the present connection to refer ] in detail to those earlier works, since down to the time of Steller % (1751), all the Phocids or Earless Seals known to systematic writers were referred to the common Seal {Phoca vitulina, auct.) of the shores of Middle and Northern Europe. This indeed was the only species recognized by Linne, from the Northern Hem- isphere, even in the last (1766) edition of his "Systema Naturse." But other species had been incidentally and vaguely described by the early Greenland missionaries, and by exjilorers and trav- ellers in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions, to which refer- * Fauna Sveriges och Norges Eyggraclsdjur, i, Diiggdjnren, pp. 667-729. 422 FAMILY PHOCIDiE. ence is uecessary, since these descriptions became later the basis,. in part or wholly, of various systematic names. As early as 1741 the Harp Seal and the Crested Seal were figured (or caricatured) by Egede* under the names respectively of SvartsUde and Klapmiits. He says in the accompanying- text tliat Seals are of different sorts and sizes, but have all the same shape, except the Klapmiits, which is the onlj- species he ex- pressly distinguishes in the text. Ellis,t in 1748, again rudely figured these two species under the names "Blackside Seal" and '• Seal Avith a Cawl". Although he gives of them no descrip- tions, subsequent systematic writers have seen fit to cite the names and figures given by both these writers, but their interest is purely historic. The same year (1748) was also published in Anson's " Voy- age "| the first specially important account of the Southern Sea- Elephant (" Sea Lion" of Anson), since it became later the basis- of Linne's Phoca leonina, and, besides, is one of the fullest and most explicit descrii^tions of the habits of the species extant. Steller, in his memoir entitled " De Bestiis Marinis", published in 1751,§ distinguished three species of Seals as follows : "Dis- tinguo autem phocas ratione magnitudinis in tres species, in maximam, quae magnitudine Taurum superat, ac solummodo in oceano Orientali a gradu latitudinis 56. ad 59. occurrit, ac in colis i Kamtschaticis Lachtak vocatur. Mediae magnitudinis, quae om- nes Tigridum instar, multis exiguis maculis variae sunt, 3. in- flmae magnitudinis, ut Oceanica, quae tam in mari Balthico, quam circa portum Sti Archangeli, in Suecia, Norwegia, Amer- ica et Kamtschatkacaiutur, etlacustris dulciura aquarum mono- chroa sen unicolor, ut Baikali ea coloris argentei." The first two of the species here thus briefly mentioned, have been quoted by Schreber, Erxleben, Gmelin, and by some later writers, as respectively, '-'■Phoca maxima., Steller" (also ^'Lachtak, Steller"), and ^^ Phoca oceanica, Steller," the first being referred to Phoca harhafa, and the other sometimes to Phoch vitulina aiul sometimes to Phoca grcenlandica. In 1744 Parsons published a paper entitled "Some Account *Det gamle Gr0iilancTs nye Poilustration, ellerNatural-Historie, og Besk- rivelse overdet gamle Gr0nlan(ls Situation, Luft, Temperament og Beskaffen- hed, etc. 1741. Plate facing p. 40. He also figures the common Seal nnder the name Spraglet. t A Voyage to Hudson's Bay, etc., 1748, plate facing j). 134. t A Voyage around the World in 1740-1744, p. 172. § Nov. Connn. Acad. Potrop., toui. ii, p. 290. TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 423 of the Phoca, Vitiilus marinus, or Sea-Calf, shewed at Charing- Cross, in February, 1742-'43",* contaming a plate ilkistrative of the animal. Figure one, it is said by the author, " Eepresents the Phoea lying upon the right side, that the belly and Parts of Generation may be the better observed." He says the animal was very young, " though Seven Feet and half in Length, having scarce any Teeth, and having Four Holes regularly i^laced about the naval, as appears by the Figure, which in time become Pa- pillw.^^ This account, as will be noticed later, has figured very l^rominently in relation to the history of the Bearded Seal {Phoca harhataj auct.), especially in reference to its right to a i)laee in the British Fauna. In 1753 the same author, in a paper entitled '' A Dissertation npon the Class of the Phocae Marinae,"t formally described five " species" under the term Phoca, of which three were cari- catured in figures. In the way of criticism of his paper, it is perhaps enough to say that one of his species is a comi^ound of the Manatee and the Sea-Elephant {i.e., "Manati, De Laet" and " Sea-lion, Lord Anson"). Another, based on Grew's "Long-necked Seal", from an unknown locality, is evidently some kind of Otary. His " Common Seal", his " Tortoise-headed Seal", and his "Long-bodied Seal", are evidently Phocids, but the short diagnoses give no distinctive characters, and the spe- cies, as here described, are consequently unrecognizable. The last named, which was originally described, as already noticed, in 1744, has been usually referred, but generally with doubt, to the Phoca harhata, mainl}^ on account of its large size, but his figure gives other characters that render it pretty certain that this is a correct allocation. His " Common Seal " has been presumed to be the Phoca vituUna. Two of these Avere introduced into techni- cal nomenclature by Kerr in 1792, on which Shaw imposed addi- tional names in 1800. In 1758 Linne, in the tenth edition of the " Systema Naturte", gave four species under the genus Phoca, namely; 1, Phoca ursina (based exclusively on Steller's ^'Ursus marinus^^); 2, Phoca leonina (based exclusively on Anson's "Sea Lion"); 3, Phoca rosmarns (the Walrus) ; and 4, Phoca vitulina, with its hab- itat defined as "Mari Europaeo". In the twelfth edition of the same work (17GG) the third species above named was removed to the genus Trichechus, and Ellis's figure of the "Seal with a *Pliil. Trans., vol. xlii, for tlie years 1742 and 1743 (1744), p. 383, pi. i. tibid., vol. xlvii, 17ril-1752 (1753), pp. 109-122, pi. vi. 424 FAMILY PHOCID^. Cawl" is cited under Phoca leonina, thereby incepting the con- fusion of the Crested Seal of the Arctic Seas with the Sea-Ele- phant of the Southern Hemisphere which prevailed more or less generally for the next quarter of a century. Phoca vituUna was thus the only northern Phocid here distinctively recognized. A second notice of Seals on the basis of Steller's observations, and one that has figured prominently in the history of the sub- ject, is contained in Kraschineuikow's "History of Kamt- schatka", published in 1764,* — a work avowedly based largely on Steller's MSS. Grieve's translation of the passage relating to the Seals is as follows : " There are reconed to be four sorts of this animal ; the very largest of which is catched from 50° to 64° of north latitude. This sort differs from the others in its bulk, which exceeds that of a large ox. The second species is about the size of a yearling bullock. Their skin is of different colours, something like the skin of a tyger, having several spots of equal largeness on the back, with a white and yellowish belly. Their young ones are as white as snow. The third is yet less than the former. Its skin is yellowish, with large cherry-col- oured circles, which take up near the half of its surface. The fourth kind is seen in the large lakes of BaiJcaal and Oronne. Its size is like those that are found near Archangel ; and their colour is whitish." These indications, though so vague, have served, either in part or solely, as the basis of several of the species of the later systematic writers, they being referred to numerically as the " First sort of Seal", the " Fourth sort of Seal", etc. The first really imi^ortant account of the Seals of the North- ern Seas is that given by Cranz in 1765, in his "Historie von Gronland," in which he enumerates and briefly characterizes all of the five species of Seals hunted or commonly met with in Greenland. Although his descrijDtions are in most cases meagre, and relate more to the habits of the species and to their useful products than to their external characters, his species are, from one circumstance or another, so easily recognized that there has never been much uncertainty in regard to them. *I cite Grieve's (English) translation (1 vol., 4to) from tlie original Rus- sian, published in 1764, wherein the matter relating to the Seals appears at page 116. There is also a French translation (2 vols. 12mo) published in 1767, which is often quoted by French authors. The work quoted by Ger- man writers as Steller's " Beschreibung von den Lande Kamtschatka" (1 vol. 8vo, 1774 — which I have not been able to see), seems to be, so far as the matter relating to the Seals is concerned, merely a German version of the same work. TECHNICAL HISTORY — SPECIES. 425 They are, 1. The Kassigiak {=Phoca vitulina)] 2. Attar soak { = Flioca grcenlandica) } 3. Ndtsek {= PJwca fcetida) ; 4. Neiter- *o«A', called also Glapmutz {— CystopJiora cristata); and 5. Utsulc {= Erignathiis harhatus). The Xeitsek or Einged Seal [Phoca J'cetida) appears to be here for the first time indicated. Pennant, in 1771, formally introduced three species into his "S>nioj>sis of Quadrupeds" under English names, the Neitsek appearing under the name '-Rough Seal." His description of this species is based wholly on Cranz, and those of the " Harp" and "Hooded" Seals on Bgede and Cranz. In 1776 these spe- cies all received systematic names at the hands of Fabricius, in an inedited MS. in Miiller's "Zoologiae Daniel Prodromus" (p. viii of the Introduction, received after the main body of the work was printed), except the long previously named Kassigiak {Phoca vitulina). Fabricius's names, however, were unaccompa- nied by descriptions, but carried with them the common Ice- landic and Greenlandic names of the species indicated, by means of w^hich they are susceptible of strict identification, aside from their being identified later by Fabricius's own de- scriptions and references to them. The following is a literal transcript of Fabricius's inedited list : . "PHOCxl leonina capite antice cristato., I. Blandruselr. Gr. J^eitsersoal: ^^Ph.foetida, I. TJtselr. Gr. Neitsek, Neitsilek. ^^Ph. grcenlandica,!. Vadeselr. Gr. Atalc. ^^Ph. harbaia,!. Gramselr. Gr. JJrJcsuJcJ^ * Here is the origin of the names still in ciu-rent use for three ■of the four species here named by Fabricius. t Simultaneously with the publication of Miiller's "Prodromus" must have appeared the first fasciculus of the third part of Schreber's "Saugthiere" (as appears by contemporaneous evi- dence, although the completed part bears date 1778), in which all these and two other species of Seals are described, in ad- dition to the common Phoca vitulina. In the text they are mentioned only under vernacular names, but' the plate of the * It is worthy of note iu this coruicctiou that Miiller himself, on page 1 of the "Prodromus," under Phoca vitulina, cites the names of "Klapmiits" -and "Svartside." He then gives a list of Icelandic, Greenlandic, and other vernacular names of Seals, respecting which he says information is desira- ble, and adds ''varietates an species?" Yet Miiller is (piite commonly quoted as the authority for these Fabrician names. t The first sj)ecies of the list bears the name previously given by Linn^ to :ithe Sea-Lion of the Antarctic Seas. 426 FAMILY PHOCID^. "Neitsek" bears the name Phoca hispida, between which and Fabricius's Phoca fcetida there is consequently a troublesome ages and two plates) on the Monk Seal ("Miinchs- Eobbe, — Phoca monachus^^) of the Mediterranean Sea — the first explicit account of the species, and a very admirable mon- ograph for this early date. The next year (1780) Fabricius published his "Fauna Groen- landica," in which all the Seals named in Miiller's "Prodromus" are quite satisfactorily described, under the names there first proposed. He, however, erroneously includes among the Seals of Greenland Steller's Sea Bear, under the name Phoca ursina, and concludes his account of the Greenland Seals by mention- ing four other marine animals he had heard of from the Green- landers, but of which he had never seen either skins or skulls, and of which he knew nothing with certainty, namely Singulctop, Imah-ulallia, AiarpiaTc, and Kongeseterial<.X In 1780, in his "Synopsis der Quadrupeden" (Geographische Geschichte, etc., Theil ii, pp. 419-423), Zimmermann gave the same species that Erxleben did in, 1777, and under the same names. In 1782, however, in an appendix to the "Synopsis" (ibid., Theil iii, 1782, pp. 276-278), he added three species under "P/ioccf," two of them based on Pennant's "History of Quad- rupeds," ijublished in 1781, as follows: 1. '■''Phoca australis. Falkland Seal Pennant ii, 521"; 2. '■^ Phoca fasciata. Rubbon Seal Pennant ii, p. 523"; 3. Phoca leporina^ Lepech. The first two are for the first time named; the first, however, is an Otary. Zimmermann also says, "Le phoque 4 Ventre blanc, Buffon Suppl. vi, ]A. 44, p. 310, ist wohl Phoca monachiis^^ -, yet subsequent writers of less discrimination held it for a distinct species. Buffon, in 1782, in the sixth volume of the " Supplement" of his "Histoire naturelle," recognized eight species of " Les Phoques sans oreilles on Phoques proprement dits" (some of which^. *Act. Acad. Sci. Imp. Petrop., i, 1777 (1778), pp. 259,264, pU. vi-ix. tJBerschaft. d. Berlinische Gesselscliaft naturf. Freunde, Band iv, 1779^ pp. 456-509, pll. xii, xiii (external characters). t Respecting these see posted,, pp. 432, 433. 430 FAMILY PHOCID^. liowever, really covered several distinct species), as follows: 1. Le grand Phoque a niuseau ride {=MacrorMnus leoninus); 2. Le Phoque li ventre blanc (=primarily Monachus albiventer, with an original descrijjtion and a good figure, from a specimen taken October 28, 1777, in the Adriatic Sea, l)ut to wliich he er- roneously referred Parsons's Long-bodied Seal, he giving a trans- lation of Parsons's description and a copy of liis figure, and also the Utsuk of Cranz, and a large Seal mentioned by Charlevoix as found on "les cotes de I'Acadie"); 3. Le Phoque a capu- chon ( = Cystophora eristata) ; 4. Le Phoque a croissant ( =Phoca ffrcenlandica, at least mainly) ; o. Le Phoque Neit-soak {PJioca fcetida); G. Le Phoque Laktak de Kamtschatka {=Eri(jnatlms barhatus); 7. Le Phoque Gassigiak (= the Seal "apx)elee Ms- s igialc -p&T les Groenlandois"; consequently Phoca vitulina) ; 8. Le Phoque commun ( = primarily Phoca vitulina, but with allu- sions to other species). Of these eight species two are composite, and one is purely nominal.* In the same year (1782) also appeared Molina's work on the natural history of Chili, t in which, under the head of Phoca, are described four species, all claimed by the author to be new. These are : 1. "L'Urique, Phoca lupina^^ (a Fur-Seal, or at least an Otary); 2. "II Porco marina, Phoca porcina^^ (probably the young of the next); 3, "II Lame, Phoca elephantina^^ {=Phoca leonina, Linne, 1758 and 1766) ; 4. " II Leon marin, Phoca leo- nina "• ( = Otaria juhata, auct. ) . In 1784 Boddaert appears to have added (I have not the work I Sbt hand) four synonyms, as follows: 1. Phoca alhiventer (=P. monachus, Herm.); 2. Phoca semilunaris (=P. grcenlandica) ; 3. *Tliis enumeration, liowever, is a great improvement upon tliat given by the same author in 1765, in the thirteenth volume of his " Histoire natnrelle", where all the Seals then known are referred to four species. " . . . . le premier (j)l. xlv) est le phoque de notre oc6au, dont il y a plusieurs vari6- t^s" ; called also "le Veau marin on Phoque de nos mers". The second, sup- posed to T»e "le jylioca des ancieus", and which is figured in pi. liii, is a young Eared Seal, the Phoca jtusilla of later writers, of which he says, "on nous a assur6 que I'iudividu que nous vu venoit des Indes", etc. Later it is called "le petit phoque noir des Indes & du Levant". (See further, anted, p. 194. ) The third is the Seal described by Parsons in 1743 — the Long-bodied Seal of this and many subsequent authors — here called "le grand phoque des mers du Nord". The fourth is Anson's "Sea Lion", but wliich here covers also "les grands phoques des mers du Canada, dontparle Denis, sous le nom de loups marins", to Avhich he is also inclined to refer the larger Seal described by Parsons ! tSaggio Sulla Storia Naturalc del Chili, pp. 275-290,341. tElenchus Animalium, vol. i, 1784, pp. 170, 171. TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 431 l*hoca cucuUaia {=P. cHstata, Erxl.) ; 4. Phoca maculata (? = P. mtuUna). . The next work of iniportance in this connection is Gmelin's •'Systeuui Naturaj", which appeared in 1788. Here Erxleben's five species appear without change of name, and in addition to them the Moidv Seal {Phoca monachus) of the Mediterranean.* Under Phoca vitulina are three named varieties, to wit, hotnica, sihirica ("colore argenteo. Habitat in lacuhus Baikal et Orom") and caspica ("colore vario"), which are respectively Erxleben's varieties a, ,5, and ^, and Schreber's "graue Seehnnd", "sibi rische Seeliunde", and "caspische Seehund". In 1790 and 1791 Fabricins published his celebrated memoir on the Seals of Greenland, t in which all the Greenland species are described in great detail, and the skulls of Phoca grcenland- ica, Cystojihora cHstataj Erignathus harhatus, and Halichcerus grypus are for the first time figured, while the last-mentioned species is for the first time named. In this series of papers the general subject is exhaustively treated in all its bearings, nearly eighty pages being devoted to the "Svartside" (Harp Seal, Phoca grmnlandica) alone ; twenty-four to the Fiordssel (Ringed Seal, Phoca fceUda) ; twenty- two (including nearly four pages of l)ibliographical references) to the " Spraglede Seel" (Harbor Seal, Phoca vitulina)', about the same number each to the "Klap- mydsen" (Hooded Seal, Cystophorn cristata); and the "Rem- melstel" (Bearded Seal, Erignathus harlatus). In the bibliogra- phy of these species are, however, given various references that are not pertinent, particularly under Phoca crintata, under which name are confounded the Sea-Elephant of the Southern Hemi- sphere with the Crested Seal of the Northern. The Halichcerus grypus is mentioned (but not fully described), and the skull figured, under the names "Krumsuudede Seel {Phoca grypusy\ As regards changes in nomenclature, he abandons the names foetida and leonina respectively for hispida and cristata. His memoir is greatly marred by the introduction into its closing- portion of various species (already referred _to in his "Fauna •Groenlandica") that are either mythical or have no relation to the Greenland fauna, as the Sea-Bear ( "S/)ebiyJrne, Phoca ursina)''\ the"Sviinsa'l(P/tocajJorcm«)", the " S^ehare {Phoca Ieporinay\ *Ex "Hermann, Act. Nat. Scrutat. Berol. iv, i). 246, t. xii, xiii." t"Udf0rlig Beskrivelse over de Gr^nlandske Stele", Skriv. af Naturli. Selsk., Iste Bind, Iste Hefte, 1790, pp. 79-157, 2det Hefte, 1791, pp. 73-170, Tab. xii, xiii. 432 FAMILY PHOCIDiE. and the "Atarpiak", making nine species formally introduced (besides ^'■Flioca grypiis^\ wliicli is treated incident-ally at the close of the account of the " Sviinsa^l"). The Phoca leporinn of Lepechin is a synonym of his Phoca barbata, but the Phoca lep- orina of Fabricius has doubtless no foundation except in the imagination of the Greenlanders. These doubtful or mythical species have been especially investigated by Mr. Eobert Brown. The Phoca ursina was based on a part of a cranium which was •'fidl of holes", but so much uncertainty prevailed in Fabricius's mind respecting the nature of the creature it represented that he makes the same fragment the basis for the introduction into the Greenland fauna ("Fauna Groenlandica", p. G) of two spe- cies,— Steller's Sea-Cow (" Trichechus manatus^\=Rhytina gigas,, auct.) as well as Steller's Sea-Bear. Says Mr. Brown, " What- ever it is, there can, I think, be scarcely a doubt as to the ex- clusion of Trichechus manatus and Phoca ursina, from the Green- land fauna; nor can their place as yet be supplied by any other species. Prof. Steenstrup thinks that it was a portion of the skull of a Sea-wolf {Anarrhichas). The situation of the teeth and the nature of this hsh's cellular skull well agree with his description of the skull as 'full of holes' Hr. Bolbroe, who understands the Eskimo language intimately, tells me that the word [Auvelwjak] means a 'little walrus', and that in all probability it was only the skull of a young walius, an animal not at all familiar to Fabricius, as they are chiefly confined to one spot, and the natives fear to go near that locality. Fabri- cius may have only written the description from recollection 5 and memory, assisted by preconceived notions, may have led him into error in the description of the long teeth, which after all might, without great trouble, be made to refer to the denti- tion of the young walrus This opinion is strengthened by a passage in Fabricius's account of the walrus, where he again is in doubt whether a certain animal is the young of the walrus or the dugong. .... So that, after all, perhaps the Auvelcccjak was only the young of the walrus ; and this opinion I am on the whole inclined to acquiesce in".* The other species of Fabricius's supposed Phoccc are thus re- ferred to by Mr. Brown : " Fabricius has notified in his fauna [and noticed them more at length in his later memou' on the Greenland Seals already cited] manj^ species of supposed Seals, *Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1868, p. 358; Man. Nat. Hist., etc., Greenland, Mam., p. 29. TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 433 &c., under A'arions Eskimo names, but wbicli lie was unable to decipber. Ilr. Fleiscber, Colouibestyrer of Jacobsbavn, bas aided me in resolving- tbese : " 1. iSiriuJdol; baving a long snout and a body similar to Phoca grcenlandica, perbaps P. ursina. Tbis is apparently some Eskimo perversion, if interpreted properly; for I am assured tbat it is only tbe name of tbe Eider Duck [Somateria mollis- sima). [In bis memoir in tbe ' Skrivter af Xaturbistorie- Selskabet' (vol. i, part ii, p. 163) it is called ' Sviinsselen {Phoca porcina) ', and be refers to it sucb diverse creatures as Molina's '■ Phoca porcina'' and Pennant's 'Bottle-nosed Seal,' and devotes nearly four pages to its consideration.] "2. Imah-uJculliaj a Seal witb a snow- wbite coat, 'tbe eye pre- senting a red iris, probably P. Icporina^ is a rare albino of tbe Netsilc {Pagomys foetidus). Tbe meaning* of tbe word is tbe Sea- bare. [In tbe 'Skrivter' (1. c. p. 168) tbis is called 'S^ebaren {Phoca leporina)\ of wbicb Lepecbin's '■Phoca leporina^ and Scbreber's 'sibiriscbe Seebund' are cited as synonyms.] "3. Atarpialc or atarpelc, 'tbe smallest species of Seal, not ex- ceeding tbe size of tbe band, of a wbitisb color, and a blackisb spot of tbe form of a balf-moon on eacb side of tbe body.' Tbis description does not correspond to tbe meaning of tbe word, wbicb is ' tbe Brown Seal'. [Tbis in tbe ' Skrivter' (1. c. p. 169) appears as tbe 'Xiende Art, Atarpiak', witbout a Latin name or synonyms.] Hr. Fleiscber tbinks tbat it is only a mytb, as is — "4. KongcsteriaJc [not mentioned in tbe 'Skrivter'], wbicli bas, ' according- to tbe description given by tbe natives, some resemblance to tbe Sea-ape described by Mr. Heller '. Tbis is one of tbe nortbern mytbs."* In 1792 appeared Kerr's "Animal Kingdom", tbe title-page of wbicb states it to be "A translation of tbat part of tbe Sys- tema Naturae, as lately publisbed by Professor Gmelin of Goet- tingen, togetber witb numerous additions from more recent zoological writers and illustrated witb copper plates." In tbis work (pp. 121-128) nineteen species appear under tbe generic name Phoca, witb five additional varieties, among wbicb we find tbe real origin of quite a number of names currently attributed to mucb later autbors. Tbe species and varieties bere enumer- ated are tbe following, tbe new names being distinguisbed by tbe use of tbick type: 1. Phoca ursina; 2. P. leonina (=Bot- *Proc. Zool. Soc. LoBclon, 1868, p. 360; Man. Nat. Hist., etc., Greenland, pp. 31, 32. Misc. Pub. No. 12 28 434 FAMILY PHOCID^. tled-nosed Seal of Pennant); 3. P. juhata; 4. P. vitulina (witli vars. hotnica, sibirica, caspica) ; 5. P. monachus ; 6. P. grcenlan- dica (with var. nigra) ; 7. P. Msjnda (with var. quadrata = " Square Phipper, Arct. Zool, i, IGl"); 8. P. cristata; 9. P. barbata; 10. P. pusilla (an Eared Seal) ; 11. P. chilensis ( = P. porcina, Molina) ; 12. P. mutica ( = Long-necked Seal of Par- sons— an Eared Seal); 13. P. australis (= ''Falkland Seal, Penn. Hist. Quad., n. 378"); 14. P. testudo (= Tortoise-head Seal, Pennant); 15. P. fasciata ("Harnassed Seal" = Eubbon Seal, Pennant) ; IG. P. laniger ( = Phoca leporina., Lepechin) ; 17. P. punctata ("Is speckled all over the body, head, and limbs. Penn. Hist. Quad. p. 523. Inhabits the seas about Kamtschatka and the Kurile Islands"); 18. P. maculata ("The body is spotted with brown. Penn. Hist. Quad. p. 523. In- habits the coasts about the Kurile Islands. This species is very scarce ") ; 19. P. nigra (" Has a j)eculiar conformation of the legs. Penn. Hist. Quad. p. 523. Inhabits the coast about the Kurile Islands. This and the two last species are mentioned by Mr. Pennant as being obscurely described in the manu- scrii3ts of Steller. What the peculiarity in the conformation of the hind legs, in the Black Seal, consists of, is not said"). In this case the "numerous additions" are all from Pennant, and embrace nine new names, seven of which are specific and two varietal. In each case explicit reference is made to Pen- nant's species. Kerr's work has been so completely overlooked or ignored by subsequent writers that most of his new names have been attributed to Shaw and other still later sources. Pennant^ in 1793, published the third and last edition of his "History of Quadrupeds." Although he employed only ver- nacular names, his descriptions are well drawn, and some of them are important from their being the basis, wholly or in part, of several technical names imposed by later writers. Al- though almost exclusively a compilation, the matter relating to the Seals reflects fairly the then x)resent state of knowledge respecting these animals. As it was, furthermore, the last gen- eral account of the Seals published prior to the year 1800, it may well be taken as an exponent of the subject as known a few years prior to that date. Under the term " Seal" Pennant embraced all of the Pinni- peds then known, except the Walruses, the term being equiva- lent to ^^ Phoca ^^ of more technical writers of the same period. The species he recognized are the following : * 1. " Common Seal," * L. c, vol. ii, pp. 270-291. TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 435 ■of wliicli he says, " Inhabit most quarters of the globe, but in greatest multitudes towards the North and the South ; swarm near the Arctic circle, and the lower parts of South America, in both oceans ; near the southern end of Terra del Fuego ; and even among the floating ice as low as south lat. 60. 21. Found in the Caspian Sea, in the lake Aral, and lakes Bailcal and Oron, which are fresh waters. They are lesser than those which frequent salt waters ; but so fat that they seem almost shapeless. In lake Baikal some are covered with silvery hairs ; others are yellowish, and have a large dark-colored mark on the hind part of the back, covering almost a third of the body." 2. "Pied Seal" (= Le Phoque a ventre blanc, Buffon, = MonacMis alhiven- ter); 3. "Mediterranean Seal" (= Fhoca monachus, Hermann, = Monachus alb iv enter) ; 4. "Long-necked Seal" (of "Grew's Museum, 95," and of Parsons = some indeterminable sj)ecies of Otary); 5. " Falkland Isle Seal^^ { = Arctoce])halus australis=A. falldandicus, auct.); 6. "Tortoise-headed Seal" (= Tortoise- headed Seal, Parsons, — undeterminable); 7. "Eubbou Seal," based on a descrii)tiou (?) and a drawing communicated to him by "Doctor Pallas," of a mutilated skin received by the latter "from one of the remotest Kuril islands." The drawing "is en- graven on the title of Division III, Pinnated Quadrupeds." This is a species described much later by Pallas as Fhoca equestris ; 8. "Leporine Seal" (= P/ioc« leporina, Lepechin); 9. "Great Seal" (= Fhoca harhata, at least mainly); 10. "Eough Seal" (= Neitsek, Cranz; Fhoca hispida, Schreber); 11. Porcine Seal, {Fhoca porcina, Molina); 12. " Eared Seal " (described from a specimen in Parkinson's Museum, from the Straits of Magellan, and probably a young Otaria juhata); 13. "Hooded Seal" (= Cystophora cristata, unmixed with any other species); 14. "Harp Seal" {Fhoca grcenlandica) ; 15. "Little Seal" (= Le petit Phoque, Buffon ; based on a specimen of a young Eared Seal, originally supposed to have come from India — undeter- minable); 16. " Ursine Seal" (a compound of all the Sea-Bears or Fur-Seals); 17. "Bottle-nose Seal" (= Sea Elephant of the Southern Seas. A good description is given of the external characters of both sexes, that of the female being based on a "well-preserved specimen in the Museum of the Eoyal So- ciety"— the specimen previously described by Parsons under the name Manatie!); 18. "Leonine Seal" (= a compound of the Northern and Southern Sea Lions); 19. " Urigene Seal" (= Fhoca lupina, Molina). 436 FAMILY PHOCID^. Of these nineteen species six are Otaries ; of the remaining- thirteen one is described for the first time ; three are pure syno- nyms, and two are not certainly determinable. Three valid species are confounded under the name " Common Seal," which embraces (a) Fhoca vituUtia, (b) P. caspica, (c) P. sibirica, the two last already thus named as varieties of Fhoca mtulina by Gmelin. With this exception, all of the species of Earless Seals of the jSTorthern Hemisphere, up to that time indicated, were duly recognized and clearly distinguished by Pennant, as well also as one from the Southern Seas. In 1798 Thunberg, in a small work on the mammalian fauna of Sweden,* recognized five species of Seals, three of which appeared under new names, but they are so briefly described it is nearly impossible to determine to what his various names re- late, especially as he gives no synonyms, and no subsequent author appears to have been able to iiositively identify them. The names are accompanied by short Latin diagnoses, which I here transcribe: 1. ^^F[hoca] hispida : corpore pallido fusco- maculato." He adds the Swedish names " 8MI, GrdsMl, Hofs- skalP Perhaps the Fhoca '-' hispida^'' of authors, but of this there is no certainty. 2. '■^F. sericea: corpore albido immacu- lato." " Stat-skS.1." Undeterminable. 3. '■'■ F. canina : corpore griseo immaculato." '■'■Yikare-skdl ooh Grd Vikare-slcaV 4. "P. vitulina: corpore fusco." ^^ Svart Vikarc-skdl.^'' 5. "P. varie- gata : corpore griseo nigro-maculato." '■'■ Morunge.'''^ This by some authors is judged to be Fhoca mtulina. Eight of the eleven pages devoted to the Seals in this work are occupied with the account of the present species. Thus Thunberg ob- tained the distinction of adding five species to the numerous list of Seals too inadequately described for recognition, and of contributing three new names to the synonymy of the subject. Pausing now for a hasty retrospect, we find that prior to the year 1800 the following species (exclusive of synonyms and un- identifiable " species"), named in the order of their first recogni- tion in technical nomenclature, had already made their appear- ance in works on systematic zoology : 1. Fhoca vitulina ; 2. Ma- crorhinus leoninus ; 3. Cystophora cristata (1-3 as early as, or prior to, 1758); 4. Fhoca foetida ; 5. Fhoca grcenlandica ; Q. Erig- natlius harbatus {4-6, 1766); 7. Monachus albiventer (1779); 8. * Beskrifning pa Svenske Djiir. Forsta Classen, om Mammalia eller D&g- gandejuren, af Carl Peter Thunberg, Upsala, 1798. 8 vo. pp. 100. Seals, pp. 85-96. TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 437 Plioca f a sciata (17 S3)', 9. JfTalichoerus gryinis {lldl). Two other species had been distinguished as varieties, namely, 10. Plioca caspica; 11. Plioca sibirica (both 1788). As will be seen later, only two northern species {MacrorMnus angustirostris and the West Indian Seal), and three others from the Southern Seas, remained to be adde'^ although the literature of the subject has since been burdened bj" the addition of not less than sixty synonyms ! In the year 1800 Shaw, in his " General Zoology " (Quad- rupeds, vol. i, pp. 250-272) redescribed Pennant's nineteen species, under Latin as well as English names, bestowing new Latin names upon five of them, none of which, however, have proved to be valid species. So far as the Seals are concerned, his work is little more than an abridged paraphrase of Pen- nant, being strictly a compilation (based almost wholly on Pen- nant), with the most of the bibliographical references omitted (he cites usually only Gmelin and Pennant), with the form of the matter changed by throwing the descriptions of the external characters into brief Latin diagnoses, duplicated in English.* His species are the following, the new names added being here printed in heavy type : 1. Phocavitulina; 2. P/«wctofrt, "Encycl. angl."; 12. P. maculata, "Encycl. angl."; 13. P. nigra, "Encycl. angl."; 14. Phoque tigrc, Krasch. Of the eleven species accepted as valid, two only (C lepori- nus and C. discolor) are nominal ; of the fourteen provisionally 444 FAMILY PHOCID^. given, oue only (P. ^^fasciata'^) is valid, making nine valid species now enumerated, six of wliicli stand under their legiti- mate specific names. Lesson,* in 182G, named Weddell's Sea Leopard Otaria wed- delli., supposing it to be an Eared Seal, but tlie following year (1827), in bis "Manuel de Mammalogie", referred it to F. Cuvier's genus Stenorliynelius. In this work, "Manuel de Mam- malogie" (pp. 19G-208), be treats formally nineteen species of Earless Seals (ISTos. 529-546, and 551), and under tbe caption "§ 1, Point Woreilles externes, Pboques des auteurs," gives a list of eleven additional species, tbe last all under tbe genus Phoca, wbicb be was unable to rigorously determine. Tbe work is admittedly based largely on tbat of Desmarestt (" Encyclopedie metbodique," vol. clxxxii), but is stated to have grown out of Ms systematic studies of tbe collections made during tbe voy- age of tbe corvette la CoquiUe (1822-1825), tbe results of wbicb were just tben published. He adopts tbe generic divisions pre\iously instituted by F. Cuvier and Nilsson, and on tbe wbole presents a very judicious summarj^ of tbe subject. Tbe species and genera, concisely and fairly characterized, are as follows: 1. Calocephalus oceanicus ; I.G.groenlandicus; 3. C.vitu- linus (includes P. Zi?torea,Tbienemann); 4. C. albicauda {exDea- marest); 5. C lepormus; 6. C. discolor (ex F. Cuvier); 7. C. lagurus (ex G. Cuvier); 8. C. harbatus; 9. C. scopulicolus (ex Tbienemann) ; 10. Stenorkynchus leptonyx ; 11. S. tveddelU ( = Otaria weddelli, Lesson, 1826) ; 12. Pelagius monaclius (correctly covering Plioca hicolor, Shaw, and P. leucogaster, Peron); 13. Stemmotopus cristatus; 14. MacrorMnus prohoscideus ; 15. 31. ansoni; IQ. M. hyroni ; 17. Halichcerus griseus. Ko new names are introduced, but several of the species are placed under new generic relations. Among tbe eleven undetermined species referred to under Phoca are two (P. longicollis, Shaw, P. nigra, "Encycl. angl.") Otaries. Tbe other seven are as follows : 1. P. coxii, Desm. ; 2. P. I up ina, MolmOi ', 3. P. maculata, Bodd. ; 4. ^^ Phoqiie laM- taTc,^' Desm. ex Krascb. ; 5. P. testudinea, Shaw ; 6. P. fasciata, "Shaw"; 7. P. punctata, "Encycl. angl."; 8. P. maculata, "Encycl. angl."; 9. P. tigrina (ex Krascb., aj)parently here first named). * F^russac's Bull, des Sci. Nat., vol. vii, 1826, p. 438. tSee dedicatory note addressed to M. A. G. Desmarest, 1. c, \). vii. TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 445 Gray,* the same year (1827), in Griffith's "Cuvier's Animal Kingdom" (vol. v, pp. 175-181), recognized thirteen species, as follows: 1. Phoca vituUna, with varieties "a. bothionica^'' ("Lin. Faun. Sue."); "b. sehrica^^ {^^sibirica, Gmelin, Syst. Nat."); "c. caspica^^ ("GmeUn, Syst. l!?^at."); "d. maculata^^ {^^maculata, Bodd."); 2. Phoca ^^Lejporiiius^^ {= /e/jonnw, Lepechin) ; 3. PJioca discolor { = discolor, F. Cuv.); 4. Phoca lagura {=lagura, G. Cuv.); 5. Phoca grcenlandica {GOYera also oceanica, Lepech., and semilunaris, Bodd.); C. Phoca foetida (covers hispida, Schreber, and Halichoerus griseus, Nilss., "His., 1824, 810"!); 7. Phoca barhata; 8. Phoca leptonyx (covers leptonyx, BlainviUe, Le Phoqm a ventre blanc, Buffon, and also Hermann's plate of Phoca monachus!); 9. Mirounga {n. gen.) cristatus { = cristata, "Gmel.", leonina. Fabric, and mitrata, "Camper"); 10. Mi- rounga proboscidea; 11. Mirounga patagonica (n. sp. = ^^Phoque de Patagone, F. Cuv., Mem. Mus. iv, 203" (= Macrorhinus leoni- nus) ; 12. Mirounga ansoni ( = leonina, " Gmel.", ansoni, Desm.) ; 13. Mirounga byroni ( = Phoca byronia, Blainv.). Of these thir- teen species only six are valid, while two then well-known spe- cies {Halichoerus grypus and Monachus albiventer) are confounded with others. In 1828 Lesson t added a large number of synonyms by delib- erately renaming species previously described, a large part of the species so renamed being also merely nominal. He gives a synopsis of the genera proposed by F. Cuvier in 1824, in his general history of the group, but enumerates the species all under the old generic name of Phoca. His review of the group is made with discrimination, but is greatly marred by the free indulgence of his love for coining new names. In the list of his species here following the new names are printed in thick type: 1. Phoca cristata (covering leonina, Fabr., cucullata, Bodd., and mitrata, "DeKay"); 2. Phoca muUeri (covering grcenlandica, "Miiller", oceanica, Lepechin, and semilunaris, Boddaert); 3. Phoca schreberi (covering hispida, Schreber, foetida, Miiller, and annellata,^ilssoji) ', 4. P/iomparsonsi(= "Phoca major, Parsons," to which is leferred barbata, "Miiller"); 5. P/wca thienemanni (= scopulicola, Thienemann); 6. Phoca leucopla (ex Thiene- mann); 7. Phoca linnaei (= vitulina, Linne) ; 8. Phoca Uttorea (ex Thienemann) ; 9. Phoca lepechini ( = leporina, Lepechin) ; * The authorship is not distinctly stated in the volume, so far as I have heen able to find, but is uniformly claimed by Gray in his subsequent "works. tDict. class. d'Hist. Nat., tome xiii, art. Phoque, Janvier, 1828, pp. 400-426. 446 FAMILY PHOCID-S:. 10. Phoca frederici (= discolor , F. Cuvier); 11. Phoca pylayi {= lagura, G. Cuvier) ; 12. Phoca demaresti (= alMcauda, Des- inarest) ; 13. Phoca hermanni (= monachus, Hermann, to wliicli are referred also albiventer, Bodd., and leucogaster, Peron) ; 14. Phoca chorisi (= Chien de Mer, Choris) ; 15. Phoca hyroni (ex Blainville) ; 16. Phoca homei (= leptonyx^ Blainville); 17. Phoca weddelli {Otaria weddelli, Less.); 18. Phoca prohoscidea (includes Iconina, Linn., elephantina, Molina, and ansoni, Desm., in part). Of these pigliteen " species " nine are purely nominal; eleven are needlessly renamed, and in addition to wliicli Choris's " Ohien de Mer" is for the first time introduced into systematic nomenclature, thereby adding* in all twelve synonyms in a notice of eighteen supx)osed species, rex)resenting only nine valid ones. The only redeemable feature is the proper alloca- tion of twelve nominal species of preceding authors. He also considers it probable that Peron's Phoca resima, Desmarest's Phoca coxii, and Molina's Phoca lupma, should be referred to his Phoca prohoscidea. Of the nine valid species only two stand under tenable specific names. Fischer, in 1829, in his " Synopsis Mammalium," recognized eighteen species of ^^Phocw^^ under his division ^^^fAuricuUs nuUis" (1. c, pp. 234-242, "375-378," i. e., 575-578), which are as follows: 1. Phoca leonina, Linn. (= P. prohoscidea^ P4ron) ; 2. Phoca ansoni, Desm. ; 3. Phoca byroni, Blainv. (the three pre- ceding all referable, either wholly or in part, to Ilacrorhinus leoninus) ; 4. Phoca monachus, Herm. ; 5. Phoca vituUna, Linn. ; 6. Phoca IciJorina, Jjepech. ; 7. Phoca discolor {= Callocephalus discolor^ F. Cuv.) ; 8. Phoca scopulicola, Thienm. ; 9. Phoca leu- copla, Thienm.; 10. Phoca lagura, G. Cuv.; 11. Phoca groen- landica, " Miill." ; 12. Phoca grypus, Fabr. ; 13. Phoca hisjnda,, Schreber ; 14. Phoca harhata, " Miill." ; 15. Phoca leptonyx, Blainv.; 16. Phoca iveddelU, "Less."; 17. Phoca cristata,Erxl.', 18. Phoca chorisi, Less. Thirteen others are given as doubtful or not well determined, one of which is here first named. These are: 1. Phoca duhia (n. sp., =Macrorhinus leoninus^ juv.*) ; 2. Phoca oceanica, Lepech. ; Phoca lupina, Molina ; 4. Phoca sericea, Thunb. ; 5. Phoca canina, Thunb. ; 6. Phoca viiuUna, Thunb. ; 7. Phoca testudinea, Shaw ; 8. Phoca fasciata, Shaw ; 9. Phoca punctata, " Ency. Brit."; 10. Phoca maculata, "Ency. Brit."; 11. Phoca nigra, " Ency. Brit." ; 13. Phoca antarctica, Thunb. (= Arctocephalus antarctictis). In the "Addenda" (1830), how- * See Nilsson, Wiegmann's ArcMv, 1841, pp. 324, 325. TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 447 ■ever, Phoca oceanica is referred to P. groenlandica, and Phoca ycetida, "Miill.," is substituted for P. hispida. ^^ Phoca dubia^ is apparently tlie only new name given. Ifot only are all these referred to PJioca, but this name is made to cover also all of the Eared Seals. Of the eighteen species here formally recognized ten only are A'alid, to which one may be added from the list of doubtful species, making eleven in all, nine of which have correct specific designations — a great improvement upon Lesson's work of the previous year. In 1831* Pallas, in his "Zoographia Eosso-Asiatica" (vol. i, pp. 100-119), described twelve species of marine mammals under the generic name Phoca, as follows : 1. Phoca lutris {=Enhydris lutris) ; 2. Phoca ursina (= Callorhinus ursinus) ; 3. Phoca leonina {=Eiimetoinas stelleri)', 4. Phoca nigra { = Callorhinus ursinus, juv.); 5. Phoca nautica (=f Prignathus harhatus); 0. Phoca albi- gena { = Prignafhus harhatus); 7. Phoca equestris { = Histriophoca fasciata)', 8, Phoca dorsata { = Phoca grcenhmdica) ', 9. Phoca mo- nacha ( = Monachus albiventer) ; 10. Phoca largha (a young Earless Seal, species indeterminable); 11. Phoca canina {= Phoca vitu- Una, Phoca caspica, and Phoca sibirica) ; 12. Phoca ochotensis (in- determinable; probably = P. vitulina). Of these twelve species seven only are Phocids, none of which are for the first time named ; two (P. nautica and P. largha) are not with certainty determinable. The author himself identifies five of his species with species previously described, yet in each case bestows a new name. In short, Pallas's twelve supposed species of ' ' Phoca " add seven x)ure synonyms, three indeterminable species, and not one tenable name to the literature of the subject. His Phoca ocho- tensis (by some later authors, as von Schrenck, recognized as a valid species) presents a combination of characters thus far un- known in nature. His diagnosis begins " P. subauriculata", and in his description he says, "Auriculae extern ae minutae, nigri- cantes", on which account it has been sometimes regarded as an Otary, but he describes the molars as "supra infraque utrinque quini, primo minore suhbicuspidato ; reliqui acute tri- cuspidati, medio majore, conico"; and also says, "Palmarum ungues terminales magni, incurvi, robusti," etc., which certainly cannot be said of an Otary. There is nothing in the account * The date ou the title page is 1831, but the work seems to have been printed as early as 1811. The lirst volume, however, is quoted by Fischer in the "addenda" to his "Synopsis Mammalium", dated 1830, and is not quoted in the work itself, dated 1829. 448 FAMILY PHOCIDiE. of the pelage or coloration, either of the young or adult, that might not apply, for instance, to Fhoca vitulina, while the gen- eral drift of the description certainly indicates an Earless Seal. Nilssou, in 1837,* published an important revision of the Pm- nipedia, which, so far as the Phocids are concerned, is one of the most important contributions to the subject that has yet ai)peared, the variations dependent upon age and individual pecuharities being discussed at length, while a number of the nominal species of preceding authors (some of them for the first time) take their proper stations. Phoca caspica is here first es- tablished as a species, — the only new species added. Characters strictly specific are sharply contrasted among allied species not previously well understood. Only a limited amount of syn- onymy is presented, but that is well considered, and has stood the test of subsequent researches. Only ten species of the fam- ily PJwcidce, as now restricted, were recognized, as follows : 1. Stenorhynclms leptonyx ; 2. Pelagius monachus ; 3. Phoca vitulina (to which is referred Thienemann's P. littorea) ; 4. Phoca annel- lata { = Phoca fcetida, to which is referred F. Cuvier's Calloceph- alus discolor) ; 5. Phoca caspica (n. sp.) ; 6. Phoca groenlandica (to which are referred Lepechin's P. oceanica and G. Cuvier's P. lagura); 7. Phoca barbata (to which are referred Lepechin's P. leporina and Pallas's P. nautica and P. albigena) ; 8. Halichcerus grypus; 9. Gystophora proboscidea (to which Fischer's Phoca dubia is referred; Phoca ansoni is again shown to be a compound of this species and Otaria leonina [= O.jubata, auct.], and Phoca byroni is declared to have been based on an old skull without the lower jaw of ^^ Otaria jubata^''); 10. Gystophora cristata (to .which are referred Phoca mitrata of "Fischer", P. leucopla of Thienemann, and Gystophora boreaUs of Mlsson, Skand.-Fanna^ ' 1, 1820, 283). No reference is hence made to several valid spe- ! cies, and a multitude of nominal ones, previously described. Gray, in 1837, t described some kind of Hair Seal "forty- seven inches" long from the "Cape of Good Hope", under the name Phoca f platythrix. He seemed to be thus in doubt as to whether it was a true Phoca, but it was doubtless an Earless Seal, or he would not have at this date referred it in any way to Phoca. I find no subsequent reference to it, either by Gray * "Utkast till en systematisk indeluing af Phocaceerua. 'ypus); 10. Stenorliynclius leptonyx; U.S. leojjardina { = tveddelli) ; 12. Pelagius mo nachiis ; 13. 8te7n- matopus cristatus ; 14. 8. mitratus {= cristata) ; 15. MacrorJiinus prohoHcideus {=leomnus). Of these fourteen species nine only are valid, and only six of these stand under their correct" si^eciflc names. He also gives a list of four doubtful ones, only the first of which is described. These are the following : 1. PJioca fasciata; 2. P. coxii ; 3. P. lupina; 4. P. punctata. The same year (1839) Kutorgat gave a detailed account of Phocafcetida, under the name Phoca communis., characterizing two new varieties, which he called octonotata and undulata. Temminck, in 1842, in the "Fauna Japonica" (Mammiferes Marins, pp. 1-4), passed in review the Seals of the North Pacific, discussing especially those indicated by Steller and Pallas. The only species particularly described is Pallas's Phoca largTia, which he renamed Phoca nummularis. DeKay, in the same year (New York Zoology, part i, 1842, p. 53), based the name Phoca concolor upon New York examples of Phoca vitulina, he belie^^ng the American animal to be spe- cifically distinct from the European. In 1843 Lesson I described a specimen of Gystophora cristata taken on the coast of France, under the name Phoca isidorei. In the same year (1843) Owen§ redescribed Lohodon carcino- phaga under the name Stenorhynchus serridens. In 1844 Gray, in the "Zoology of the Erebus and Terror", described Ommatophoca rossi^ a valid new species. Schinz, in the same year (1844), in his " Systematische Ver- zeichuiss aller bis jetzt bekannters Saugethiere, oder Synop- sis Mammalium" (i, pp. 429-486), recognized twelve species of Phoca, and mentioned three additional doubtful ones, as follows : * Forming vol. viii of the Mammalia of Jardine's "Naturalist's Library". t Bull. Soc. Imp. des Nat. de Moscou, ann^e 1839, pp. 178-196, pll. xiii-xviii. i Eevue Zoolgique, 1843, p. 256 ; Echo dii Monde Savant, 1843, p. 228. §Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1843, p. 131. Misc. Pub. No. 12 29 450 FAMILY PHOCID^. 1. Phoca jyrohoscidea ; 2. P. monackus ; 3. F. vitulina; 4. P. caspica; 5. P. barhata; G. P. annellata {=foetida)', 7. P. green- landiGa; 8. P. grypus ; 9. P. lagura ; 10. P. leptonyx; 11. P. iceddelli ; 12. P. crisfata. Eleven of these represent valid spe- cies, one only (P. lagura) being nominal. The doubtful ones are, 1. P. chorisi ; 2. P. sericea^ Thunb. ; 3. P. testudinea, Shaw. In 1846 Andreas Wagner, in his continuation of Schreber's " Saugtbiere " (Theil vii, pp. 5-51) presented an important revis- ion of the Earless Seals. The fourteen species recognized by him he refers to four genera, as follows : 1. Haliclioerus grypiis (to "which he refers Phoca Jiispida, Schreber !) ; 2. Phoca barbata; 3. Phoca groenlandica ; 4. Phoca 7iummularis (ex ''SchlegeF, i. e. Temminck, Fauna Japon. = P. fcetida)', 5. Phoca vitulina; 6. Phoca annellata (ex Nilsson ; P.fwtida and P. hispida, Fabric, are given as synonyms!); 7. Phoca caspica ; 8. Leptonyx serridens {= Stenorhynchus serridens^ Owen, and Lobodon carcinophaga. Gray) ; 9. Leptonyx leopardina (ex Jameson MSS. apud Ham- ilton; ^^ Phoca leptonyx, Blainville" = Leptonyx iceddelli)', 10. Leptonyx weddelli; 11. Leptonyx rossi; 12. Leptonyx monachus ; 13. Cystophora proboscidea; 14. Cystophora cristata. Of these, two {Phoca nummularis and Leptonyx leopardinus) are nominal. Although a highly important, and in most respects a judicious review of the subject, it presents several strange allocations of synonymy, as above noted. Under Leptonyx iceddelli, for exam- ple, the only references he cites he had just previously given under 8. leopardinus, and appears to separate the two species on the basis of erroneous drawings of the hind feet, i^either does he explain why he refers Schreber's Phoca hispida to JIali- choerus grypus, or why he allows annellata of Nilsson to take pre- cedence of fcetida of Fabricius. Peale,* in 1848, misled by the transposition of a label, de- scribed specimens of Phoca vitulina from the Pacific coast of ;North America, under the name Halichoerus antarcticus, suppos- ing the specimens came from the Desolation Islands. In 1849 Dr. J. E. Grayt '^received", he says, "from the West Indies the skin and skuU of a Seal which evidently belongs to the same genus as the crested seal of the northern hemisphere", which he described under the name Cystophora antillarum. He refers to another "imperfect skin of a seal from Jamaica, which *Rep. U. S. Ex. Exp., vol. viii, 1848, p. 30. t Proc. Zool. Soc. Loudon, 1849, p. 93. TECHNICAL HISTOEY SPECIES. 451 was brought home by Mr. Gosse", which the folio wiug year* became the basis of his Phoca tropicalis. Gray, iu 1850 (Cat. of Seals in Brit. Mus.) recognized eighteen species of Earless Seals, distributed among eleven genera, of which fourteen of the species are doubtless valid. The species t recog- nized are the following : 1. Lohodon carcinojjhaga ; 2. Stoiorhyn- clius leptonyx ; 3. Leptonyx iveddelU; 4. Monachus alhiventer ; 5. Ommatoplioca rossi ; G. Callocephalus vitulinus ; 7. C. Mspidus ; 8. C.f^ietida (7 and 8 are the same) ; 9. G. caspicus ; 10. C. dimi- diatiis; 11. C. largha (10 and 11 nominal); 12. Pa gopMlus green- la ndicus ; 13. Phoca harhata ; 14:. PJioca tropicalis; 15. Hal ichce- rus grypus ; 16. Morunga elephantina ; 17. Cystopliora cristata ; 18. G. antillariim. The only new names are Gallocephalus dimi- diatus (n. sp., ex Schlegel MS.), and PJioca tropicalis (n. sp.), and the only innovation in nomenclature is MonachuS aJMventer [albi- venter ex Bodd.). The same year (1850) Drs. Hornschuch and Schilling,! after an examination of some sixty skulls of Halichcerus, proposed a division of the genus into ■ three species, namely, H. grypus (Fabr. = griseus Nilss.), H. macrorhynchus^ and H.pachyrhynchus, the last two being added as new species. Subsequent writerSj however, have not considered them as entitled to specific recog- nition. In 1854 Gray§ described a specimen of Monachus albiventer from Madeira under the name Heliophoca atlantica, basing on it a new genus as well as new species. In 1855 Giebel, in his " Saugethiere" (pp. 129-143), gave a noteworthy account of the animals here under consideration. It is concise and discriminative, and though closely foUowing Wagner, is an admirable exposition of the state of knowledge respecting this group at the date of its i)ublication, nearly a quarter of a century ago. Although dealmg to only a small extent with the bibliography of the subject, the principal syno- nyms of the species are given in footnotes, with generally a brief reference to their character. Th^ species recognized, *Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, p. 28. t The synonymy he here gave is suhstantially the same as that of his later (1866) "Catalogue of Seals and Whales", for a notice of which see below, p. 453 t " Kurze Notizcn liber die in der OsCsee vorkommiuden Arten der Gattung JSalichocrus, Nilss. Greifswald, 1850". Abstract in Wiegmann's Archiv fUr Naturgesch., 1851, Bd. 2, p. 22. The original brochure I have not seen. ' ^Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1854, p. 43. 452 FAMILY PHOCID^. thirteen in number, are referred to four genera, as follows : 1 . Halichcerus gryints ; 2. Flioca barhata {with leporina, Lepech., albigejia and nautica, Pallas, as synonyms) ; 3. Fhoca grcenlandica (with oceanica, " Steller," and dorsata, Pallas, as synonyms, to which also ochotensis, Pallas, is doubtfully added) ; 4. PJioca nummularis, '^Schlegel" { = fcetlda) ; 5. FJioca vitulina (with the synonyms variegata, Miss., littorea and scoimlicola, Thienemann, concolor, DeKay, etc.); 6. PJioca annellata (with fcetida and hispida, Fabr., discolor, F. Cuv., and ocfonofata and ulfdulata, Kutorga, as synonyms) ; 7. Phoca caspica ; 8. Leptonyx serridens (= carcinopliaga) ; 9. Leptonyx leopardinus (= leptonyx, Blainv.); 10. Leptonyx u'eddelU ; 11. Leptonyx monachus ; 12. Cystophora prohoscidea (with ansoni, Desm., and duhia, Fisch., as synonyms); 13. Cystophora cristata (with leonina, Linn., horealis, Nilss., leucopla, Thienmann, and mitratu, "Fisch.," as synonyms). Of the thirteen species one only {nummularis) is nominal, and nearly all stand under their proper specific names, while the various synonyms are in every case correctly referred. Von Schrenck, in 1859, in his "Eeisen und Forschungen im Amur-Lande" (vol. i, pp. 180-188, pi. ix) recognized four spe- cies as occurring on the Amoor coast of the Ochots Sea, namely : 1. '■^PJioca nummularis, Schleg." {— ^^ Phoca largha, Pallas"); 2. Phoca barhata {=^'Ph. nautica und Ph. albigena, Pallas"); 3. "P/wca oc/iofewsts, Pallas"; 4. ^^ Phoca equestris, Pallas" (= P. fasdata., Zimm.). While none are assumed by the author to be new, the last is for the first time adequately described and fig- ured. Although the existence of this remarkable species was indicated by Pennant in 1781, on information and a drawing furnished him by Pallas, it had hitherto been seen by no sub- sequent author, and had generally figured as a synonyni of other species or in the lists of the doubtful or indeterminable ones. Von Schrenck, however, not only gave detailed descrip- tions of the dentition and external characters, with measure- ments of the old and young of both sexes, but also colored figures of the adult male and female. In 1862, Eadde, in his "Eeisen im Siiden von Ost-Sibirien" (Theil i, pp. 296-304, pi. xiii) described at length a skull of a young female of the Lake Baikal Seal under the name Phoca annellata, and incidentally in comparison therewith a skull of the Caspian Seal {Phoca caspica) and three skulls of Phoca fcetida {'■'■ annellata'''') from the East Sea, all of which he referred to the Phoca atinellata of Nilsson. His article is of importance TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 453 as afibrcliug the first detailed description of an authentic speci- men of the Baikal Seal. In 1864, Dr. Gray * described as new a species of Seal from the west coast of North America, under the name SaUcyon ricliardi (lege ricJiardsi) based on a skeleton from Frazer's Eiver and a skull from Vancouver's Island. He was so impressed with its distinctness that he created for it the new genus Hali- cyon. In the same i)aper Seliophoca atlantica is referred to Monaclms albiventer; and he enumerates fifteen species which he claims are fully established on osteological as well as exter- nal characters. In 18G6 Dr. Theodore Gill t first made known the California Sea-Elephant under the name Macrorhinus angustirostris. Gray, in 186G, in his " Catalogue of Seals and Whales in the British Museum" (pp. 8-35, 38-43, 367, 368), enumerated nine- teen species, placed in fourteen genera, as follows : 1. Lohodon carcinopliaga (includes serridens, Owen, and antarctica, Peale) j 2. Leptonyx iveddelU {leopardinus^ Jameson) ; 3. Ommatophoca rossi; 4. Stenorhynchiis leptonyx; 5. Monaclms albiventer (in- cludes bicolor, Shaw, lencogaster, Peron, atlantica, Gray, etc.) ; 6. Monaclms ti'opicalis ; 7. Callocephalus vituUnus (includes va- riegata, Nilssouj Uttorea, Thienemann, canina, Pallas, communis, vars. octonotata and undulata, Kutorga, etc., the last incor- rectly); 8. ^^Callocephalus? caspicus^^- 9. ^'■Calloceplialusf dimid- iatus^^ (ex Schlegel MS.; locality "Xorway " — not determinable); 10. Pagomys fcetidus (includes hispida, annellata, discolor, etc., and, incorrectly, '■^fasciata, Shaw,".^ concolor,J}e Kay, ".^ eques- tris, Pallas"); H. ^^ Pagomys f larglia^^ {= fcetida; includes ohorisi and tigrina, Lesson, and nummularis, Temm.); 12. Pa- gopliilus grcenlandicus (includes oceanica, Lepech., semilunaris, Bodd., dorsata, Pallas, annellata, Gaimard, etc.) ; 13. Salicyon ricliardsi {grcenlandica, Middendorff = mtulina) ; 14. Plioca har- bata ileporinus, Lepech., etc.); 15. Raliclioerus grypus (includes lialicliccrus, Thienem., griseus, Nilsson, etc., and incorrectly his- pida, Schreber, and scopulicola, Thienem.); "16. Morunga ele- phantina (includes leonina, Linne, prohoscidea, Nilsson, ansoni, Desm. , ptatagonica. Gray, duhia, Fisch.); 17. Cystophora cristata (includes cuciillata, Bodd., mitrata, Milbert, MS., horealis, Mis- son, leiicopla, Thienem., etc.); 18. Cystophora antillarum; 19. Halicyon calif ornica (p. 367, n. sp.; nominal). * Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1861, p. 28. tProc. CMcago Academy of Sciences, vol. i, p. 33. 454 FAMILY PHOCIDiE. This is the largest number, both of species and genera, recog- nized bj" one author since Lesson, who, in 1827, gave the same number of species but only six genera. Of these nineteen species, doubtless five {antiUarnm, dimidiatus, largJia, ricliardsi, and californica) are nominal, leaving fourteen that are valid, or an average of one to each genus ! One of the genera, however, {Halicyon) is based on a nominal species; the second species {Cystophora antillarum) of the only genus which contains two, may be regarded as doubtful (see j)ostea^ under the general history- of MonacJius f tropicaUs). ComiJared with the same author's revision made in 1850 (see mitea, p. 451) there is an increase of three genera and one species; only one "new spe- cies" {californica) being here added. This the author seems to have again recognized only once,* remarking that he considers Gill's Phoca pealei as identical with his ^'Salicyon f calif ornica'^K In the same year (1866) Br. Theodore Gill published his " Prodrome of a Monograph of the Pinnipedes ",t in which he pro- posed one new generic name {Erignatlius = Phoca, Gray), and introduced one new specific name by renaming Peale's Hali- clicerus antarcticus, PJioca pealei. As regards this species, he found that the type specimen, through the misplacement of a label, was wrongly assigned a habitat in the 'Antarctic Seas, whereas it undoubtedly came Irom the Pacific coast of Xorth America, thereby rendering the name antarcticus undesirable as perpetuating a grave error. He furthermore found that the species had nothing to do with the genus HalicJiwrus, but was a true Phoca. The jjaper introduced several important changes from the Grayian nomenclature, particularly in substituting Phoca for Calloceplialiis, Erignathus for Phoca, and Macrorhinus for Mortmga, although, as above stated, only one new generic name was introduced. Diagnoses are given of the genera, and lists of the species found respectively on the east and west coasts of North America. The species of ]S"orth American Phocidce given are the following : "Eastern North America." 1. Plioca vitulina, Linn. 2. Pagomys foetidus, Gray. 3. Pagopliilus grcenlandicus, Gray. 4. Erignatlius barbatus, Gill. 5. Halichoerus grypus, Nilss. 6. Cystopbora cristata, Nilss. " California, Oregon, ^c." 1. Phoca ricbardsi, Gill ex Gray. 2. Pboca pealei, Gill. 3. Macrorhinus angustirostris, Gill. *Aun. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d series, vol. xvii, 1866, p. 446. t Proc. Essex Inst., vol. v, 1866, pp. 3-13. TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 455 As the author himself now freely admits, in the light of the material he has since had opportunity of examining, Phoca ricli- ardsi and Plioca pealei are both synonyms of Phoca vitulina. Gray, later in the same year, in a short paper* devoted to a notice of Gill's " Prodrome," proi^osed to refer Peale's Sali- chcerus antarcticus to a new genus which he named HalipMlus. Gray in 1871, in his " Supplement to the Catalogue of Seals and Whales in the British Museum" (pp. 2-5), raised the num- ber (nineteen) recognized by him in 1866 to twenty-two, omit- ting two and adding five, mainly by separating the species of the IsTorth Pacific from their allies of the ]!:>5^orth Atlantic. The species added are: 1. '•'' Halicyon '^. peabeV {g:s. Gill, = IIalichoerus antarcticus, Peale); 2. ^^ Pagophilus ! equestris^^ (ex Pallas, cov- ering/asciate, " Shaw," and awweWato, Radde) ; 3. '■'■PagopMlus'^. ocJiotensis^^ (ex Pallas); 4. PJioca '•'■ naurica'''' {nautica Sbud albi- gena, Pallas) ; 5. Morunga angustirostris [Macrorhinus angustiros- tris, Gill). Of these, two only (" equestris^^ and angustirostris) are vaM. He also tabulated the species according to their dis- tribution, as follows : " Xorth Atlantic. '^ Noi'th Pacific. " CaUoceplialns vitiilinus. "Calloceplialus dimidiatus. "Pagomys foetidus. "Pagophilus grcenlandicus. "Phoca barbata. '•Halicboerus grypus. "Cystophora cristata." '■'■Halicyon californica^^ is thus omitted, and is nowhere men- tioned in the " Supplement," and the same is the case also with '■'■Pagomys ? larglia^\ Whether the former was accidentally overlooked, or intentionally retracted, does not appear. From Dr. Gray's "Hand-List of Seals, Morses, Sea-Lions, and Sea- Bears in the British Museum," published in 1874, in which "it is proposed to give an account of all the specimens" of these animals in the British Museum, it appears that the only speci- mens of North Pacific Phocids there represented were the three referred to Halicyon ricliardsi. Five out of six of his isTorth Pacific species were apparently unknown to him except through authors' descriptions, and are, as I hope later to satisfactorily show, merely nominal. The Phoca annellata of Eadde, referred by him to his '■'■Pagophilm^ equestris^\ relates not at all to this * Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1866,3d ser., vol. xvii, p. 446. "Halicyon ricbardsi. "Halicyon pealei. "PagopMlus ? equestris. "Pagopbilus ? ocbotensis. "Pboca naurica. "Morunga angustirostris." 456 FAMILY PHOCID^. species, Radde's specimen being Phoca caspica, while Eadde's annellatttf as lie understood it, is ili&foetida of authors. In 1873 Dr. Dybowski* gave a detailed account of the Lake Baikal Seal, with figures, under the name Phoca baicalensis, for the first time clearly setting forth its distinctive characters, although the species had been vaguely known, chiefly through incidental notices by travellers, for a century, and as earlj^ as 1788 had received, at the hands of Gmelin, the varietal name sibirica, he referring it, however, as have many subsequent writers, to Phoca vitulina. In 1875 Dr. Peters t proposed the recognition of five species of Sea Elephants, as follows: 1. Cystophora leonina, Jjidu. (=th6 Sea Lion of Anson) ; 2. G. falklandica ( = the Sea Lion of Pernety) ; 3. G. prohoscidea (ex P^ron) ; 4. G. angusUrostris (ex GiU); 5. G. kerguelensis (the species occurring at Kerguelen Island). IS^os. 1, 2, 3, and 5 are doubtless synonyms of Macro- rhinus leo7iinus. Two new names are proposed, namely, falJc- landica and Icerguelensis. The foregoing review has been intentionally limited to works or papers that either (1) ostensibly relate to the whole family, or (2) to the species of the ]!<^orth American fauna, or (3) to those which introduce "new species" or new synonyms. Con- sequently, reference to many important papers or memoirs treating of particular groujis, or of special subjects, is wholly omitted ; but the greater part of these will be found cited in subsequent pages under the si)ecies to which they particularly relate. No special reference has been made, for example, to Bell's "History of British Quadrupeds", to Blasius's "iJ^fatur- geschichte der Saugethiere Deutschlands ", Lilljeborg's " Fauna ofver Sveriges och Korges Eyggradsdjur", etc., or to the spe- cial memoirs on the Seals of the Arctic Seas by Brown, Malm- gren, von Heuglin, etc., or the various papers relating to the anatomy, milk-dentition, etc., of the different species. . For convenience of reference, I present the following chrono- logical summary of the foregoing analysis, premising that the names following the sign of equality are those adopted in the present monograph. The names under which valid species are first introduced are designated by the use of thick type, syno- nyms by italic type, and indeterminable names by plain type. Only the Phocids are here taken into account. *Atc1i. fiir Anat. u. Phys., 1873, j)p, 109, et seqq. j)U. ii, iii. t Monatsb, Akad. d. Wissenscli. zu Berlin, 1875, p. 394, footnote. TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 457 Synonymaiic Besmn6. 1758— ) -. , 1766- r^^^ 1784 — BODDAERT < Phoca leonina =: Macrorbiuus leoninus. Phoca vitulina = Phoca vitulina. Phoca leonina = Cystopliora cristata. 177g Fabricius J Phoca fcEtida = Plioca fcetida. Phoca groenlandica = Phoca groenlaudica. ^ Phoca barbata = Erignathus barbatns. 1776 — SCHREBEK, Phoca hisinda = Phoca fcetida. 1777 — Erxlebex, Phoca cristata = Phoca leouiua, Fabr., iu part, nee leonina Liun^. I~~g LEPErmx S ^^^^^^ oceanica = Phoca groenlandica. \ Phoca lepor'ma = Erignathus barbatns. 1779 — Hermann, Phoca monachus * = Monachus albiventer. -i'voQ MOLIX4. ^ Phoca porcina =? Macrorliinus leoninus, juv. \ Phoca eJcphantina = Macrorhinus leoninus. 1783 — ZiMMEEMANN, Phoca fasciata = Histriophoca fasciata. ' Phoc ^Macrommus leonmus. ( Cystophora kerguelensis > One hundred and three distinct specific and varietal names have thus been bestowed upon sixteen species, leaving eighty- seven of the names as synonyms, — an average of about six to a species. Fourteen names appear to be wholly indeterminable, while fourteen others can be referred only with more or less doubt. Of the fifty-nine remaining synonyms, about the identi- fication of which there can be but little doubt, Phoca vitulina and Phoca fcetida have each eleven ; Phoca grcenlandica has eight, and 3Iacrorhinus leoninus nine; Halichcerus grypus 2inA Cystophora cristata have each six; Monachus albiventer has five; and JEJrig- nathus harhatus seven. Five other species have each one, and three {Phoca caspica, Macrorhinus angustirostris, and Ommato- phoca rossi) are apparently without synonyms. The above summary is exclusive of the generic changes that have been rung on these sixteen species. Eegarding each dif- ferent generic combination as a synonym, would raise the total number of distinct names to probably nearly four hundred, or an average of at least twenty to each species, with a maximum for some of the species of at least thirty. It may be further observed that Lesson has the unenviable distinction of having added thirteen (nearly one-fourth) of the fifty-nine identifiable synonyms, and only one valid species and one tenable specific name out of a total of the fourteen specific names for which he is responsible. Pallas comes next with seven specific names, only four of which are identifiable, and none of them tenable. Next follows Gray with ten, covering two and possibly three new species, and three unidentifiable ones, with the result of seven and probably eight synonyms. In respect to the general subject, it may be noted that there 460 ' FAMILY PHOCID^. have been four periods of unusual fertility in respect to the lit- erature of the Phocidce. The first covers the time of Egede, Cranz, Anson, Steller, and Parsons (1741-17G5), and antedates nearly all of the systematic literature of the subject, but for which it formed the ground- work of the early portion. The second (1770-1792) may be termed the period of Fabricius, Schreber, Erxleben, Molina, Gmelin, and Kerr, or that of the early tech- nical writers. The third may be denominated the Encyclopaedic period, covering the work of Desmarest, F. Cuvier, Lesson, Gray (his first general review of the species only), to which may be added (in point of time) Peron, iSTilsson, Fischer, and Pallas (1816-1831). During this period originated more than one-half of the synonyms with which the literature of the subject is bur- dened, out of nearly forty names only two representing valid new species. Within this period were published no less than eight mongraphic revisions of the Pinnipeds, prepared by the leading mammalogists of that time. The fourth period may be regarded as extending from 1837 to 1873, but the different por- tions of this interval were not equally prolific in important gen- eral memoirs. Of special note in the light of a general revision of the subject are those of Nilsson (1837), Gray (1844), Wagner (1846), Gray (1850), Giebel (1855), Gray (1866, 1871, 1873), and Gill (1866). CLASSIFICATION. As already noted, three subfamilies of the Phocidce are now commonly recognized, while the number of genera admitted by two leading authorities who have recently revised the groux) is respectively twelve (Gill) and thirteen (Gray), with, in the ma- jority of instances, only a single valid species to each. jS^ine of ' Gill's genera are monotypic, while of the others two have two species each. The generic affinities of one — the little-known West Indian Seal — have yet to be determined. As will be shown later, only sixteen species can be considered as satis- factorily established. Consequently the question naturally arises whether generic division among the Phocids has not been carried to an excessive degree, and if so, whether the groups termed subfamilies are really entitled to that rank. In the Pimiipedia differentiation, it is true, has been carried to such a degree that not only are the family types sharply circum- scribed, but the species are so far specialized as to form types that at least some naturalists look upon as tyijes of generic, or at least subgeneric, value. Of the six Otarian genera, four are SYNOPSIS OF SUBFAMILIES AND GENERA. 461 certainly monotypic, and if the other two are not also mono- typic, the species respectively comi^osing them have not as yet reached the point of well-pronounced specific divergence nor of geographic isolation. As regards the Phocids, we have already seen that in nearly every instance each species has been made the type of a distinct genus. Conservative writers, how- ever, agree in referring four species {vitulina, grcenlandica^foetida^ harbata) to the genus Plioca {Callocephahis, F. Cuvier), yet each species differs from the others to such a degree in cranial and other imj)ortant osteological characters that, if we allow to such difierences the value usually accorded them among the terrestrial Fercc, each of these species may be regarded as the type of a distinct subgenns, or even genus. In the present revision I feel constrained to separate the Plioca harbata of authors as generically distinct from the other species of the restricted genus Phoca, and to associate with the remaining species Phoca caspica and Phoca sibirica. The Phoca fasciata of authors ( = equestris, Pallas) Gill has made the type of his genus Sistriophoca. The species is remarkable for its peculiar pattern of coloration, and von Schrenck compares its dentition to that of Halichoerus, between which and the ordinary Phocce it holds an intermediate position as regards the structure of the molar teeth. The other genera of the Phocids will be provision- ally received as now commonly accepted. Monachus stands widely aloof from the other genera of the Phocinw, with which, however, it seems more closely allied than with any of the gen- era of the Stenorhynchince, although all of these have been re- ferred by some systematists (as Wagner and Giebel) to a single genus under the name Leptonyx. Without feeling sure that the Phocids are susceptible of subdivision into trenchantly- marked subfamilies, or into groups really entitled to such rank, they will in the present connection be provisionally adopted in their current acceptation. Synopsis of Subfamilies and Genera. I. Zygomatic process of the maxillary with the posterior border subvertical, not extending far backward beneath the malar ; the latter short. Intermaxillaries prolonged upward, meeting the nasals. Nasals long, nearly reaching to the middle of the orbits, greatly narrowed posteriorly, and wedged between the frontals. Supraorbital pro- cesses wholly obsolete or (in Erignathus) rudimentary. Interorbital region very narrow. Incisors usually oZli^ exceptionally (in Mo- nachus) ^^^' Nails of all the digits well developed ; outer digits of the pes not much prolonged beyond the others PHO CIN.3i. 462 FAMILY PHOCID.E. 1. Muzzle narrow, regularly declined. Incisors ^—io simple, conical; mo- lars, except first, 2-rooted, and mostly 3-lobed. Digits of manus slightly decreasing in length, from first to fifth, or first and second suhequal. Mammae 2 Phoca. a. Skull broad, massive; general form thick; the limbs short; nose broad. Molar teeth large, crowded, obliquely imjilanted, especially in youth and in the lower jaw. Nasals considerablj^ prolonged pos- teriorly. Posterior nares narrow, the septum incompletely ossified. Palatines deeply emarginate. Scapula sickle-shaped, the post-scap- ular fossa greatly developed (Subgenus) Fhoca, J). Skull thin, light; nose pointed, and general form slender. Teeth small, slightly separated. Palatines, posterior nares, and narial septum nearly as in the subgenus Phoca. Nasals less prolonged posteriorly. Digits of pes subequal. Scapula nearly as in Phoca. (Subgenus) Fusa. c. Skull, teeth, and general form nearly as in the subgenus Pusa. Pos- terior nares broad (nearly twice as broad as high), the narial sep- tum complete. Palatines truncate, or slightly emarginate ; never deeply so as in Phoca and Pusa. Scapula nearly as in the typical terrestrial Fe^-ce — ^not sickle-shaped, and with a broad pre-scapular fossa. SexeSj when adult, widely different in coloration. (Subgenus) Pagojyhilus. 2. Muzzle broad ; forehead convex. Rudimentary supraorbital processes. Dentition weak ; the molars much separated, slightly implanted, and partly deciduous or abortive in old age. Palatines broad, emarginate. Middle digit of manus the longest. Limbs small. Scapula with no acromion process. Whiskers smooth, attenuated. Mammae 4 Erignathus. 3. Cranial characters unknown. Dental formula as in Fhoca. Molars, except the first, 2-rooted, somewhat separated, with the crowns simple and directed backward, as in Salichcerus. Sexes, when adult, widely different in color Histriophoca. 4. Muzzle broad ; skull much arched, increasing in height anteriorly. Molars single-rooted, except the last lower and the last two upper, nearly simple or 1-lobed, conical. Whiskers crenulated. Digits of manus as in Phoca Halichoerus. 5. Muzzle elongate, depressed ; nasals, short ; skull somewhat depressed posteriorly. Incisors ozio' iiotched transversely on the inner side of the crown. Canines large. Molars thick, strong, obliquely and closely implanted, imperfectly lobed, and only the three posterior 2- rooted. Whiskers flat, smooth, tapering. Claws small, especially those of the pes Monachus. II. Zygomatic process of the maxillary and the malar bones nearly as in the Phocinw. Intermaxillaries not prolonged to meet the nasals. Nasals very small. Supraorbital processes distinct, j)rominent, but smaE. Incisors yztv Molars simple or plaited, not lobed, with a single club-shaped root CYSTOPHORIN^. 6. Palatines short, slightly emarginate, somewhat arched or vaulted. Auditory bullsB square in front. Adult males with an inflatable sack extending from the nose to the occiput. All of the digits with claws strongly developed Cystophora. SYNONYMATIC LIST OF THE SPECIES. 463 7. Palatines very short, deeply emarginate, aud deeply vaulted. Au- ditory bullae concave in front. Adult males with an elongated tubular proboscis. Claws small, those of the pes rudimentary. Macrorhinus. III. Zygomatic process of the maxillary prolonged backward beneath the malar, the latter elongate. Intermaxillaries not (usually) reacliing the nasals. Supraorbital processes rudimentary. Nasals generally greatly prolonged j)osteriorly, widely expanded anteriorly, and usu- 2 2 ally early consolidated by anchyloses. Incisors oZTo" -''^^ol^^s lobed (in two genera acutely multi-lobed). Claws of the hind limbs rudi- mentary, and the outer digits lengthened . STENORHYNCHINiE. 8. Skull elongate, narrow anteriorly. Nasals greatly narrowed poste- riorly. Molars 4- or 5-lobed, the principal lobe large, pointed, re- curved, with a smaller one in frout of it aud two (in the first and second molars) or three (in the others) slender, pointed, recurved lobes behind it. Lower jaw abruptly angular behind. . .Lobodon. 9. General form of the skull much as in the last. Nasals greatly pro- longed posteriorly. Molars 3-lobed, the central lobe cylindrical, high, pointed, recurved, with a smaller lobe in front and an- other behind the principal one. Lower jaw gently rounded pos- teriorly Ogmorhinus. 10. Skull broad; muzzle short and broad, with very short, small nasals. Intermaxillaries prolonged ujiward, meeting the nasals. Molars small, separated, with a central prominent point, and a smaller one (in unworn teeth) behind it. Lower jaw slender, with a short symphysis and no j)rominent posterior angle . . . . . Leptonychotes. 11. Skull very broad (in general outline much as in the Cystojihorinw), with a broad, short muzzle, and very large orbital fossfe. Nasals very broad in front, greatly prolonged and gradually narrowed posteriorly. Molars small, .3-lobed, the central lobe much the largest and slightly recurved Ommatophoca. SYNONYMATIC LIST OF THE SPECIES.* I. Genus Phoca, Linne. Syn. — Pusa, ScoPOLi; Calloceplialus, F. Cuvier; Pagoiiliilus, Pagomys, Halir cyon, HalipMlns, Gray. 1. Phoca vitulina, Linnd. Syn. — Fhoca variegata, Nilsson, 1820. Phoca lifforea, Thienemann, 1824. Phoca linncei, tigrina, cliorisi, Lesson, 1828. Phoca canina, Pallas, 1831. Phoca concolor, DeKay, 1842. Halichoerus antarcticus, Peale, 1848. Lolodon carcinophaga, Cassin, 1858. *For full citation of the synonymy of the North American Phocids see posted,, in the general history of the species. 464 FAMILY PHOCID^. Halicijon richardsi, Gray, 1864. PJioca ijealei, Gill, 1866. Halicyonf caUfornica, Gray, 1866. Hab. — North Atlantic, from New Jersey and the Mediterranean northward to the Arctic regions ; North Pacific, from Southern California and Kamt- schatka northward to Arctic regions. 2. Phoca gicenlandica, Fabridua. Syn. — Phoca oceanica, Lepechln, 1778. Phoca semilunaris, Boddaert, 1785. Phoca albicauda, Desmarest, 1822. Phoca lagura, G. Cuvier, 1825. Phoca iniilleri, desmaresti, ^nlayi, Lesson, 1828. Phoca dorsata, Pallas, 1831. Hab. — North Atlantic, from Newfoundland and the North Sea northward^, and the Arctic Seas; North Pacific. 3. Phoca fcBtida, Fabridua. Syn. — Phoca hispida, Schreber, 1776. Phoca annellata, Nilsson, 1820. Phoca discolor, F. Cuvier, 1824. Phoca frederici, schreheri, Lesson, 1828. Phoca larglia, Pallas, 1831. Phoca communis, vars. oetonotata et tmdulata, KUTORGA, 1839. Phoca nummularis, Temminck, 1842. ? Callocephalus dimidiatus. Gray, 1850. Hab. — North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Arctic Seas. 4. Phoca caspica (Grnelin), Nilsson. Syn. — Phoca vitulina var. caspica, Gmelin, 1788. Phoca canina [var. caspica'], Pallas, 1831. Hab. — Caspian and Aral Seas. 5. Phoca sibirica, Gmelin. Syn. — Phoca vitulina var. sibirica, Gmelin, 1788. Phoca annellata, Eadde, 1862 (in part). Phoca baicalensis, Dybowski, 1873. i Hab. — Lakes Baikal and Oron. II. Genus Histbiophoca, Gill. 6. Histriophoca fasciata (Zimmermann), Gilh Syn. — Phoca equestris, Pallas, 1831. Hab. — North Pacific. III. Genus Erignathus, Gill. Syn. — Phoca, Gray, 1850. SYNONYMATIC LIST OF THE SPECIES. 465 7. Erignathus barbatus (Fairiciua), Gill. Syn. — Phoca leporina, Lepechin, 1778. Phoca lachtak, Desmakest, 1817. Phoca lepechini, parsonsi, Lesson, 1828 Phoca aJhifjena, nautica, Pallas, 1831. Phoca naurica, Gray, 1871. Hab. — North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Arctic Seas. IV. Genu8 Halichcerus, Nilsson. 8. Halichcerus grypus (Falridus), Nilsson. Syn. — Halichwrus griseus, Nilsson, 1820. Phoca halichcerus, scopulicola, Thienemann, 1824. Phoca tliienernanni, Lesson, 1828. Halichoerus macrorhynchus, pachyrhynchus, HORNSCHUCH and Stttt.- LING, 1850. Hab. — North Atlantic, from Newfoundland and Western Islands north- ward. V. Gemis Monachus, Fleming. Syn. — Monachus, Fleming, Phil. Zoo!., ii, 1822, 187, footnote. — Type, Phoca monachus, Hermann. Pelagius {"Pelage"), F. Cuvier, M^m. du Mu8.,xi, 1824, 193.— Type, Phoca monachxis, Hermann. Eeliophoca, Gb.aYj'Ptoc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1854, 43. — Type, Heliophoca atlantica, GTa,j,= Monachus alMventer, juv. 9. Monachus albiventer (Boddaert), Gray. Syn. — Phoca monachus, Hermann, Beschaft. d. Berlinishche Gesells. Na- turf. Freunde, iv, 1779, 456, pll. xii, xiii. Phoquea ventre ilanc, Buffon, Hist. Nat., Suppl., vi, 1782, pi. xliv. '■'Phoca albiventer, Boddaert, Elen. Anim., 1785, 170" (from Buffon, as ahove). Phoca Mcolor, Shaw, Gen. Zool., i, 1800, 254. Phoca leucogaster, P6ron, Voy. aux Terr. Austr., ii, 1817, 47. Pelagius monachus, F. Cuvier, Diet, des Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 550. Phoca hermanni. Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828 { = Phoca monachus, Hermann). "Monachus mediten-aneus, Nilsson, Kongl. Vet. Akad. Handl. Stock- holm, 1837, 235" (see Wiegmann's Arch. f. Naturg., 1841,1,308, footnote). Heliojihoca atlantica. Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1854,43 (young). Hab. — Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Black Seas; Madeira and Canary Islands ; east coast of Africa ? VI. Genus Cystophora, Nilsson. Syn. — Stemmatopus, F. Cuvier; Mirounga, Gray (in part). 11. Cystophora cristata (Erxleien), Nilsson. Syn. — Phoca leonina, Linn:^ 1766 (in part; not Phoca leonina, Linn6, 1758). Phoca cucullata, Boddaert, 1785. Misc. Pub. No. 12 30 466 FAMILY .PHOCID^. Cystophora borealis, NiLSSON, 1820. Phoca mifrata, G. Cuvier (ex Milbert, MSS.), 1823 Phoca leucopla, Thiexejiann, 1824. Phoca isldorei, LessoX; 1843. Hab. — North Atlantic and Arctic Seaa. VII. Genus Macrorhinus, F. Cuvier. Syn. — Mirounga, Gray (in part); Bhinophora, Wagler; Morunga, Gray. 12. Macrorhinus leoninus {Linn4). Syn.— PAoca leonina, LiNNifi, Syst. Nat.,i, 1758, 38; iUd., i, 1766, 38 (in part). Phoca elephantma, Molina, Sagg. sul. Stor. Nat. del Chili, 1782,280. ? Phoca porcina, Molina, ibid., 279 (young). Phoca proioscidea, Peron, Voy. aux Terr. Austr. ii, 1817, 34, pi. xxxii. Phoca ansoni, Desmarest, Mam., 1820, 239 (in part). Phoca hijroni, Desmarest, ibid., 240. Phoca duhia, Fischer, Synop. Mam., 1829, 235. Mirounga patarjonica, Gray, Griffith's An. King., v, 1827, 186. Cystophora leonina, falklandica, prohoscidea, kei-guelensis, Peters, Mo- natsb. K. P. Akad. Wisseusch. zu Berlin, 1875, 394, footnote. Hab. — Southern portions of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Antarctic Seas. 13. Macrorhinus angustirostris, Gill. Hab. — Coast of Western Mexico and Southern California. VIII. Genus Ogmorhinus, Peters. Syn. — Stenorhynchiis {" Sienorhynque") F. Cuvier, M6m. du Mus., xi, 1824, 190 (preoccupied in Carcinology and Entomology). — Type, Phoca leptonyx, Blainville. Ogmorhinus, Peters, Monatsb. K. P. Akad. Wissensch. zu BerUn, 1875, 393, footnote. 14. Ogmorhinus leptonyx {Blainville), Peters. Syn. — Phoca leptonyx, " Blainville, Joum. de Physique, xci, 1820, 288." Phoca honiei, Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 417. Hab. — "New Zealand; Lord Howe's Island," Gray; Desolation Islands. IX. Genus Lobodon, Gray. 15. Lobodon carcinophaga. Gray. Syn. — Phoca carcinophaga, Homb. and Jacq., d'Urville's Voy. au P61e sud, Atlas, 1842? (1842-1853) Mam., pi. x (animal), x A (skull), (not de- scribed).— Jacq., Zool.,iii, 1855, 27. Stenorhynchus serridens, Owen, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., xii, 1863, 331. Hab. — "Antarctic Seas," Gray. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 467 X. Gmus Leptonychotes, Gill. Syn. — Leptonyx, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., x, 1836, 582 (preoccupied in Ornithology). — Type, Leptonyx weddelU. Leptonychotes, Gill, Arrang. Fam. Mam., 1872, 70 (^= Leptonyx, Gray). 16. Leptonychotes weddelli (G-ray), Gill. Sn^.—Otaria u-eddelli, Lesson, F6russac's Bull, des Sci. Nat., vii, 1826,438. Steno7-hy)ichus ircddelU, Lesson, Man. de Mam., 1827, 200. Leptonyx weddelli. Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., x, 1836, 582; " Zool. Erebus and Terror, Mam., 2, pi. v (animal), plate vi (skull)." Phoca leopardina, Jameson, Hamilton's Mar. Amphib., 1839, 183. Hab. — Antarctic Seas. — "East coast of Patagonia", Gray. XI. Genus Ommatophoca, Gray. Syn. — Ommatophoca, Gray, "Zool. Erebus and Terror, Mam." — Type, 0. rossi. 17. Ommatophoca rossi, Gray. Syn. — Ommatophoca rossi. Gray, "Zool. Erebus and Terror, Mam., 3, pi. vii (animal), pi. ^-iii (skull)"; Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, 31; Hand- List Seals, 1874, 15, pi. xi. Hab. — "Antarctic Seas," Ch-ay. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. The Phocidce are found along the seashores of all parts of the temperate and colder j)ortions of the globe, but those of the Southern Hemisphere belong (with one exception) to different genera fi^om those whose habitat is in the Northern Hemisphere, and for the most part to a distinct subfamily not elsewhere rep- resented. All the members of the so-called " subfamily" Steno- rhynchince are confined to the south-temperate and Antarctic Seas. The Phocince, on the other hand — by far the most nu- merous division of the family — are strictly northern, only two or three of the species reaching the middle-temperate latitudes. Of the Cystoj)horincVj consisting of two genera, one genus {Cys- topliora) is boreal, and the other (MacrorJiinus) has one repre- sentative on the coast of Lower California, and another on the islands and shores of the southern i)art of South America, South Africa, and the Crozet and Desolation Islands in the Indian Ocean. Of the Phocince, one species, the Monk Seal {Monachus albiventer), is found on both shores of the Mediterranean Sea, in the Adriatic and Black Seas, and at the Madeira and Canary Islands, and probably on the neighboring Atlantic coast of 468 FAMILY PHOCID^ Africa. An apparently near relative and geographical repre- sentative of this species is found on the shores of Yucatan, Cuba, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the Florida Keys. None of the remaining members of the Phoeince occur in the North Atlantic, except as stragglers, south of the British Islands and Spain, on the European coast, or of New Jersey on the American, or of Japan and Lower California in the North Pacific. The species having the widest distribution is the common PJioca tntullnay which occurs not only in both the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans, as far southward as the limits just given, but reaches Greenland, Finmark, and the northern coast of Europe generally, and is also found in Behring's Straits. Other species, as Erignathus barbatus, Phoca fcetida, and Phoca grcenlandicay extend beyond its habitat to the northward, but have a much more limited range to the southward, the British Islands and the coast of the United States being quite beyond their usual southern Umit of distribution. Like PJioca mtuUna these species also occur in the North Pacific. Two other species are restricted to the North Atlantic, namely, Halichcerus grypus and Cysto- pJiora cristata, neither of which ranges so far northward as the others, and the latter only casually wanders to the southward of Newfoundland and the southern coast of Scandinavia, while the former reaches Nova Scotia and Ireland. Phoca fcetida and Erignathus barbatus are the most northern of all, both being winter residents of the icy shores of Davis's Strait and Jan Mayen Island. It thus appears that of the six species found on the northern shores of Europe, Greenland, and the Atlantic coast of North America, two only are confined to the North Atlantic, the other four being common also to the North Pacific. The Histriophoca fasciata, on the other hand, is hmited to the North Pacific, and is the only species occurring there that is not also found in the North Atlantic. Consequently about one- half of the commonly recognized species of the Phocidce of the Northern Hemisphere have a circumpolar distribution. A species {PJioca caspica) formerly regarded by writers as identical with Phoca mtuUna^ and by others a nearly allied but distinct species, inhabits the Caspian Sea, and another {Phoca sibirica), similarly referred by most writers to Phoca foetiday inhabits Lake Baikal. These great interior and almost iso- lated seas have been for so long a time separated, the Caspian Sea wholly, and Lake Baikal nearly, from the great oceans or any other large body of water communicating with the sea, FOSSIL REMAINS. 469 that if originally derived from the marine species to which they are allied, it may well be supposed that the peculiar conditions of environment to which they have been for so long a time sub- jected have not been powerless in effecting slight changes of structure, as they have certainly led to well-marked changes in habits. As already noted, Macrorhinus is the only genus having rep- resentatives on both sides of the equator, the two species of which are nevertheless separated by wide areas, the one occur- ring on the Pacific coast of North America between the parallels of 23° and 35° north latitude, while the other is restricted to the shores and islands of the southern extremity of the South Amer- ican continent, New Zealand, and a few groups of pelagic islands in the southern parts of the Indian Ocean. Of the Stenorliyncliince only four species are recognized, all of large size, and all confined to the cold-temperate or subfrigid southern waters. FOSSIL REMAINS. North America. — In North America teeth or other remains attributed to Seals have been reported as occurring at various localities, in Tertiary and Quaternary deposits, from Maine and Canada southward to Virginia and South Carolina. In several instances, merely the finding of such remains has been recorded, the specimens themselves having never been described, or even specifically determined, so that it is impossible to assign them to any particular species, or even to say whether they were correctly identified as the remains of Seals. In other cases, remains described as Phocine are unquestionably referable to Sqnalodont Cetaceans. In only two or three instances are the supposed remains of Seals obviously Phocine, and in each of these cases they were found in deposits of Post-pliocene age, and referred (usually with some doubt), to existing species. The subject may, therefore, be conveniently treated under the following heads, namely : 1. Remains suppose.d to be Phocine, but which are not specifically determinable. 2. Squalodont remains described as Phocine. 3. Eemains doubtfully referred to existing species. 4. Extinct species. I. Remains supposed to he PJiocme, hut notspecificaUy determin- ahle. — 1. Newbern, North Carolina. — Under this head must be placed the incidental reference by Dr. Harlan * to the remains * Am. Jouru. Sci., vol. xliii, 1842, p. 143. 470 FAMILY PHOCID^. of a " Seal" found associated with those of Mastodon, Elephant, Horse, Deer, Elk, etc., in the Post-pliocene deposits of Newbern, North Carolina, in his description of his '^ 8us Americanus". The specimens here referred to appear to have never been described, and the only information we have respecting the occurrence of Phocine remains at this locality is Dr. Harlan's casual reference to the matter, as above indicated. 2. Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. — Sir Charles Lyell, in a paper " On the Tertiary Strata of the Island of Martha's Vine- yard in Massachusetts ", in enumerating the organic remains col- lected by him at that locality, mentions,* under the head of Mammalia, "A tooth, identilied by Prof. Owen as the canine tooth of a Seal, of which the crown is punctured. It seems nearly allied to the modern Gystophora prohoscidea". As no description is given, its positive determination is impossible. No other Seal remains, so far as known to me, have been found at that locality. 3. Richmond, Virginia. — As will be presently noticed more fully, some suj)posed Phocine remains were described by the late Professor Wyman from the Tertiary deposits underlying the city of Richmond, Virginia. They came from two local- ities, and consisted of quite different materials. The specimens are at present unknown, so that their reexamination is impos- sible. A part of these remains were in all probability Squalo- dont, while others may have been Phocine. A detailed account of these specimens, with the original descriptions in full, is given below, under the heading "'■Plioca wymani ". 4. South Berwick, Maine. — Professor Wyman, in 1850,t re- ferred briefly to some Seal bones found at South Berwick, Maine, in "marine mud", at a depth of thirty feet from the sur- face, in digging a well. They "j)roved to be an ulna and a radius", but no description of them is given, they being men- tioned simply as "bones of a Seal". Professor Leidy| has con- jecturally referred them to Phoca grmnJandica. II. Squalodont Remains described as Phocine. — No less than three species referred originallj" to '■'■Phoca" are in all proba- bility referable, in part or wholly, to Squalodon, as is more or less exj)licitly admitted by their original describer. These are Phoca wymani, P. debiliSj and P. modesta, of Leidy. The first "^Proc. Geol. Soc. Loud., vol. iv, 1843-1845, p. 32; Amer. Journ.Sci., vol. xlvii, 1844, p. 319; Phil. Mag., vol. xxxiii, 1843, p. 188. tAmer. Jouiu. Sci. aud Arts, ^d ser., vol. x, 1850, p. 230, footnote, t Extinct Mam. N. Amer., 1869, p. 415. FOSSIL REMAINS. 471 was based originally on remains from tlie Tertiary deposit at Eicbmond, Virginia; tlie others on teetli from the Ashley River beds of the same age in South Carolina. 1. ''■Phoca ioymanV\ — The Eichmond remains were first de- scribed by the late Professor Wyman in 1850,* who merely referred them to " an animal belonging to the family of Phocidce". The bones are spoken of as fragile, and as having " evidently been crushed jirevious to exhumation ". " The pieces in my pos- session", says Professor Wyman, " consist of two temporal bones nearly entire, a fragment including a portion of the iiarietal and occipital bones, and in addition a part of the base of the skull. The reentering angle of the occiput, the well-marked depressions corresponding with the cerebral convolutions on the parietal bones, the form of the cranial cavity, the deep fossa above the internal auditory foramen, the vascular canals opening on the occiput, and the inflated tympanic bones, all indicated an affin- ity to the Phocidw. The size varied but little from that of the common Harp Seal {Phoca grcenlandica). The presence of an in- terparietal crest, indicating a large development of the temporal muscles, offers a diagnostic sign by which it may be distinguished from P. harbata, P. grcenlandica, P. Mspida, P. mitrata, and P. vitulina. From those species of Seals which are provided with a crest the fossil presents a well-marked difference in having the mastoid process much larger, more rounded and prominent, nearly equalling the tympanic bone in size. The entrance to the carotid artery is in full view when the base of the skull is turned upwards. The imperfectly divided canal which lodges the Eustachian tube and the tensor tynipani muscle is of re- markable dimensions, especially when compared with that of P. grcenlandica. The interparietal crest, extending from the occiput to the anterior edge of the frontals, is most narrow pos- teriorly where it is but slightly elevated above the surrounding bones". In the description above given there is nothing to prevent the supposition that these cranial fragments ace referable to a small species of Squalodont. If, however, they are reaUy Phocine, they represent a type very unlike anything at present known, either existing or extinct. But other remains are de- scribed by Professor Wyman, from the same locality, and in the same paper, which do not seem to admit of such an inter- pretation. Thus, to continue the quotation : " The fragments * Atner. Jour. Sci., 2d ser., vol. x, 1850, p. 229. 472 FAMILY PHOCID^. of cranium above described were found in the Sliockoe Creek ravine near the base of Church Hill. In the ravine at the eastern extremity of the city, and in the neighborhood of the penitentiary, Dr. Burton obtained several other i)ortions of the skeleton of another Seal. These consisted of an imperfect cer- vical vertebra, a lumbar vertebra nearly entire, a fragment of the sacrum, coccygeal vertebra, fragments of ribs, and the lower extremity of a fibula. Their generic characters have been sat- isfactorily made out by comparison with recent bones. " In figure 1, page 232, I have represented the coccygeal ver- tebra which corresponds in its general characters very accurately with recent bones of P. grcenlandica from the same region of the vertebral column. The small size of the vertebral canal and the imperfect transverse process, the wide-spread articulating pro- cesses, and the blunted spinous process indicate its affinity to the Seals. The fragment of a left fibula (figs. 2 and 3), pre- sents at its lower extremity (fig. 3) an oblique, regularly concave articulating surface on its inner face, and on its outer (figs. 2 and 3), an elevated ridge or crest, on either side of which is a groove for the passage of a tendon." The specimens here described do not api)ear to have been pre- served, or to have been seen by subsequent writers, but Pro- fessor Wyman was an osteologist of too well-known proficiency to admit of the supposition that these remains did not present well-marked Phocine afiinities. Indeed, his description and rude figures of the fibula above mentioned show clearly that its affini- ties were rightly interpreted. The vertebra is not so e^adently Phocine. Three years later the description of these remains became the basis of Dr. Leidy's '■'•Phoca wyma7iiP\ who, in pro- posing the name,* merely cited Wyman's description. In 1856 1 he referred to it a tooth "apparently an inferior canine from the miocene deposit of Virginia." This tooth he describes as being "14 lines, and about as robust in its proportions as the corresponding tooth of P. harbata. The crown is 4^ lines long and 3i broad at base, and it i^resents an anterior and a posterior ridge, of which the former is denticulated, and bifurcates half way towards the base. The enamel is rugose, especially towards the base of the crown internally; and at one or two points in front presents a short inconspicuous tubercle." In 18G7 Professor Coiie referred Phoca wymani, Leidy, to * Ancieut Fauna of Nebraska, 1853, p. 8. tProc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1856, p. 265. FOSSIL REMAINS. 473 Squalodon*, of which he says: "Of this, the smallest species of the genus, three premolar teeth are in the collection [made by Mr. James T. Thomas, in Charles County, Maryland from beds of the Yorktown epoch], and the type specimen [Dr. Leidy's!] is in the Academy's Museum. The teeth are re- markable for the abrupt posterior direction of their crowns. The roots are curved, one of them abruptly so, and Hattened." The Squalodon wymani of Cope thus, inferentially at least, includes the remains described by Wyman, though direct refer- ence seems to be made only to the tooth referred by Leidy to his Phoca wymani in 185G, and which is that of a Squalodont. The Phoca wymani, if not originally a composite species, as was in all probability the case, certainly became so in 1856. In 1869 Dr. Leidy retained, under the name Phoca icymani, the speci- mens above mentioned as described by Wyman in 1850, sepa- rating the tooth referred by him to this species in 1856 under the name Pelphhiodon wymani.] 2. ''-Phoca debilis'\ — In 1856 1 Dr. Leidy gave a description of his Phoca debilis, of which the following is a transcript in full : "A species of Seal is apparently indicated by three speci- mens of molar teeth obtained by Capt. Bowman, U. S. A., from the sands of the Ashley Eiver, South Carolina. The teeth bear considerable resemblance to the corresponding ones of Otaria juhafa, having small, compressed conical crowns, tuberculate in front and behind, and single, long, gibbous fangs. The small- est specimen is 5^ lines long, and the largest, when j)erfect, was about an inch long". In 1867 this species was referred by Professor Cope to Squa- lodon, who says : — "A species still smaller than S. wymanii has been described by Leidy as Phoca debilis, from the Pliocene of Ashley Eiver of S. Carolina. It will no doubt be found to be allied to Squalodon ".§ It had, in fact, been apparently already referred by Cope in the early part of the same paper to Squal- odon, where (on page 144) he gives, in his list of species, " Squal- odon dehilis Cope, Pliocene". Dr. Leidy himself, in 1869, ad- mitted that Professor Cope's suspicions of their Squalodont affinities might be correct, but adds that these teeth "may belong to a Dolphin". 1 1 * "Squalodon wymanii m. Phoca wymanii Leidy. Proceedings Academy N. Sci., 1856, 265."— Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1867, p. 152. tExt. Mam. N. Amer., p. 426. tProc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1856, p. 265. \N Ibid., 1867, p. 153. ilExt. Mam. N. Am., p. 475. 474 FAMILY PHOCID^. 3. '■'■Phoca modesta^\ — This species, described by Leidy in 18G9,* is based on a small tooth from the Ashley Eiver deposits of South Carolina, and, says this author, "is referred to a Seal, though it is not improbable it may belong to a Squalodont" ; as, in fact, I have little doubt is the case. IIT. Remains referred to Existing Species. — In 1856 Professor Leidy described and figured t some fossil remains of Seals found in the "township of Gloucester, county of Carleton, Canada West, about nine miles east of the city of Ottawa ", in a bed of blue clay containing boulders and marine shells and fishes. The shells found embrace, according to Mr. E. Billings, Tellina groen- landica, Mytilus edulis, Saxicava rugosa, and a small species allied to Leda; while the fishes are Mallotus villosus and Cycloptenis lumjms, and the clays containing them are regarded as of Post- pliocene age. "The bones," says Dr. Leidy, "proved on exam- ination to be those of the greater portion of the hinder extremities of a young Seal, but whether of a species distinct from those now found in the neighboring seas, is only to be determined by careful comparison with the corresponding parts of the recent animals. The soft distal extremities of the tibia and fibula are crushed together. The bones of the ankle and foot are well preserved, but the epiphyses of the latter are separated and only partially developed. The matrix in the vicinity of the bones is marked by the impression of the hairs and skin which enveloped them." Dr. Leidy has since} referred these remains provisionally to Phoca groenlandica. Dr. Leidy's account of these remains was also published in the " Canadian Naturalist and Geologist " (i, 1857, pp. 238, 239, pi. iii). Twenty years later some further notice of fossil Seal re- mains from the same locality was given by Dr. Dawson, § in which, referring to the former account, he says : "A good figure and description were published in the first volume of the Naturalist in 1856. No further information bearing directly on this fossil was secured until the present year, when the bone now exhibited [before the Natural History Society of Montreal, October 29, 1877], was obtained by Dr. Grant, fr-om a boy who had collected it at the same place and in the same bed in which the first-mentioned specimen was found. It is the left ramus of the *Ext. Mam. N. Amer., 1869, p. 415, pi. xxviii, fig. 14. tProc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Pbila., 1856, pp. 90, 91, pi. iii. tExt. Mam. N. Amer., 1869, p. 415. $ Canad. Nat., 2 ser., vol. viii, 1877, pp. 340, 341. FOSSIL KEMAIXS. 475 lower jaw of a young Seal, containing a canine and four molar teeth, with an impression of a fifth. It enables us now to affirm that the species is Phoca GroenJandica — {Fagaphilus Groenlandi- cus of Gray's Catalogue), the common Greenland Seal, and it is of such size that it may have belonged to the same individual which furnished the bones described in 185G, or at least an animal of the same species and of similar age." IV. Extinct Species. — Another reference to fossil remains ap- parently referable to a Seal is of special interest as indicating, if there is no mistake respecting the origin of the specimen, the former presence on our Atlantic coast of a Phocine type exist- ing at present only in the Antarctic Seas. The species was described by Dr. Leidy in 1853, under the name Stenorhynchus vetus. The description is based entirely on an outline drawing of a tooth purporting to be from the ^^ green sand of the Cretace- ous series, near Burlington, New Jersey". The specimen was never seen by the describer of the species, and was long since lost. The tooth is said to have been found by Mr. Samuel A. WetheriU, who gave it to Mr. T. A. Conrad, by whom was made the drawing. "The figure", says Dr. Leidy, "represents a double-fanged tooth, with a crown divided into five prominent lobes. It is, without doubt, the tooth of a mammal, and resem- bles very much one of the posterior molars of Stenorhynchus ser- ridens, Owen, an animal of the Seal tribe. It may have be- longed to a Cetacean allied to Basilosaurus, but until farther evidence is obtained I propose to call the species indicated by the tooth StenorhyncJms vetus^\* Later the same writer referred the species to Lobodon., and adds, "The specimen purports to have been derived from the green sand, but is probably of miocene age and accidental in its position in relation with the preceding formation. The original of the tooth I have not seen, but it was in the possession of Timothy Conrad, the well-known naturalist, who made an outline drawing of it the size of nature, which is represented in a wood-cut, of the same size, on page 377 of the Proceedings of this Academy for 1853. The specimen has been lost. The drawing of it so nearly resembles the representations of the molar teeth of the Crab-eating Seal, Lohodon carcinophaga of Gray, or the Stenorhynchus serridens of Owen, that it may be regarded as an indication of an extinct species of the same genus ".t The close resemblance of the figure to the tooth of *Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1853, p. 377 (wood-cut), t Extinct Mam. N. Amer., 1869, p. 416. 476 FAMILY PHOCID^. Lobodon carcinophaga is certainly unquestionable, but the his- tory of the tooth which served as the original of the drawing, in reference to the locality of its assumed discovery, seems not alto- gether satisfactory. Dr. Leidy discards its Miocene origin, but seems to have no doubt respecting its discovery at the locality named. Dr. Gray, in his synonymy of Lobodon carcinophaga., * says, ^^&ee Stenorhynchus vetus, Leidy, .... tooth, said to be found in the greensand of New Jersey", seemingly implying not only its close resemblance to Lobodon carcinophaga, but doubt as to the correctness of the assumed locality. In view of the possible extralimital origin of the tooth, I hesitate to formally include the species in the list of North American Pinnipeds.t Europe. — While fossd remains of Seals have been found so rarely in North America, not a single extinct species having been certainly determined, the Tertiary deposits of Europe, par- ticularly those of Belgium, have yielded abundant remains of * Cat. Seals aud Whales, 1866, p. 10. tMr. Andrew Murray, in commenting (Geog. Distr. Mam., p. 124, 1866) upon this species (Leidy's Stenorhynchus vetus) observes, as follows: ''Sir Charles Lyell tells us [Elements of Geology, sixth ed., London, 1865, p. 336] that that gentleman [Mr. Samuel K. Wetherill] related to him and Mr. Con- rad, in 1853, the circumstances under which he met with it, associated with Ammonites placenta, Ammonites Delatvarensis, Trigonia thoradca, &c., and he adds that although the tooth had been mislaid, it was not so until it had ex- cited much interest, and been carefully examined by good zoologists There seems to be no reason to doubt that the tooth was found where Mr. Wetherill said it was, nor is there any question here of misplaced labels, but there is certainly room for doubting its determination, because we see where and how an error might easily enough have arisen. In the first place, it is referred to a living genus of mammals, and we know of no genus which has subsisted through so many cycles. The presumption is therefore against it on that score. In the next place, there is a certain resemblance between the teeth of Sharks and some Seals, and it is precisely in the genus /Steno- 7-/(^Hc/iMs that the resemblance is most marked It is possible, therefore, that the supposed Seal's tooth may have been a very much rubbed and worn Shark's tooth ; and although Lyell says it was carefully examined by good zoologists, the only one of known competence whom he mentions as having had to do with it is Dr. Leidy, who did not see it, but described it from a drawing. The objections to the suj)posed mesozoic Seal's tooth, therefore, appear to be too well founded to require us to devote much time to a specu- lation founded upon its authenticity." Mr. Murray gives comparative views of Shark and Seal teeth, to show how close is the resemblance of the teeth of Stenorhynchus to those of certain Sharks, but if Mr. Murray had taken the trouble to consult the original figure of the tooth of S. vetus he would have seen, first, that it was not a ''much worn and rubbed tooth", and, secondly, that it was not a i/iree-pointed tooth like those he figures, but a ^ve-pointed tooth, representing Lohodon and not Stenorhynchus. H,. FOSSIL REMAINS. 477 these animals, Professor J. P. Van Beneclen having already indi- cated thirteen supposed species from the Anvers Basin alone. Quite a number of species have also been described from vari- ous localities in France, Germany, Italy, and the borders of the Black Sea. Various remains of Seals have also been obtaiued from the Quaternary, especially in the British Islands and in Nor- way, but all such i)rove to be closely aUied to if not identical with species still existing- in the neighboring or more northerly seas. No remains of Seals have been reported from beds older than the Upper Miocene, while the greater part have been obtained from deposits referable to the Pliocene. While a de- tailed account of the extraUmital species of extinct Phocids is hardly required in the present connection, a brief resume of the subject may be of iuterest. This wiU be based mainly on the elaborate memoirs on this subject recently published by Van Beneden. * Until quite recently very few extinct species of true Pho- cids had been described, most of the remains attributed to this group by the earlier palaeontologists proving on later examina- tion to be mainly referable to Squalodont, Delphinoid, or Xiphoid Cetaceajis. The two fragments considered by Cuvier to be Phocine were found by Blainville to be Sirenian. Of the vari- ous suppositive remains of Seals described by Blainville, Van Beneden claims that in one instance only do they belong posi- tively to this group, this being the foot preserved in the Museum of Pesth, described under the name Phoca halitschensis, which is said to somewhat resemble the corresponding part of the com- mon Phoca mtulina. H. von Meyer's Phoca rugidens turns out to be referable to Squalodon. The same author's Phoca amhigua is allied to Phoca vitulina. Pictet's genus Pachyodonj Van Ben- eden says is Squalodont and not Seal, while the bones referred by the same author to Phoca amhigua, Van Beneden believes was not a fortunate reference. Staring's Phoca ambigua, Van Beneden refers to his own Paheophoca nysti. Some of the bones of Seals from various localities in France referred by Gervais to Pristiophoca occitana are thought by other authorities to be those of Delphinoid or Xiphoid Whales, while Van Beneden consid- ers the Phoca pedroni, Gervais, to be probably also Xiphoid. The Phoca pontica of Xordmann is closely related to P. vitulina * See especially this author's maguificeutly illustrated work ou the Fossil Pinnipeds of the Basin of Auvers, forming part one of volume one of the Annales du Mus^e royal d'Histoire naturelle de Belgique, 1877, where the his- torical portion of the subject is presented with considerable detail. 478 FAMILY PHOCID^. (from which it is said to dififer in size), while his P. moeotica is allied to Monachus albiventer, of which latter Guiscardi's Phoca gaudini seems to have been the progenitor. In 1853, M. J. P. Van Beneden described an extinct species of Seal under the name Falceophoca nysti, based mainly on speci- mens from the vicinity of Anvers. In 1876 the same writer, in his memoir on "Les Phoques fossiles du Bassin d'Anvers",* added twelve species to those previously indicated, all from the environs of Anvers, making thirteen described by him from that locality. They are based usually on numerous specimens, con- sisting generally of vertebrte and the bones of the limbs and pelvis. They are generally more or less fragmentary, and the most characteristic parts of the skeleton, as the cranium and dentition, are not represented. These species were redescribed in greater detail the following year, and illustrated with a splen- did suite of plates, in which the more important specimens were figured of the size of nature, several views being given of each, t Five are from the Upper Miocene, and eight from the Pliocene. None of them depart very widely from existing types, although with one exception all are referred to extinct genera. One {Me- sotaria ambigua), Professor Van Beneden thinks, presents char- acters indicative of Otarian afifijiities, and that this form prob- ably represented the Otaries in the Tertiary seas of Europe, but neither the description nor the figures seem to me to evince such an alliance. On the contrary, Mesotaria ambigua api^ears to be not remotely allied to the Cystophorinw (see antea, pp. 219, 220). All the other species, so far as can be judged by their frag- mentary remains, exhibit affinities, more or less remote, with one or another of the species still existing in the European seas. The extinct species of this family considered by Van Beneden as fairly entitled to recognition, are the following :t 1. Mesotaria ambigua, Van Beneden. Anvers. Pliocene. Allied to Cys- tophora cristata, or at least referable in all probability to the Cyato- phoriiKB. 2. Palaeophoca nysti, Van Beneden. Elsloo ; Boltringen ; Anvers. Plio- cene. Allied to Monachus albiventer. 3. Pristiophoca occitana, Gervais. Central France. Allied to Monachus albiventer. * Bull, de FAcad. roy. de Belgiqne 2">«, s6r. 1, xli, No. 4, April, 1876. t Descrijitions des ossements fossiles des Environs d'Anvers, folio, 1877, with an Atlas of eighteen plate8.= Ann. dn Mus. roy. d'Hist. nat. de Bel- giqne, tome i, prem. part. t The authority for the localities, geological age, and affinities (except in the case of Mesotaria) is M. Van Beneden. FOSSIL REMAINS. 479 4. Phoca gaudini, Guiscardi. Italy, from caverns. Allied to Monachua (Miventcr. 5. Phoca moeotica, Eichwald. Basin of the Black Sea. Allied to M&na- chus alhiventer. 6. Phoca ambigua, H. von Meyer. Osnabruk. Tertiary. Allied to Phoca rltuUna. 7. Platyphoca vulgaris, Van Beneden. An vers. Pliocene. Allied to Eriynathus barhatus. 8. Callophoca obscura, Van Beneden. Anvers. Pliocene. Allied to PTioca gr(C7ilandica. 9. Gryphoca similis, Van Beneden. Anvers. Pliocene. Allied to Ha- Uchocnts (jnjpus. 10. Phocanella pumila, Van Beneden. Anvers. Pliocene. Allied to Phoca foetida. 11. Phocanella minor, Van Beneden. Anvers. Pliocene. Allied to Phoca foelida. 12. Phoca vitulinoides, Van Beneden. Anvers. Pliocene. Allied to Phoca vitulina. 13. Phoca pontica, Eichwald. Basin of the Black Sea. Allied to Phoca vitulina. 14. Phoca halitschensis, Blainville. Valley of the Danube. Allied to Phoca vitulina. 15. Monatherium delongii, Van Beneden. Anvers. Upper Miocene. So far as can be judged the genus Monatherium (known only from verte- brse) is allied to Monachus. 16. Monatheriiun aberratum, Van Beneden. Anvers. Upper Miocene. 17. Monatherium afBnis, Van Beneden. Anvers. Upper Miocene. 18. Prophoca rousseaui. Van Beneden. Anvers. Upper Miocene. 19. Prophoca proxima, Van Beneden. Anvers. Upper Miocene. Al- though the genus Prophoca is a true Phocid, its affinities with any one of the existing types rather than with another are not apparent. It thus appears that each of the existing species is repre- sented by one or more allied forms among the extinct species, the greater part of the extinct forms, however, clustering about the Monk Seal {Monachiis alhiventer) of the Mediterranean, and the common Vituline or Harbor Seal {Phoca vitulina).* As * The nearest living affines of the extinct genera may be thus tabulated: Extinct. Living. Mesotaria, represented by, or aUied to Cystophora. Pristiophoca, J represented bv, or alUed to Monachus. Palceophoca, ) Callophoca, represented by, or allied to Pagophilua. Platyphoca, represented by, or allied to Erignaihtis. Gryphoca, represented by, or allied to Halichcerua, Phocanella, represented by, or allied to " Pagomys." Phoca vitulinoides, represented by, or allied to Phoca vitulina, Monatherium, represented by, or allied to Monachus. Prophoca, represented by, or allied to • 480 FAMILY PHOCID^. Van Benedeu has remarked, the extinct species of Phocidce pre- sent already the distinctive characters of the group ; the species, however, were more numerous, and they were of larger size.* The remains of Seals discovered in deposits of Quaternary age have all been referred to existing species ; those from the Ter- tiary bear a strong resemblance to existing types, the genus Proplioca, of the Miocene of Anvers, alone, having no very closely related existing representative. The materials on which are based manj^ of the species above enumerated are so scanty, and in many cases so imperfectly preserved, that doubtless addi- tional specimens may show the necessity of somewhat reducing the number, while, on the other hand, others may be added. By far the greater part of the remains of Pinnipeds thus far known have been found at the single locality of Anvers, where not only most of the species have been found, but where prob- ably more than nine-tenths of all such remains have thus far been obtained. The Royal Museum of Belgium alone contains upward of five hundred specimens from this locality, which M. Van Beneden has referred to sixteen species and twelve genera. With these remains are associated those of Halitherium, and of various types of Cetaceans. The whole series of the beds con- taining these fossils are regarded by some geologists as Pliocene, but by other good authorities the lower ones of the series are regarded as Upper Miocene. The great Tertiary sea, beneath whose waters these deposits were formed, covered the greater part of Holland, part of Germany, and extended to the coun- ties of iSTorfolk and Suffolk in England, over all of which region the waters prevailed till the close of the Tertiarj^ epoch. As has already been shown, in North America few remains of Pinnii^eds have been found, and these, with two exceptions, are all fi?om the Quaternary, and are referable to existing species. The exceptions are the so-called PJioca wymani, based in part at least upon veritable Phocine remains from the Miocene of Eichmond, Virginia, and the enigmatical Lohodon vetus, based on a tooth purporting to have been found at Burlington, New * " Nous fiiiirons par cette observation que si tons ces Thalassotli^riena presentent (I6ja les caracteres propres de leur groupe, la seule difference de quelqne importance se rapporte a leur nombre qui si considdrablement r^duit et a leur taille qui a notablement diminu^. ... A I'exception des ossements recueillis dans la sable noir [the Miocene genus Propliocal, tons les autres se rapjiortent a des esp^ces qui raytelleut celles qui vivaient encore dans notre b^misphere, depuis la Floe rat jusqu'au grand Fhoque." — Descrip. des Ossem. fos. des Environs d' Anvers, pp. 85, 86. MILK-DENTITION. 481 Jersey, in beds of Cretaceous age. Au error of horizon, if not of locality, being' admitted in case of the last named, it appears thus far that no traces of Pinnipeds have been met with in beds older than Miocene. MILK-DENTITION. In the Phocidcv, as in the other Pinnqjedia, the milk-teeth are very small, are perfectly functionless, and persist for only a short period beyond fcetal life. As in the other Carnivores, the number of milk-teeth in the molar series is three, and their position is the same as that of the deciduous molars of the fissipede Fene, standing respectively over the second, third, and fourth of the permanent set. The incisors and canines are each preceded by deciduous teeth, always minute, and generally absorbed prior to the birth of the animal, as are also, in most cases, the deciduous molars. It is consequently difiQcult to obtain dry specimens that retain the minute milk-teeth, they being usually partly or wholly (especially the very small in- cisors) lost in the preparation of the specimen, or by subsequent handling. Alcoholic or fresh specimens alone afford satisfac- tory material, and these are not often accessible. The milk- dentition of most of the northern genera of Phocids has, how- ever, been described, but I have met with no reference to that of any of the genera of the Stenorhynchince. As already stated, each incisor of the permanent dentition is preceded by a milk- tooth, and the number of temporary incisors thus varies in the different genera in accordance with the number of permanent ones. The Stenorhynchince will doubtless be found to afford no exception as regards the relative number and position of the deciduous teeth. Steenstrup, * in 1861, described and figured the milk- ap- proach the rookery in boats, either at dusk or during the night, always going against the wind, to conceal their approach. " After their arrival on shore, the hunters disembark noise- lessly, form a line in order to cut off the retreat of the seals, and thus, creeping, advance quite near to the herd, which is sleeping and suspects no danger. On a signal from the chief, the hunters all rise at once and i)itilessly attack their uufortu- nate victims, killing them by a single blow on the snout with the club. The bodies are piled up by means of gaffs, and after a few minutes form a rampart, depriving the survi\ ors of every chance of regaining the sea. The seals howl, groan, bite, and defend themselves, but the hunters, eager for" gain, go on kill- ing them without mercy, and soon the whole herd is massacred. It is no infrequent occurrence to see 15,000 dead seals cover the battle-field of a single night. "After the killing, the dressing of the seals commences, usu- ally about daybreak. The head is cut off, the belly is opened, and the skin is taken off with the thick layer of fat adhering to it. These skins are piled up on the boats, which take them 516 FAMILY PHOCTD^. to large sailing vessels, anchored some 'rersts' from the shore^ on which they are heaped up, each layer being covered with salt. These vessels sail with their cargo to Astrachan, while the hunters return to the coast to carefully clean the battle-field. They bury the bodies and entrails, at some distance, deep in the ground, or throw them into the sea, far from the shore, and carefully obliterate every trace of blood, so that^ when another herd of seals arrives, these animals do not see any marks of the slaughter which has taken place ; for exj)erience has shown that they never select for their rookery a place from which every trace of the slaughter has not been carefully removed. "Two hundred seal-hunters, employed by wealthy merchants or fishermen, usually winter on the island of Koulali. Numer- ous boats, besides, go there every year to participate in the chase. The masters of these boats secure j)ermits * from the fishing authorities and give them to their workmen, who re- ceive their wages in money. . . . "Another way of hunting the seals is to take them in nets. Immense nets are stretched out, into which the hunters en- deavor to chase them by yelling and making a noise. This way of hunting is chiefly employed in the maritime district of the Ural Cossacks and in the Gulf of Sin6y6 IMortso, from October till the sea is covered with ice. The nets, called ' okhani,' are 6 ' sagenes ' (42 feet) deep, and have meshes of seven and a half inches. "The following is the manner of proceeding : Forty boats join together and elect a chief and an assistant chief. Then the boats sail out to sea with a fair wind, or use their oars, go- ing in a line, thus forming a sort of chain. In every boat there are three nets. The chief, followed by twenty boats, is on the lookout for a herd of seals, which he endeavors to cutoff", while his assistant remains with the other half of the fleet at some distance from the shore. When the chief thinks that the time for action has come, he gives the signal by throwing into the sea a bale, to which a flag is ftistened. At this signal the boats simultaneously cast their nets, which are all tied together so as to form a wall of meshes, by which the seals are soon com- pletely surrounded. Then the hunters begin to yell and to strike the water with their oars, in order to frighten them. These seek to avoid the danger by plunging, but they rush * The Russian government derives an average annual income of about $700 from the sale of permits for seal-hunting in the Ca8i)iau Sea. SEAL -HUNTING NORTH PACIFIC AND SOUTHERN SEAS. 517 against the barrier of nets, and are caught in the meshes, so that they can be killed without difficulty. This way of hunt- ing is prohibited in those parts of the sea where it injures the fishing or obstructs the first manner of hunting. The chase on the ice is fraught with many dangers, and is, therefore, at pres- ent prohibited. The hunters, sitting on little sledges drawn by strong and hardy horses, and provided with food, continue on for several weeks to shoot old seals, and kill young ones while they still have their white and silk-like fur. These hunters brave all dangers ; and it has sometimes happened that the south or southwest wind, having detached large masses of ice from the shore, has driven them out into the open sea, where they have floated in all directions, with the adventurous hunts- men on them. These unfortunate hunters usually perish from cold and hunger on these masses of ice, or find their death in the waves."* 7. JSforth Pacific. — In the North Pacific the capture of seals for commercial purposes is mainly restricted to the pursuit of the Sea-Elephant {2IacrorMnus angustirostris), on the coasts of Western Mexico and Lower California. This, although at one time a business of no small importance, was nearly abandoned many years since, and for the best of reasons, namely, the well- nigh complete extinction of the species in consequence of indis- criminate and reckless slaughter. As the history of the subject falls more naturally into the account of that species (to be given later), little further need be said respecting it in the present connection. Many Seals are, of course, annually killed by the natives of the Alaskan, Kamtschatkan, and other coasts of the Korth Pacific, but I am not aware that sealing is there carried on anywhere, either by the natives or foreign sealing- vessels, to any noteworthy extent. 8. Antarctic Seas. — In the southern hemisphere no Seals occur that are the strict representatives of the Greenland and other Seals which, in the northern hemisijhere, aflbrd the seal-hunter so lucrative a booty. In the colder south temperate and Ant- arctic seas is found their commercial representative in that mam- moth of the Seal tribe, the Sea-Elephant, or so-caUed Elephant Seal {Macrorliinus leoninus). Here Elephant Seal hunting was for a time prosecuted with great vigor, esi)ecially during the early part of the present century. The species was hunted almost exclusively for its oil, and so easily were the animals taken, and * Rep. U. S. Com. Fish and Fisheries, part iii, 1873-74 aud 1874-75, pp. 93, 95. 618 FAMILY PHOCID.E. SO indiscriminately and injudiciously were they slaughtered^ that in comparatively a few years it became practically exter- minated along all those coasts and islands that aiforded safe harbors for the vessels engaged in this exceedingly profitable enterprise. At one time abounding on many of the islands off the southern portion of the South American continent, on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides, along favorable stretches of the Patagonian coast, in Terra del Fuego, the Falkland, South Shet- land, South Georgian, and other neighboring islands, as well as at the Crozet's, Kerguelen, and Heard's Islands, they are said to be now found in numbers only on the more inaccessible portion of the last-named group of islands. It is difficult, in- deed impossible, to give even approximate statistics respecting^ the numbers of the animals killed, or the amount of Elephant Seal oil obtained. For many years several ships annually ob- tained partial or complete cargoes from the various localities already mentioned, new stations being sought when the old ones had become exhausted, but the vessels engaged in Sea- Elephant hunting were mostly also engaged in Fur Seal hunting and in whaling, and generally no separate reports of the pro- ducts of each being given, the statistics of the business are consequently not easily obtainable. Respecting the history and the present status of Elephant Seal hunting at Kerguelen Land and Heard's Island I quote the following from Dr. J. H. Kidder's recent report on the nat- ural history of Kerguelen Island : "In former years the Ker- guelen group of islands was noted as a favorite breeding-place for the sea-elephant {Macrorhinus leonmus L.). On this ac- count it has been much frequented by sealers for the last forty years, and resorted to also by whalers as a wintering-place, on account of the great security of Three Island Harbor. The sea- elephants have been so recklessly killed off year after year, no precautions having been taken to secure the preservation of the species, that now they have become very rare. Only a single small schooner, the Eoswell King, was working the island dur- ing our visit, two others and a bark working Heard's Island^ some three hundred miles to the south, where the elephants are still found in considerable numbers. Probably they would loiig^ since have abandoned the Kerguelen Islands altogether but for a single inaccessible stretch of coast. Bonfire Beach; where they still 'haul up' every spring (October and November) and breed in considerable numbers. The beach is limited at each SEAL-HUNTING SOUTHERN SEAS. 519 end by precipitous cliffs, across which it is quite impossible to transport oil in casks, nor can boats land from the sea, or ycs- sels lie at anchor in the ofi&ng-, from the fact that the beach is on the west, or windward coast, and exposed to the full violence of th-e wind. . . . " The increasing scarcity of the sea-elephant, and consequent uncertainty in hunting it, together with the diminished demand for the oil since the introduction of coal-oil into general use, have caused a great falling ofit" in the business of elephant-hunt- ing. The Crozet Islands, for example, had not been 'worked' for five years, and at Kerguelen there was only one small schooner engaged in this pursuit, two others making Three Isl- and Harbor their headquarters, but spending the 'season' at Heard's Island, three hundred miles to the southward. It may, therefore, be reasonably hoiked that these singular animals, but lately far on the way toward extinction, will have an opi^ortu- nity to increase again in numbers, and that sealers may learn from past experience to carry on their hunting operations with more judgment, sparing breeding females and very young cubs. When the Monongahela visited the Crozet Islands on Decem- ber 1, they found the sea-elephant very numerous, although left undisturbed for only five seasons." * At the Falkland Islands, where at the beginning of the pres- ent century the Sea-Elephants occurred in great troops, they long since became virtually exterminated, as has been the case at most of the early sealing-grounds. In this work of destruc- tion American vessels have taken a prominent part, and for many years have "maintained a monopoly of the business," most of them sailing from Kew London, Ct. As an interesting reminiscence of the palmy days of Sea-Ele- phant limiting, and as conveying a vivid picture of the scenes and incidents of the business, I quote the following from a re- cent account by Mr. Charles Lanman, based on the unpublished journals and log-books of some of the chief participants. Says Mr. Lanman : — " But it is of Heard's Island that we desire espe- cially to speak in this paper. It is about eighteen miles long and i^erhaps six or seven wide ; and by right of discovery is an American possession. For many years the merchants of New London cherished the belief that there was land somewhere * Contributions to the Natural History of Kerguelen Island, made in con- nection with the United States Trausit-of-Venns Expedition, 1874-75. Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus.; No. 3, pp. 39, 40, 1876. 520 FAMILY PHOCID^. south of Kerguelen's Island, for in no other way could their cap- tains account for the continuous suj)ply of the sea-elephant on its shores. As long ago as 1849 Captain Thomas Long, then of the Charles Carroll, reported to the owners of his ship that he had seen land froin the masthead, while sailing south of Kergu- elen's Laud ; but Cajjtain Head has received the credit of the discovery, although he did not land upon the island. The man who first did this was Captain E. Darwin Eogers. He was on a cruise after sperm whale ; his ship was the Corinthian, and he had three tenders ; and his employers were Perkins and Smith — the same Smith heretofore mentioned. Captain Eogers com- memorated his success by an onslaught upon the sea-elephants, which he found very numerous on the shore ; and after securing four hundred barrels of oil, improved the first opportunity to inform his emj)loyers of what he had done, urging them not only to keep the information secret, but to dispatch another ves- sel to the newly discovered island The firm purchased a ship at once. Captain Smith took command, and sailed for Heard's Island. With Captain Darwin Rogers as his right-hand man he fully explored the island, named all its headlands and bays and other prominent features, made a map of it, and succeeded in filhng all his vessels with oil. Two exploits which he per- formed with the assistance of his several crews, are worth men- tioning : — At one point, which he called the Seal Rookery, they slaughtered five hundred of these animals, and as was after- ward found, thereby exterminated the race in that locality ; and they performed the marvelous labor of rolling three thousand barrels of elephant oil a distance of three miles, across a neck of the island, from one hore to another, where their vessel was anchored. The ship which he himself commanded returned in safety to New London with a cargo of oil valued at $130,000, one-half of whic'h was his own property." Continuing the account he says : — " The number of these ani- mals which annually resort to Heard's Island, coming from unknown regions, is truly immense. In former times the men who hunted them invariably spared all the cubs they met with, but in these latter days the young and old are slaughtered in- discriminately. We can give no figures as to the total yield of elephant oil in this particular locality, but we know that the men who follow the business lead a most fatiguing and wild life, and well deserve the largest profits they can make. While Kerguelen's Laud is the place where the ships of the elephant SEAL-HUNTING SOUTHERN SEAS. 521 hunters spend the summer months, which season is literally tlie ^winter of their discontent,' it is upon Heard's Island that the mammoth game is chiefly, if not exclusively, found. Then it is that tlie gang of men have the hardihood to build themselves rude cabins upon the island, and there spend the entire winter. Among those who first exiled themselves to this land of fogs and snow and stormy winds, was one Captain Henry Rogers, then serving as first mate, and from his journal, which he kept during this period, we may obtain a realizing sense of the lone- liness and hardships of the life to which Americans, for the love of gain, willingly subject themselves in the far-off Indian Ocean. " Having taken a glance [in previous portions of the paper not here quoted] at the leading men who identified themselves with the Desolation Islands, and also at the physical peculiarities of those islands, we propose to conclude this paper with a run- ning account of Captain Henry Eogers' adventures during his winter on Heard's Island. "He left Xew London in the brig Zoe, Captain Jas. Rogers, master, Oct. 26, 1856, and arrived at their place of destination February 13, 1857. For about five weeks after their arrival the crew was kept very busy in rafting to the brig several hundred barrels of oil, which had already been prepared and left over by the crew of a sister vessel, and on the 22d of March, the wintering gang, with Capt. Henry Rogers as their chief leader, jjroceeded to move their i^lunder to the shore, and when that work was completed, the brig sailed for the Cape of Good Hope. The gang consisted of twenty-five men, and after building their house, which was merely a square excavation in the ground, covered with boards and made air tight with moss and snow, they proceeded to business. Those who were expert with the lance did most of the killing ; the coopers hammered away at their barrels •, and, as occasions demanded, all hands partici- pated in skinning the huge sea-elephants, or 'cutting off the blub- ber in pieces of about fifteen pounds each, and then on their back or on rude sledges, transporting it to the trying works, where it was turned into the j)recious oil. Not a day was per- mitted to i)ass without ' bringing to bay ' a little game, and the number of elephants killed ranged from three to as high a figure as forty. According to the record, if one day out of thirty hap- pened to be bright and pleasant, the men were thankful ; for the regularity with which rain followed snow, and the fogs were 522 FAMILY PHOCID^.. blown about by Tiigh wind-s, was monotonous beyond concep- tion. . . . Month after month passed away, and there is no cessation in the labors of the elephant hunters. Mist and snow and slaughter, the packing of oil, hard bread and sad beef, fatigue and heavy slumbers — these are the burthen of their song of life." * METHODS OF CAPTURE, ETO. The methods emi^loyed in capturing Seals vary according to circumstances of locality and other contingencies. In the fore- going pages some of the ways and devices used have been given incidentally at some length in connection with the ac- counts of certain important sealing districts, but the general subject of Seal capturing claims further and more methodical treatment. Although no very rigid classification of the methods employed will be attemjited, a convenient division may be made uuder the two heads of "Shore Sealing" and "Ice-Hunting", in accordance with whether the Seals are taken on or near the land, or upon the ice-floes of the high seas. While the former may be carried on partly in boats, the latter requires vessels especially equipped for protracted voyages. I. Shore- Hunting. — The capture of Seals on or near the land is accomplished in various ways, as by the use of nets, the ritle, the sealing-club, the lance, the harpoon, etc. While the use of nets is necessarily restricted to the shore, the club, the rifle, and the lance are the common implements of destruction used also on the ice-floes. The metliods employed in shore- hunting vary also with the species pursued and with the sea- son of the year. The capture of Seals by use of the harpoon is mainly i^ractised by the Esquimaux and other northern tribes, and may be termed — 1 . The Greenland method.— hi Greenland about one-sixth of the catch is taken in net«, and the remainder with the harpoon and gun. The Esquimaux method of capturing Seals with the harpoon, has been often described by arctic voyagers, the fol- lowing account of which, as still practised by the Greenlanders, is here transcribed fj^om Dr. Rink's late work on "Danish Green- laud". He says, "The art of catching seals by the harpoon and bladder is still pursued in Greenland exactly in the same way as before Europeans had settled there, without the least * Forest and Stream (Dewspaper), vol. xi, pp. 437, 438, Jan. 2, 1879. A very good account of Sea-Elc]»hant hunting may also be found in Cnptaiii Scam- mon's "Marine MamniaLs of the North-western Coast of North America." pp. 119-123. METHODS OF CAPTTjRE SEAL-NETS, 523 chaDge or improvement; and though some other means of capture have been added, "siz, the rifle and the twine-made net, there is some reason to believe that the abolition of the ancient manner of hunting seals would jn-ove fatal to the welfare, if not the existence, of the present race of inhabitants. Still more in- dispensable to them is the kayak or skin canoe, fitted out espe- cially for this pursuit. It measures upwards of 18 feet in length and about 2 feet in breadth, and weighs about 55 pounds, so that the man on landing can take it in one hand and carry it along with him up the beach. . . . When the kayaker intends to strike a seal with his harpoon, he advances within a distance of about 25 feet from it, then throws the harpoon by means of a piece of wood adapted to sujjport the harpoon while he takes aim with it, and called the 'thrower'. At the same time he loosens the bladder and throws it off likewise. The animal struck dives, carrying away the coiled-up line with great speed ; if in this moment the line happens to become entangled with some part of the kayak, or if the bladder is not discharged quick enough, the kayaker in most cases will be capsized without any chance of saving his life by rising again. But if the oiieration has been entirely successful, the bladder moving on the surface of the water indicates the track of the animal underneath it, and the hunter follows it with the large lance which he throws like the harpoon when the seal appears above the water, repeat- ing the same several times, the lance always disengaging itself and floating on the surface. Finally, when the convulsions of the animal are subsiding, he rows close up to it and kills it with the small hand-spear or knife." * 2. By means of nets. — The capture of Seals in nets is mainly limited to the periodical visits of the migratory species to the shore, and occurs chiefly during spring and fall. At some points on the northern shores of Europe, and particularly in the Gulf of Bothnia, the Caspian Sea, and Lake Baikal, sealing nets have been in use for centuries, and are set either from the shore or beneath the ice. Cneiff, in his account of Seal-hunt- ing in East Bothnia,t published originally in 1757, describes, • — ■ — * Danish Greenland, its People and its Products, 1877, pp. 113, 114. t Bericht vom Seekiilberfange in Ostbothuien. Vom Provincialschaffner, Ilerru Joliann David Kneill', eingegeben. Der Kouigi. Schwedischen Akad. der Wissonsch. Abhandl., aus der Natnrlehre, Hanshaltungskunst und Me- chauik, auf das Jahr 1757. Aus dem Schwedischen iibersetzt, von Abra- ham Gotthelf Kiistner, etc. 19 Band, 1759, pp. 171-186. This is a detailed and very interesting account of Seal-hunting as practised in the Gulf of Bothnia about the middle of the last century. 524 FAMILY PHOCID^. among other methods, the use of the net. The net, he says, is from sixty to ninety feet iu length, and twelve meshes, or about six feet, deep. It is made of linen yarn, spun from good hemp, as coarse as strong sail-yarn, except the lower meshes, which are made from poor hemp, so that when a Seal enters the net and begins to press against it, the lower meshes, if entangled among stones, will easily tear out, and the Seal, feeling the net yield before him, will not turn about and go out. The net is provided with floats of charred fir- wood, jiointed at both ends, flattened beneath and rounded above, and about a foot long. These are placed about a foot apart along the upper edge of the net, to which they are flrmlj^ bound.* The nets are set in the autumn, from Bartholomew's day till the ice closes, and are used for the capture of what he calls the Bay Sea-Calf, which is doubtless the common Harbor Seal {PJioca vitulina). In setting the nets two are commonly fastened together, and are placed near rocks to which the Seals are known to resort. One end of the net is usually fastened by a small cord to a large stone, which is placed on the Seal Rock, the other end of the net being kept m place by an anchor formed of large stones sunk in the water. When the Seal enters the net, thinking to scramble upon the rocks, he immediately thrusts his head through some of the meshes ; when he finds the net hanging loosely in the water, he winds himself about in it, believing he is still free, but in turn- ing about to go back he finds his head again through another mesh at the other end of the net, whereupon he thus draws the net around him, and so becomes completely wound up in it, and is held a prisoner by the anchor-stone and line till morning, when he is killed. The nets are placed only where the Seal Rocks lie to the leeward of the land, off rocky points or islands. If the rocks lie to the northward, the nets are laid when the wind is south, and not when it is north, for the Seal seeks the sheltered side where the sea is smooth. Mr. Lloyd, in his " Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway" (pp. 420-424), who gives an illustration of the "Stand-Nat" from Rosted (1. c, p. 420), states that the way of setting the net varies, the net being sometimes placed near a "Skal-Sten" (Seal Rock), and at other times ''across a narrow strait, leading to a bay or inlet of the sea that is resorted to by * A shorter and somewhat earlier description of the Seal net is given by Linn6, in his history of his journey through Oeland and Gothland, iu 1741. See the German translation, Halle, 17(34, p. 221. METHODS OF CAPTUEE SEAL-NETS. 525 seals. Geuerally," contiuues Mr. Lloyd, " its innermost end is secured by means of a stout rope to a heavy stone, or to sea- weed, on the 'Skal-Sten' itself, whilst its outermost end has no other fastening- than a small stone of just sufiicient weight to keep it in its i)lace, that is, sunk in the deep water beyond. At other times the reverse is the case. The inner end of the net is attached to the ' Skiil-Sten' by a mere thread, whilst its outer extremity is secured to the bottom by a heavy stone. In either case the inner or outer end of the net is left in a measure free, so that when the seal strikes it, the meshes on all sides may more readily collapse about the animal, and the more violently it struggles the more inextricably will it be fixed in the toils. "The 'StS,nd-Nat' is usually set in the evening, and taken up again at a pretty early hour on the following day. If placed near a 'Skiil-Sten' it should be to leeward, because the seal usually mounts the stone on the weather side at night, and in the morning takes to the water in the opposite direction. The chances, therefore, are that in making its plunge into the sea, more especially if its movements be quickened by a blank shot, which is often fired for the purpose, it will be made captive. " It occasionally happens that the seal is taken in the net of an evening when about to mount the ' Skal-Sten,' as prior to so doing it is in the frequent habit of making several circuits round the stone for the purpose of ascertaining if all be safe, and should it not observe the net, it runs its head into one or other of the meshes. " The '■ Stand-l^at,' it should be observed, ought not to be set unless the weather be fine, for if the wind and waves beat on the rock, seals will not take up their night quarters there. To lure these animals into the net, various expedients are resorted to. Bright lights, as is known, greatly excite their curiositj". A fire is therefore made on the shore, or on a rock, in rear of the ' Skal-Sten,' which has the effect of attracting them to the spot ; and as a further inducement, their olfactory nerves are tickled by the fumes of bones and other strong-scented sub- stances, which are cast into the flames. At other times Kutar, or seal-cubs, are tied to a line within the net, the cries of which often attract old ones. . . . " The ' Stand-iS'at ' would appear to be a very destructive engine. We read of as many as fourteen seals having been taken at a single 'haul.' It is chieflj' the young ones, however, that are made prisoners. The old ones, let the night be dark as 526 FAMILY PHOCID^. pitch, would seem by scent or otherwise to discern the toils ; and even should they get entangled in the meshes, their strength is such, especially in the case of the Grey Seal, that it must be a very strong net to retain them within its folds. Odman tells us, indeed, that they at times carry away the net altogether. * A man of my acquaintance,' he goes on to say, ' related to me that he once captured au old seal with portions of ten different nets attached to its body, which was, however, finally secured by the eleventh. On flaying the animal, a part of one of the nets was found to have grown into the skin, and a considerable portion of the others were in a state of decomposition.' When within the folds of the net, the struggles of the seal are most violent, and as it constantly endeavors to ' go ahead', never to retrace its course, it soon becomes so entangled that the captor has difficulty in disengaging it. What with the animal's great exertions, however, in its endeavors to escape, and the want of air, it soon becomes exhausted, and when taken out of the water is often found quite dead." On the coast of Newfoundland larger nets than those above described are used. Mr. Carroll says: "A seal-net is usually fifty fathoms long and seventeen feet deep. The twine they are made of is about three times the size of salmon-net twine ; it will require sixty pounds of such twine to make a seal-net. The net is made on an eight and a half inch card." Each net requires twenty pounds of good cork cut into oval pieces, pointed at each end, seven inches long and two and a half inches wide at the widest part. These are placed one fathom apart on the head rope. The net, with all its attachments, will weigh about two hundred pounds.* The manner of using these nets, or " seal-fi?ames," is thus described by Mr. Eeeks: " Three long nets of strong seal twine are required to construct a frame. One net is firmly secured by anchors xjarallel with the shore, and at such a distance that the remaining nets, placed one at each end, will just reach the shore, thus forming a kind of oblong figure, the longest net being on the outside. If in the spring, when the Seals migrate from the westward, the net nearest that point is sunk to the bottom; but if in the fall, when the Seals migrate in the reverse direction, — the shores of the island running nearly N. E. and S. W., — the eastern net is sunk. Two men are required to con- stantly watch the nets. As soon as a herd of Seals has been. * Seal and Herring Fislieries of Nowfonuilland, p. 35. METHODS OF CAPTURE SEAL-NETS. 527 seen to cross the sunken net the top of it is immediately raised to the surface of the water by means of a pulley, and so fast- ened in that position ; the men then commence shouting and firing off guns loaded only with powder, to keep the Seals under water and cause them to ' mesh ' in the nets ; otherwise they would spring over the nets and escape. When it is seen that no Seals rise to the surface the men launch their boats into the pound and take the Seals from the nets, most of them being drowned, while the others have to be killed. "As soon as the Seals are got on shore the net is again sunk, and the men, or others employed for the purpose, occujjy them- selves ' pelting,' or skinning, the Seals until another herd is impounded. In a successful season as many as eighteen hun- dred Seals have been captured in one of these frames."* In the Caspian Sea the nets, instead of being anchored to the shore, are suspended from boats at a considerable distance from land, as has already been fully described in the account of the Caspian Sea Seal-hunting quoted from Schultz {antea, p. 516). Lloyd also states that in Norway, in winter, when the sea is frozen over, the seal-nets are set under the ice. " Small circu- lar holes at stated intervals are first cut in the ice, and after- wards the hauling lines attached to the net are passed, by means of long and forked poles, from the one aperture to the other." t A similar use of nets in Seal-catching prevailed in Lake Baikal a century and a quarter ago. Bell, writing in 17G2, describes the process as follows : " The seals are generally caught in winter, by strong nets hung under the ice. The method they use is, to cut many holes in the ice, at certain distances from one another, so that the fishermen can, with long poles, stretch their nets from one hole to another, and thus continue them to any distance. The seals not being able to bear long confine- ment under the ice, for want of air, seek these holes for relief, and thus entangle themselves in the nets. These creatures, Indeed commonly make many holes for themselves, at the set- ting in of the frost." | According to Dybowski, nets are still employed for the cap- ture of Seals beneath the ice in Lake Baikal, but apparently in a somewhat different manner. He states that stiong nets, * Zoologist, 2d Ser., vol. vi, p. 2542. tTlie Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway, p. 423. t John Bell, Travels from Saint Peteifeburg in Eussia to various parts of Asia, vol. i (Edinburg ed. of 1788), p. 320. (An earlier Glasgow edition was published in 1763.) 528 FAMILY PHOCID^. made of horsehair, are inserted through the Seals' breathing- holes in the ice, and that in these nets the Seals, in attempting to reach the surface, become imprisoned.* Mr. Lloyd describes and figures another kind of net used in the capture of Seals, which he calls the "Ligg-i^at". His de- scription of the "Ligg-Nat", borrowed, as is his figure, from Linn6,t is as follows: — "It is attached to two wooden frames, one at each end, which are secured to the bottom of a ' Skal- Sten.' To the uj)per bar of the innermost of the frames«is fast- ened a long line reaching to the shore. When one i^ulls at this line, the net is brought to the surface, but when the line is slack- ened, it sinks to the bottom. The net, whilst there, is altogether unseen, and the seal, unsuspicious of danger, creeps up, there- fore, on to the 'Skal-Sfcen'. When the peasant sees that it is asleep, he puUs gently at the line, which brings the net to the surface, and surrounds the stone in the manner of a quadrangu- lar fence. The animal, on awakening from its slumber, casts itself headlong into the water, but cannot extricate itself from the toils before the man, with his harpoon or other implement of destruction, reaches the spot and puts an end to its exist- ence."! 3. The Seal-Box. — Mr. Lloyd also describes another ingenious device for the capture of Seals, used in ISTorway and Sweden. He says it is called the ^'•8Jcdl-Kista^\ or Seal-box. "In princi- ple it is the same as the so-called Watten- Oilier, the expedient commonly adopted to catch rats and mi^e, viz., a ' balance-board,' placed across a tub of water. It is constructed of logs, and square in form, as seen in the above diagram [referring to a fig- ■ ure of the " Skal-Kista"], and is sunk in the water up to the let- ter Y [about the basal third being submerged]. Large stones are afterwards heaped up around and about it, especially at both ends, so as to make it resemble a 'Skiil-Sten' as much as possi- ble. The trap-door T consists of an oblong flat stone, or of plank ends, and swings on an iiun bar, the extremities of which rest on the side- walls of the ' Skal-Kista ' itself. To prevent the trap- door T from falling too low there is a spring or stop, so that on the pressure ceasing it at once resumes its horizontal position. This device, as will be readily understood, is covered with sea- * Arch, fur Anat. n. Phys., 1873, p. 124. tReisen durch Oelaud mid Gothland, etc. Aus dem schwedischen iiber- setzt. Halle, 1764, pp. 203, 204, pi. 1, fig. 6. t Game Birds and Wild Fowl, etc., pi>. 424, 425. METHODS OF CAPTURE- -SEAL-HOOK; '' SKRACKTa". 529 weed, and when, therefore, the seal, tired of contending with the waves, seeks in all innocence to rest its wearied limbs on what it takes to be a rock, the trap-door swings on its axle, and the yawning gnlf beneath presently receives the poor animal 5 and as the aperture through which it falls is at once closed again, the trap is in readiness to receive others of its comrades who may allow themselves to be similarly beguiled." * 4. Tlie SealSooJc. — In certain parts of the Norwegian coast, and probably elsewhere in Scandinavia, the writer last quoted tells us that Seals ar^ captured by means of barbed hooks, and he depicts the manner of their use. The hooks, he says, quot- ing from Kosted, should be made of tough iron or steel of at least the thickness of one's finger, with shanks some eighteen inches in length. These are fastened by a half-hitch to a strong horse-hair or hempen line, which is stretched completely around the base of a ''Skal-Sten" or Seal Eock, to which its ends are firmly attached. The hooks are set at low water, and in mod- erate weather, for in stormy weather the Seals do not usually repair to the rock. At half-ebb of the following tide the rock should be reconnoitered with a telescope. "K any of these ani- mals are then observed to be lying on it, a blank shot (when the boat has approached sufficiently near) should be discharged, which will at once arouse them from their slumbers, and cause them to plunge headlong into the sea, in their progres^ to which one or more of the company are commonly ' brought up by the run'; for though, when ascending the 'Skal- Sten,' they are not in the slightest degree impeded by the hooks, which point upwards, and are, moreover, slightly covered with sea-weed, yet in their passage to the water they can hardly pass them unscathed." i 5. The '■'' 81{rdckta''\ — Mr. Lloyd also describes and figures an- other ingenious implement adopted in Scandinavia for the de- struction of Seals. This consists of a harpoon enclosed in a tube. The tube is made of thick sheet-iron, two feet. long and two and a half inches in diameter, with two fixed heads, one at the lower and the other near the upper end. At the bottom is fixed a strong spiral spring, which propels the harpoon, and at the upper end is a projecting trigger, pressure against which serves to discharge the harpoon. Several of these destructive imple- ments are inserted, by the aid of an auger, in a "Skal-Sten" * Game Birds and Wild Fowl, etc., pp. 425, 426. tibid., pp. 426, 427. Misc. Pub. No. 12 34 530 FAMILY PHOCID^. known to be the resort of Seals, and after being set are lightly covered with sea- weed. When the Seal, in creeping up on the rock, comes in contact with the trigger the harpoon is released and becomes lodged in the body of the unlucky animal.* 6. Other methods. — In shore- hunting the rifle is often resorted to when other means are unavailing, or the Seals cannot be approached sufficiently near to be dispatched in other ways. The use of the harpoon and bladder, as employed by the Green- lander, has already been described ; but the harpoon is also used in other ways, not only by the Esquimaux, but by the inhabitants of I^orthern Europe, especially, in former times, in Scandinavia. It is employed mainlj' in winter, when the hunter, usually attired in white, steals ujion the Seal while asleep on the ice, or lies in wait for it at its breathing-hole, striking it when it comes to the surface to breathe. The Seal, when struck with the harjjoon, is allowed to descend beneath the ice, being held by the line attached to the harpoon. The Seal soon becomes weak from its struggles and is quickly compelled to come to the surface to breathe, when it is easily dispatched and secured. The seal-club can of course be employed in shore-hunting only when the Seals can be surprised at their favorite landing- places, to which, as alreadj' detailed, they sometimes repau' in herds of thousands. At such points, Schultz tells us, hundreds of seal-hunters congregate by prearrangenient and make a combined attack upon the assembled herds of Seals, api)roach- ing them stealthily from the sea under cover of darkness, and by cutting off their retreat to the water make a wholesale butchery of the unsuspecting multitude, sometimes destroying, it is said, as many as fifteen thousand Seals in a single night. (See mitea, p. 515.) II. Ice-Hunting. 1. In the Gulf of Bothnia. — The prosecu- tion of sealing voyages in vessels especially equipped for the puri^ose dates back to at least the beginning of the seventeenth century, but, as ah-eady stated, attained no great importance until near the close of that century. A few vessels only, even then, visited the great Arctic sealing- grounds, but in the Baltic sealing voyages appear to have been for a long tune prosecuted with considerable regularity. Cneiff has left us a very partic- ular account of the sealing business as carried on about 1750 in the Gulf of Bothnia ; it also forms one of the earliest de- tailed histories of ice-hunting to which I have seen reference. *Game Birds aud Wild Fowl, etc., pp. 427, 428. SEALING IN THE GULF OF BOTHNIA. 531 Tlie species chiefly hunted seems to have been the Gray Seal {Halichcerus grypus), this being the only large Seal found in abundance in those waters. According to this writer the hunt- ers were accustomed to make their voyages in open boats, made light and strong, and about fifty feet in length. The keels were shod with iron, and the boats were provided with masts and sails. They were accustomed to start on their voy- ages about the 25th of February, several boats usually keeping in company, so that if one of them met with an accident the peo- ple could be saved by the other boats. Each boat's crew, says Cneiff, numbered eight persons, among whom were a captain or master, a helmsman, and also, in order to have the food quickly prepared, two cooks, the one to provide water, the other, wood, of which they take verj^ little, in order to keep the boat light, the wood taken consisting of a single fir stick about a foot thick and six feet long. Their provisions consisted chiefly of sour bread, to which were added butter, cheese, smoked meat, and salted fish. Brandy was also taken, but the chief drink was the salt or brackish water of the gulf, with which meal was commonly mixed to make it more palatable. Each man also provided himself with two full suits of clothes, so that he could change in case he fell through the ice, the wet clothes being di-ied by sitting on them in the boat. The most noteworthy article of clothing, says our author, is a skin of calf leather with the hair turned outward. It must be made of the skin of a wholly white calf, so that the Seals may not so readily distin- guish the wearer from the ice. When the time for departure arrived they put into the boat all their various implements and goods and launched it with its wherry from the edge of the firm ice. If there chanced to be a stretch of open water to the southward they sailed through it as far as possible, for in this direction the Gray Seals were most abundant. In case, however, there was new ice along the edge of the old ice, they drew the boat over it, each man pull- ing by a hair rope fastened to the boat, the cai^tain holding the boat straight by means of a long pole fastened across it while the others drew it. This hard work they were frequently obliged to perform at other times during the journey when meet- ing with fields of new ice. At such times the heaviest of their things, as the provisions and firewood, were left behind, but never more than an eighth of a mile, when they returned for them with sledges. They drew the boat no farther at one time 632 FAMILY PHOCID^. for fear of the breaking up of the ice, which might separate them from their sledges, and they would thus lose their provis- ions and other necessaries, they having learned this precaution through such losses. If the new blue ice was too weak to sup- port the boat, they waited till it became stronger, or till a strong favorable wind enabled them to sail through it, in case it was not broken up by the waves. To protect the boat at such times from being cut by the ice, boards were nailed upon it. If the ice was not of great extent the men passed along outside of the boat and broke it through with clubs ; if very weak and the wind favorable, they sai]ed through it without delay or fear. If on the other hand they found the ice strong and comparatively smooth, with not too much snow upon it, they sailed over it, the keel of the boat being protected from wearing by the iron sheathing. In sailing over the ice two men run on the leeward side of the boat and one man on the wind- ward side, who keep the boat steady, while the captain steers it by means of the pole. If after having pursued their journey, by pulling and sailing, for a long time they meet with no Seals on the ice-fields to which the Seals are accustomed to re- sort, two men from each boat are sent on in advance to search for the Seals. They take with them the wherry, so that they can cross any openings in the ice they may meet with, and also a white dog, which by barking gives them notice if it discovers any Seals. When at last they arrive at an ice-field on which there are great numbers of Seals, the men hasten with clubs to kill them. The largest of them, says our narrator, are so courageous that they face their pursuers, who, if they do not kill them at once must get out of the way, as the Seals can bite very severely. They leave the young ones tiU the last, as they are not shy. If there chance to be a great many holes in the ice-floe, so that the Seals can readily get under the ice, the hunters creep stealthily upoH them till they get near enough to cut them off from such retreats, and then aim at the largest of the herd. Should there be a great many Seals on a small ice-floe, the men cry like the Seals, and creep toward them on their bellies, often raising their feet and striking them together. But should there be hope of getting only a single shot, they are not permitted to shoot at all, as then, certainly, all the Seals would leave the ice and go di- rectly into the water, save those that were killed. Those Seals that are under the ice are not alarmed by the shooting, and as SEALING IN THE GULF OF BOTHNIA. 533 they come out upon the ice are successively shot, the hunters meantime keeping up their cry in imitation of the Seals, and continuing to strike their feet together as already described. If the hunters have good luck they in this way secure in a single day a large booty. Another very common way of securing these animals was to watch for them at their breathing-holes, and as they came to the surface for air to transfix them with the harpoon or " seal-iron". The iron being fixed loosely to the shaft the latter is easily de- tached when the Seal descends again under the ice. To the iron, however, is fastened a line about six feet in length, which the hunter quickly seizes, and allows the Seal to dance about be- neath the ice, the barbed iron preventing its escape. When the Seal becomes weak and must again obtain air, the line is drawn slowly in as the Seal approaches the air-hole, and finally the Seal is drawn out upon the ice, the hunter being in the meantime aided by his companions. At other times the young are used as a lure for the capture of the mothers. For this pur- pose they employ an iron implement having three barbed hooks, on one of which the young Seal is impaled alive. The mother hearing its cries approaches it quickly, and immediately em- braces it, in the hope to free it, but in so doing presses the other barbed hooks into herself, and both mother and young are drawn out of the water together. The last method of hunting Seals described by Cneiff, as adopt- ed on these early expeditions, is the following : If they have not already secured a sufiicient number of Seals, they seek for them on their return from the south over the ice about the end of spring, when they are then much more surely taken, because they cannot so readily find an opening in the ice through which to escape ; then, if attacked, they scramble about over the rough ice in search of openings, during which they are destroyed in such numbers that the sledges are soon loaded with them, and even return the second and third times in case the ice-pack is large and the Seals do not reach open water. It sometimes hap- pens, on these perilous journeys, that a strong wind breaks up the ice, and the hunter suddenly finds himself on a detached piece of drifting ice, when those who are in the boat must turn to rescue him. He is fortunate, indeed, if he can bring his slain animals with him ; otherwise he must be satisfied to save his life. Thus it is, says Oneift', on these dangerous voyages, during 534 FAMILY PHOCID^. which these poor people are exposed to fierce cold and severe snow-storms, under the open sky, they having no protection save that afforded by the sails of their boat, under which they lie, for it appears that they have not even the comforts of a fire. These perilous journeys occupy commonly two or three months, and sometimes more, according to their success in hunting, remaining out later when they have a long search in finding the Seals, or are late in obtaining a full cargo. Sometimes, how- ever, when very fortunate, the voyage would be completed in five weeks. In case they meet with an abundance of Seals they save only the skin and fat, throwing away the flesh. On their return the products of the voyage are divided equally among the different boats. It would seem that such exj)osure and risk would only be un- dertaken under the incentive of large profits, but on the con- trary, after deducting the cost of each man's outfit, and the value of his time if devoted to other pursuits, little is really gained by these arduous and dangerous voyages. Later in the season (about the end of March) they were ac- customed to make a second voyage, this time for the Wikare or Bay Seal (apparently Phoca vituUna), for this purpose proceeding northward, with much the same outfit, and in nearly the same manner as on the earlier voyage. These later voyagea seem to have been equally beset with danger, fifteen boats, as Cneiff' tells us, being' lost at one time.* 2. Off the coast of Newfoundland. — The season for " ice-hunting " begins at the Newfoundland "sealing-grounds" about the first of March and continues for about two months. The Seals are then on the ice-floes at a considerable distance from land, often several hundred miles. The same vessel, however, sometimes makes two, and on rare occasions three, voyages during the season. Formerly (fifty years ago) vessels engaged in sealing rarely left port before March 17, but more recently have sailed by the first of that month, and sometimes during the last days of February. This, Mr. Carroll claims, is too early, and tends * Abridged from Cneiff's " Bericht vom Seekiilberfarge iu Ostbotliuieu." Abhandl. der Kongl. Schwed. Akad. der Wisseusch. 19 Baud, 17r)9, pp. 174- 183. Lloyd, in his "Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway" (pp. 433-449) gives a very similar account of what purports to be a history of Seal-hunting in the Gulf of Bothnia in recent times (1866), but his ac- count is little more than a paraphrase of the foregoing, although Cneiff is not cited in this connection. Here and there additional details are given, but in the main Lloyd's account is substantially the same as Cueifl"'8. METHODS OF CAPTURE NEWFOUNDLAND SEALING. 535 greatly to tlie detriment of tlie interests of the sealers them- selves, as they thus disturb the Seals at a time when they should be left in peace, or before the "whelpiug-time" is over. He strongly advocates the prohibition by government of the depar- ture of any vessels for the sealing-grounds before March 5 to 10, and of steamers before the 10th to the 15th of the same month, since otherwise, he observes, " the seal-fishery of New- foundland may soon, and very soon, dwindle away to such a character that it will not be worth the risk of money to prose- cute it." The vessels employed in the sealing business are "pounded off in the hold," or divided into small compartments to pro- tect the pelts from injury by friction, as well as to preserve the cargo from shifting. The pelts are allowed to thoroughly cool before they are stowed, and are packed " hair to fat to prevent the fat from ' running.' " The owners of sealing- vessels " find all the boats, sealing-gear, powder, shot, and provisions, in consid- eration of which they are entitled to one half of the seals; the men are entitled to the other half. In steamships the owners find everything required for the prosecution of the voyage, and receive two-thirds of the value of the seals, aud the men one- third."* The voyages are attended with much danger, great hardship, and uncertainty of results, a "good trip" being entirely a mat- ter of chance. Xot unfrequently the vessels become "jammed in the ice", and if not crushed in the j)ack-ice, may be detained for weeks before being able to force their way to the ice-floes which form at this season the grand rendezvous of the Seals. The incidents and dangers ordinarily attending a sealing voy- age, as well as the manner of capturing and disi)Osing of the Seals, have been so graphically set forth by Professer Jukes in his entertaining and instructive work entitled "Excursions in N'e wfoundland ", that I transcribe in this connection portions of his account of a sealing cruise participated in by him in March, 1840, in the brigantine "Topaz", Captain Furneaux, of St. John's, Newfoundland. Having, after a week's arduous cruise, fallen in with the Seals and captured a few young ones, he says: "We soon afterwards passed through some loose ice on which the young seals were scattered, and nearly all hands were overboard, slaying, skinning, and hauling. We then got into another lake of water and sent out five punts. The crews * Carroll, Seal and Herring Fishery of Newfoundland, p. 9. 536 FAMILY PHOCID^. of these joined those already on the ice, and dragging either the whole seals or their 'pelts' to the edge of the water, collected them in the punts, and when one of these was full brought them on board. The cook of the vessel, and my man Simon, with the cajjtain and myself, managed the vessel, circumnavi- gating the lake and picking up the boats as they put off one after another from the edge of the ice. In this way, when it became too dark to do any more, we found we had got three hundred seals on board, and the deck was one great shambles. When piled in a heap together the young seals looked like so many lambs, and when occasionally, from out of the bloody and dirty mass of carcasses, one poor wretch still alive would lift up its face and begin to flounder about, I could stand it no longer; and arming myself with a hand -spike, I proceeded to knock on the head and put out of their misery all in whom I saw signs of life. After dark we left the lake and got jammed in a field of ice, with the wind blowing strong from the north-west. The watch was employed in skinning those seals which were brought on board whole, and throwing away the carcass. In skinning, a cut is made through the fat to the flesh, a thickness generally of about three inches, along the whole length of the belly from the throat to the tail. The legs, or 'flpi^ers,' and also the head, are then drawn out from the inside and the skin is laid out flat and entire, with the layer of fat or blubber firmly adhering to it, and the skin in this state is called the 'pelt,' and some- times the ' sculp,' It is generally about three feet long and two and a half wide, and weighs from thirty to fifty pounds. The ca,rcass when turned out of its warm covering is light and slim, and, except such parts as are preserved for eating, is thrown away." The next day, continues Mr. Jukes, as soon as it was light, "all hands were overboard on the ice, and the whole of the day was employed in slaughtering young seals in all directions and hauling their pelts to the vessel. The day [March 13] was clear and cold, with a strong north-west wind blowing, and occasion- ally the vessel made good way through the ice, the men follow- ing her and clearing off the seals on each side as we went along. The young seals lie dispersed here and there on the ice, bask- ing in the sun, and often sheltered by the rough blocks and piles of ice, covered with snow. Six or eight may sometimes be seen within a space of twenty yards square. The men, armed with a gaff and a haiding rope slung over their shoulders, dis- METHODS OF CAPTURE NEWFOUNDLAND SEALING. 537 perse about on the ice, and whenever they find a seal strike it a heavy blow in the head, which either stuns the animal or kills it outright. Having killed or at least stunned all they see within a short distance, they skin, or, as they call it, 'sculp' them with a broad clasp-knife, called a sculping-knife, and making two holes along the edge of each side of the skin they lay them one over another, passing the rope through the nose of each pelt and lacing it through the side holes, in such a man- ner that when i)ulled tight it draws them into a compact bun- dle. Fastening the gaff in this bundle, they then put the rope over the shoulder, and haul it away over the ice to the vessel. In this way they bring in bundles of pelts, three, six, or even seven at a time, and sometimes from a distance of two miles. Six pelts, however, is reckoned a very heavy load to drag over the rough and broken ice, leaping from pan to pan, and they generally contrive to keep two or three together to assist each other at bad places, or to pull those out who fall into the water. The ice to-day was in places very slippery and in others broken and treacherous, and as I had not got my boots properly fitted with 'sparable' and ' chisels' I stayed on board and helped the captain and the cook in managing the vessel and whipping in the pelts as they were brought alongside. By twelve o'clock, however, my arms were aching with the work, and on the leeside of the vessel we stood more than knee-deep in warm seal- skins, all blood and fat. Some of the men brought in as many as sixty each in the course of the day, and by night the decks were covered, in many places the full height of the rail. As the men came on board they occasionally snatched a hasty moment to drink a bowl of tea, or eat a piece of biscuit and butter ; and as the sweat was dripping from their faces, and their hands and bodies were reeking with blood and fat, and they often spread the butter with their thumbs, and wiped their faces with the backs of their hands, they took both the liquids and the solids mingled with the blood. The deck, of course, when the deck could be seen, was almost as slippery with gore as if it had been ice. Still there was a bustle and excitement in the scene that did not permit the fancy to dweU on the disa- greeables, and after a hearty refreshment the men would snatch up their gaffs and hauling ropes, and hurry off in search of new victims: besides, every pelt was worth a dollar! During this time hundreds of old seals were popping up their heads in the small lakes of water and holes among the ice, anxiously look- 538 FAMILY PHOCID^. ing for their young. Occasionally one would hurry across a pan in search of the snow-white darling she had left, and which she could not recognize in the bloody and broken carcass, stripped of its warm covering, that alone remained of it. I fired several times at these old ones in the afternoon with my rifle from the deck, but without success, as unless the ball hits them on the head, it is a great chance whether it touch any vital part, the body being so thickly clothed with fat. In the evening, however. Captain Furueaux went out on the ice and killed two with his sealing-gun loaded with seal shot. The wind had now sunk to a light air, and the sun set most glori- ously, glancing fi^om the golden west across the bright expanse of snow now stained with many a bloody spot and the ensan- guined trail which marked the footsteps of the intruders Oii the peacefulness of the scene. Several vessels came up near us from the south, in the afternoon ; but notwithstanding all the slaughter the air as night closed in resounded with the cries of the young seals on every side of us. As the sunlight faded in the west, the quiet moon looked down from the zenith, and a brilliant arch of aurora crossed the healvens nearly from east to west, in a long waving line of glancing Ught, slowly moving backwards and forwards from north to south across the face of the moon. ... " Early in the morning [of the next day, March 14] the crew were out on the ice, and brought in 350 seals. The number hauled in yesterday was 1,380, making the total number now on board upwards of 2,000. After suffering the pelts to lie open on deck for a few hours, in order to get cool, they are stowed away in the hold, being laid one over the other in pairs, each j)air having the hair outwards. The hold is divided by stout 5)artitions into several comijartments or 'pounds' to prevent too much motion among the seal-skins and keep each in its place. The ballast is heaved entirely out as the pelts are stowed away, and the cargo is trusted to ballast the vessel. In consequence of neglecting to divide the hold into pounds in one of his earlier voyages. Captain Furneaux told us he once lost his vessel. He was detained on his return with 5,000 seals on board, by strong contrary gales which kept him at sea, till by the continued mo- tion and friction his seals began to run to oil. The skins then dashed about from one side of the hold to the other with every roll of the vessel, and he was obliged to run before the wind, which was then blowing from the northwest. The oil spread METHODS OF CAPTURE NEWFOUNDLAND SEALING. 539 from the hold into the cabin and forecastle, floating over every- thing and forcing the crew to remain on the deck. They got up some bags of bread, and by putting a i)ump down through the oil into the water-casks they managed to get fresh water. After being in this state some days himself and his crew were taken out of the vessel by a ship they luckily fell in with, and carried to St. John's, [N'ew Brunswick ; but his own vessel, with her once valuable cargo, and almost all the valuable property of himself and his crew were necessarily abandoned to the mercy of the winds and waves, and what became of her was never known. This was a good practical lesson as to the proper method of stowing a cargo of seals, and one not likely to be forgotten. In the present iu stance, therefore, the pounds were both numerous and strong." * In a few days more they completed their cargo and returned to St. John's with the vessel loaded with between 4,000 and 5,000 Seals. ''It was a very good season," Professor Jukes fur- ther remarks; "one vessel in two trials brought in eleven thou- *sand Seals, and the total take this year [1840] must have been considerably upwards of five hundred thousand." t Mr. Reeks states that in 1866 one vessel, which made two successful trips to the ice, brought into St. John's harbor 25,000 Seals.| To complete the j)icture here partially drawn of the seal fishery as pursued by the jSTewfoundland seal-hunters, I quote still further from the same author respecting the scenes in- cident to a sealing voyage of forty years ago. Under date of March 5, Mr. Jukes writes : " This morning was dark and foggy, with the wind at southeast. At seven o'clock, after mak- ing a tack or two about an open lake and finding no channel, we dashed into the ice with all sail set, in comj^any with two other vessels on a north-northwest course. The ice soon got firmer, thicker and heavier, and we shortly stuck fast. ' Over- board with you ! gaflfs and pokers ! ' sung out the captain, and over went, accordingly-, the major iDart of the crew to the ice. The pokers were large poles of light wood, six or eight inches in cu*cumference, and twelve or fifteen feet long. Pounding with these, or hewing the ice with axes, the men would split the pans near the bows of the vessel, and then, inserting the ends of the pokers, use them as large levers, lifting up one side of the broken piece and depressing the other, and several get- * Excursions iu Newfoundlaud, vol. i, pp. 272-2b0. tibid., p. 322. t Zoologist, 2d Ser., vol. vi, 1871, p. 2548. 540 FAMILY PHOCID.E. ting round with their gaffs, they shoved it by main force un- der the adjoining ice. Smashing, breaking, and pounding the smaller pieces in the course the vessel wished to take, room was afforded for the motion of the larger pans. Laying out great claws on the ice ahead when the wind was light the crew warped the vessel on. If a large, strong pan was met with, the ice-saw was got out. Sometimes, a crowd of men, clinging round the ship's bows and holding on to the bights of ropes suspended there for the i^urpose, would jump and dance on the ice, bend- ing and breaking it with their weight, shoving it below the ves- sel, and dragging her on over it with all their force. Tip to their knees in water, as one piece after another sank below the cut- water they still held on, hurrahing at every fresh start she made, dancing, jumping, pushing, shoving, hauling, hewing, sawing, till every soul on board was roused into excited exertion. . . . They continued their exertions the whole day, relieved occasion- ally by small open pools of water; and in the evening we cal- culated that we had made about fifteen miles. It continued foggy all day, and at night it began to rain. We had seen n<5 vessel since morning — nothing but a dreary expanse of ice and snow stretching away into the misty horizon." Tlie next day "the wind was from the west, and the sky fine and clear. Sev- eral vessels were near us, and several more ou the horizon. The ice became thicker, stronger, and more compact. We made a few miles in the morning and stuck fast the rest of the day in a very large pan or field of ice, sawing, axing, prising, warping, etc., etc., as yesterday."* This, in short, was the history of their daily experiences for a week, at the end of which time they first heard the cry of the Seals, and entered upon their work of slaughter. . 3. In the Jan Mayen Seg,s. — Seal-hunting in the icy seas about Jan Mayen is conducted under similar conditions and in much the same way as among the ice-floes to the eastward of New- foundland. Lindeman, in his memoir on the Arctic fisheries as prosecuted from the German seaports, gives a pretty full ac- count of the vessels sailing from the Weser ports, selecting for this purpose the "Hudson", J. H. Westermeyer, commander, as a type, and not only describes her .special armature. for protec- tion against ice, but her general outfit, including officers and crew, the weapons employed, the commissariat, even to the weekly bill of fare, the "watch", and daily life and duties on * Exciirs. in Newfoundland, vol. 1, pp. 261-263. METHODS OF CAPTURE SEALING IN JAN MAYEN SEAS. 541 shipboard ; and finally gives a history of the voyage she made the year preceding his account, a brief abstract of which may not be here out of place. The captain assembled his crew in January, and on the 21st of February the " Hudson" sailed out of the Weser for her Arctic voyage. The 8th of March found her in N". lat. 71° 18' and W. long. 3° 8'. On the evening of the 9th they sighted Jan Mayen Island, twenty miles dis- tant to the northwest. On the 14th they encountered heavy winds and a turbulent sea. About the beginning of April she reached the sealing-grounds ("Eobbenkiiste'), the Seals being this year northwestward of Jan Mayen in north latitude 72° and east longitude 2°. Already, numerous vessels were at the j)lace, and on the 14th of April, at 3 p. m., began the slaughter of the young Seals. At eleven o'clock the same evening the " Hud- son " had on board 901 young Seals, and on the evening of the following day the number secured -reached 2,171. In the course of a few days the crew of the "Hudson" completed their cargo, numbering altogether 5,400 young Seals, which yielded 620 tuns of oil. This, with the skins of the Seals and one Whale ("ein Fisch"), brought 23,983 thalers, gold. The same writer thus describes the "Seal-coasts" and the hunt. Under the heading "Die Eobbenkiiste, der Eobbeu- schlag," he says : — " The district of the Seal-hunt, if we may so term thebutcheryof the most patient and submissive of animals, embraces the immensely large area of 6,000 to 8,000 square miles, . and though called ' coast' is really no coast, but sea and ice-fields. In this area one comes upon immense herds of Seals, which, according to Yeaman's account, are often twenty to thirty Eng- lish miles broad. The English call such herds ' Seal's- weddings ' or ' Seal-meadows.' The commander, peering through his spy- glass from the 'crow's nest' first discovers the herds of Seals. He shouts the order ' Over all ! ' The crew costume themselves for the slaughter, their suit consisting of gray linen. Into a leathern belt fastened around the body they stick the skinning- knife. Each provides himself with ropes 'and a seal-club, the latter implement consisting of a strong stick or shaft, having an iron point, a hammer and hook. Soon the boats are lowered and the men rush into them, and with a loud ' Holulu ! ' start for the ice. The killing of the feeals upon the ice begins. When the Seals are dead, the skin, together with the fat or blubber, is removed from the body with the skinning-knife. The cabin- boys ('Schiffsjungen') and later all the men draw the skins of 542 FAMILY PHOCIDiE. the ' dogs,' as tlie Seals are called in Greenland parlance, with ropes to the ship, where the so-called doctor (or barber) receives them, counting them as soon as they come in at the Flenssgat.* The rest of the animal, termed the 'krang', remains on the ice, a booty to the birds and the Polar Bear. The success of the Seal- hunt depends upon quickly taking advantage of the favorable moment. The crew must be constantly quick of hand. Five hundred to six hundred Seals may be killed in a day by a crew of a ship of 180 tons. The difficulty exxierienced by the men in springing from ice-cake to ice-cake to reach the ship again, is not slight. " Hunting from boats or vessels is comfortable, and is pre- ferred when there is much open water. They spring from the boats to the ice-floes, kill the Seals in the same way, take them temijorarily into the boat and stack them on the first suitable ice-floe. The removal of the skins from the fat is made by the officers on shipboard as opportunity may favor. In this work, following an old Dutch custom, they stand in a row to take 'a little' ("ein 'Liitjer' genommen"),t and occasionally divert themselves with a song. The skins are fastened by hooks to a wooden frame, and the fat is quickly removed and thrown into tubs. The coopers then pack the fat in casks or iron tanks in the lower or middle holds of the vessel. The art of properly removing the fat without injury to the skins is not easy to acquire, and upon this depends in a high degree the value of the skins. I hear that the owner of the 'Albert ' has, through a slight modification of the share-money, interested the men in exercising the greatest possible care in removing the skins, in order to secure a good result. The skins are salted, again counted and laid away. By the end of April the j^roper Seal- hunt is over. Old Seals are rarely to be obtained, they being very watchful ; however, the crews of the Norwegian ships are excellent marksmen, and by them many are shot. The value of a young Seal (fat and skin) is 2^ to 3 thalers, while the old ones are worth twice this sum."} * Opening in the side of a whaling-vessel through which the blubber is taken on board in cutting up a whale. t " On such occasions the Dutch drunk schnaps from cups. On many Dutch ships it was the custom (' Branch') or much more the bad custom (' Miss- brauch') to take the schnaps-bottle into the boat with them, or hang it by a line from the ship." t Translated from Petermann's Geog. Mitth., Erganzungsheft No. 26, 1869, pp. 81, 82. DANGERS AND UNCERTAINTIES OF SEALING VOYAGES. 543 Dangers and Uncertainties of Ice-Hunting. — The dan- gers and uncertainties attending ice-hunting have to some extent been already indicated. The chief hindrances arise from en- countering field-ice, within which not only single vessels, but whole fleets, are sometimes held prisoners for weeks, constantly subject to danger from the shifting and grinding of the pack- ice. Among the many dangers to which the ice-hunter is sub- jected none is greater than that arising from the "rafting" of the ice, which is especially disastrous to steamships. While some vessels, owing to the form of the hull, will " heave out " uninjured, in other cases they will be crushed by the ice pass- ing over them. In general, steamships are said to be in far greater peril when jammed in the ice than sailing-vessels, there being in such cases " no chance whatever " of extricating the former, while the latter usually escape with slight injury. Great danger is said to also arise from large masses of ice being car- ried by currents against the wind, when, despite every exer- tion to avert disaster, steamships as well as sailing-vessels are wrecked against the floating islands of ice. In illustration of the danger from drifting ice I transcribe the following: "In the spring of 1871," says Mr. Carroll, "that splendid new brig, the ' Confederate,' with an experienced cap- tain and seventy-five men, as fine as any country under the sun could produce, left Harbour Grace for the sealing voyage. The brig was driven into Bonavista Bay, jammed in the drift-ice, until it struck the land, seven miles to the westward of Cape Bonavista. There the brig remained for ten days, and not a wag in the water or amongst the ice, the men in anxious wait- ing for an off-shore wind, when, without any apparent cause, a large flat pan of ice a short distance from the brig moved slowly onwards until it struck the after part of the keel and whip^ied ten feet of it away. So keen was the cut that it was not observed until the brig began to make water", and the master and men were obliged to abandon her. " Many, in ajl probability", con- tinues the same writer, "of the steamshijjs at present [1873] engaged in the prosecution of the Seal fishery on the coast of IsTewfoundland will, without doubt, sooner or later meet with a fate similar to that of the brig ' Confederate.' Sailing vessels will ' heave out' when jammed in the ice and escape uninjured when steamships would be squeezed to atoms." * Not only are the sealers exijosed to dangers from floating ice, * Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, p. 22. 544 FAMILY PHOCIDiE. but other risks attend these hardy adventurers. Although the present connection is not the place for an extended history of the disasters incident to the seal-fishery, a single incident in illustration of the danger arising from sudden storms overtak- ing the seal- hunters when absent from their vessels may here appropriately find place. Scoresby relates, on trustworthy au- thority, the following that befel the sealing fleet in the Jan May en Seas in 1774: " Fifty-four ships, chiefly Hamburghers, were that year fitted out for the seal-fishery alone, from foreign ports. Most of these, with several English ships, had, in the spring of the year, met together on the borders of the ice, about sixty miles to the east- ward of the island of Jan Mayen. On the 29th of March, when the weather was moderate, the whole fleet penetrated within some streams of ice, and sent out their boats in search for seals. While thus engaged, a dreadful storm suddenly arose. So sud- den and furious, indeed, was the commencement, and so tre- mendous and lasting the continuance, that almost all the people who were at a distance from their ships perished." After giv- ing a detailed account of the loss of various ships, as well as boats' crews, he says, " The result of these disasters, when summed up, is dreadful. About 400 foreign seamen,* and near 200 British, are said to have been drowned ; four or five ships were lost, and scarcely any escaped without damage." * Although accidents attended with such great fatality are for- tunately of rare occurrence, doubtless not a year passes without the loss of numerous vessels and many lives. Most writers who have given any account of the Seal-fish- ery refer to the uncertainties of the catch, owing to circum- stances wholly beyond the knowledge or control of the sealers. As already stated, a good trip is a matter of chance rather than of foresight or judicious management on the part of the master of the vessel. This uncertainty arises mainly from the unstable character of the ice-floes, which vary in their course with the prevaiUng direction of the wind and the combined ac- tion ol the winds and currents. While the Seals congregate annually on the ice-fields of the same general region, and bring forth their young with sur^jrising regularity as regards season, the place of rendezvous is constantly variable. In like manner the course of the vessel is greatly at the mercy of the elements, or under the control of wholly unforeseen circumstances. The * Arctic Regions, vol. i, pp. 513-517. SPECIES HUNTED. 545 whole matter in question lias been thus tersely presented by Mr. Carroll. " For the last fifty years," says this experienced writer, " I have been from time to fime well and intimately acquainted with ice-hunting masters; nine-tenths of them when they first took charge of ice-hunting vessels generally brought into port what is usually termed ' good saving trips.' It is strange to say, but not the less true, that the longer a man takes charge of an ice-hunting vessel the less he knows where to obtain a trip of old and young seals. In a word, the prosperity of a sealing voyage, one year with another, depends ujion chances, and I will go farther and say that three-fouiths of the heavy trips of seals' fat that were brought heretofore into port, as well as the heavy trips of seals' fat brought into port at the present day, were got also by chance. Spring after spring I have known ice-hunting vessels to get jammed in the ice, and there kept so long that the men despaired of obtaining a profitable trip of seals. Steamships as well as sailing vessels are very often, owing to gales of wind, obliged to run into the ice for safety, much against the master's will, and the very place the master wished above all things to avoid turned out to be the very spot where what he was after was — plenty of seals."* Species Hunted. — The Seals hunted in the North Atlantic and Arctic waters belong chiefly to four species, namely, the Harp or Greenland Seal, Phoca (PagopMlvs) grcenlandica, the Eough Seal, Phoca (Pusa) foetida, the Harbor Seal {Phoca vitu- Una), and the Hooded Seal {Gystophora cristata). The first, by its numbers, far exceeds in imjMDrtance all the others together, and is hence the chief object of pursuit. Two other species, the Bearded Seal {Erignatlms barbatus), and the Gray Seal (Hali- chcerns grypus), are also taken when met with, but both are rare and neither enters largely into the general product of the Seal- fishery. The Newfoundland Seal-fishery is limited to the capture of the Greenland, Harbor, and Hooded Seals. The latter is not, however, a regular object of pursuit, but is taken as oi)portunity favors, and some seasons but very few individuals of this species are met with. The Harbor Seal is taken along the shores, where it is permanently resident, but comparatively only in small numbers. The Eough Seal and the Bearded Seal are of con- siderable importance to the Greenlanders, the former especially, more than half of the Seals taken by them belonging to this species. * Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, p. 36. Misc. Pub. No. 12 35 546 FAMILY PHOCID^. In addilrion to tUe above, the Caspian Seal (Phoca caspica) is extensively hunted in the Caspian Sea, and Sea-Elephants on the coast of J^ower California and in the Antarctic seas. Abxjnd.4:nce of Seals at particular Localities. — Re- spectiivg- the abundance of Seals, particularly at certain localities, an(l,' the ease with which they are taken, a few excerpts may iierebe added to the various incidental references to the subject already made in the general account of Seal-hunting-. Mr. H. T. Hind states that "On March 24, 1857, large ice-fields, driven by the ^. and N. W. wind, grounded on the coast of Amherst Island, one of the Magdalen group, and were found to be a vast ' seal meadow.' Not less than 4,000 of these animals, nearly all young, were killed in five days." * Drs. Koldewey and Pansch, of the German Arctic Expedition of 18G9-70, make the following statement : "The whitish colored young stay on the ice the first few days, and are then killed with clubs by the parties of seal-hunters. . . . The number caught by a single Bremen shiji now some- times amounts to 8 to 10,000 seals ; and one may form some idea of the war of destruction waged against these harmless crea- tures by man, when we hear that of European ships in 1868, five German, five Danish, fifteen I:Torwegiau, and twenty-two British, which were in company in West Greenland, obtained 237,000." f Mr. Eobert Brown states that in the Spitzbergen Sea, the Greenland Seals, at the time of bringing forth of the young, " may be seen literally covering the frozen waste as far as the eye can reach with the aid of a telescope from the 'crow's nest' at the main-roj'al masthead, and have, on such occasions, been calculated to number u^iwards of half a million of males and females."! It is little wonder that, at such times, but more especially after the young are born and rest helplessly upon the ice, a ship's crew will secure several hundreds in a single day, and quickly fill their vessels with cargoes of ten thousand Seals. products. So much has been already said, incidentally, in relation to the products of the Seals and their commercial importance that little need here be added. Of chief importance is the oil, so well known for its valuable properties for illuminating * Expl. ill Labrador, vol. ii, p. 207. t German Arct. Exped. 1859-70, Eng. ed., 1874, pp. 61, 62. ]:Proc. Zool. Soc. Lou., 1858, p. 418. PRODUCTS. 547 purposes and for the lubrica.tion of machinery. The amount an- nually obtained falls not far short of 90,000 tuns, with a total value of 11,250,000. Next in importance are the skins, which are nearly as valuable as the oil. From very ea^rly times they were used for covering trunks, the manufacture of knapsacks, and for many of the uses of ordinary leather. They have been exten- sively employed, as indeed they are still, for the manufacture of caps, gloves, shoes, and jackets. Of late many have been con- verted in England into lacquered leather, which is said to be of a superior quality, being beautiful and shining, and of firm text- ure, and can be furnished at moderate cost. The skins differ in value according to size and color, these varying, of course, with the species and with the age of the animal. As an article of food, Seals are of the utmost importance to the natives of Greenland, and the northern tribes generally, they deriving from them the greater part of their subsistence. They have been found likewise not unpalatable by our Arctic voyagers, whose sustenance often for long periods has been mainly the flesh of these animals. The Esquimaux and allied tribes of the I^orth are well known to depend upon the Seals not only for their food, but for most of the materials for their boats and sledges, as well as for clothing and the various implements of the chase. In respect to the character of Seal flesh as food, and the im- XDortance of these animals to the Esquimaux, I quote the follow- ^ing from Dr. A. Horner, surgeon to the "Pandora", who, in ''Land and Water" for December 18, 1875 (p. 475), thus refers to the general subject : "From the length of time these peoj^le have inhabited this cold country, one naturally expects them to have found some particular food well adapted by its nutritious and heat-giving properties to supply all the wants of such a rigorous climate, and such is found to be the case, for there is no food more deli- cious to the tastes of the Esquimaux than the flesh of the seal, and especially that of the common seal {Plioca vituUna). But it is not only the human inhabitants who find it has such ex- cellent qualities, but all the larger carnivora that are able to prey on them. Seal's meat is so unlike the flesh to which we Europeans are accustomed, that it is not surprising we should have some difiiculty at first in making up our minds to taste it ; but when once that difiiculty is overcome, every one praises its flavour, tenderness, digestibility, juiciness, and decidedly warm- 548 FAMILY PHOCID^. ing after-effects. Its colour is almost black, from the large amount of venous blood it contains, except in very young seals, and is, therefore, very singular looking, and not inviting, while its flavour is unlike anything else, and cannot be described except by saying delicious ! To suit European palates, there are cer- tain precautions to be taken before it is cooked. It has to be cut in thin slices, carefully removing any fat or blubber, and then soaked in salt water for from twelve to twenty-four hours, to remove the blood, which gives it a slightly fishy flavour. The blubber has such a strong taste, that it requires an Arctic winter's appetite to find out how good it is. That of the bearded seal {Phoca barbata) is most relished by epicures. The dain- tiest morsel of a seal is the liver, which requires no soaking, but may be eaten as soon as the animal is killed. The heart is good eating, while the sweetbread and kidneys are not to be despised. "The usual mode of cooking seal's meat is to stew it with a few pieces of fat bacon, when an excellent rich gravy is formed, or it may be fried with a few pieces of pork, or ' white-man,' being cut up with the seal, or 'black-man.' "The Esquimaux make use of every part of the seal, and, it is said, maifee an excellent soup by putting its blood and any odd scraps of meat inside the stomach, heating the contents, and then devouring tripe, blood and all with the greatest relish. " For my own part, I would sooner eat seal's meat than mut- ton or beef, and I am not singular in my liking for it, as several of the officers on board the Pandora shared the same opinion as myself. I can confidently recommend it as a dish to be tried on a cold winter's day to those who are tired of the everlasting beef and mutton, and are desirous of a change of diet. It is very fattening, and if eaten every day for several weeks together is likely to produce rather surprising effects " Seal's meat is a panacea for aU complaints among these primitive people. Our Esquimaux interpreter, 'Joe,' had a most troublesome cough when we left England, and was con- vinced he should not get rid of it until he had seal's flesh to eat. He would not look at any medicine offered to him on board, but shook his head and said, ' By-and-bye, eat seal, get well.' His prescription turned out to be a very good one, for he had not long been feasting on his favourite food before he lost his cough, and we heard no more of it. For delicate persons, and especially young ladies and gentlemen who cannot succeed in PREPARATION OF THE PRODUCTS. 549 making their features sufficiently attractive on chicken and cheesecakes, no diet is Ukelj^ to succeed so well as delicate cut- lets from the loin of a seal. " For my own part I cannot help thinking that the diminu- tion in the number of seals caught near the principal Danish settlements in Greeland, has a great deal to do with the preva- lence of consumption and other diseases among the native in- habitants of those places. Seals are becoming scarcer every year, and, in company with the bison of the ]S*orth American prairies, will ere long be of the past, and leave the poor Green- lander and Eed Indian to follow them." Preparation of the Products. — The Seals being captured and brought into port, their subsequent treatment as practised by the Newfoundland sealers, may be briefly detailed as follows : After lauding and weighing the " pelts," the fat is immediately re- moved from the skin. This is accomplished by extending the pelt on a table, behind which the skinner stands, holding the skin with the left hand while with a large skinning-knife he removes the fat with the right hand ; a good skinner, it is stated, being able to " remove the fat from the skins of four hundred and fifty Harp Seals in ten hours." The skins are then salted and packed, with the flesh side uppermost, aud at the end of three weeks are considered cured and fit for shipping. The fat is reduced to oil either by maceration in vats in the sun, or is '' rendered " by steam. The latter process is so rapid that at the establishment of John Munn & Co., at Harbour Crrace, four thousand "pelts" have been "skinned and rendered into pure Seal oil in twenty -four hours." Although the steam-rendered oil meets with ready sale in consequence of its superior burning qualities and freedom from disagreeable odor, it is less free from smoke than that ex- tracted by the agency of the sun, and for this reason the latter is preferred by the miners. "Formerly every description of Seals' oil was entirely manufactured in wooden vats exposed to the weather," the vats being capable of containing three thou- sand to four thousand Seals' pelts. When the fat from old Seals is mixed with that from the young, " the oil obtained is some- what smoky." When drawn off from the tanks, all the oil ren- dered from the fat of young Seals is sure to come first and is called "pale seal," the other being heavier and darker, and known as "straw color." From Schultz's minute account of the sealing industry of the Caspian Sea I transcribe the following, as of general interest in 550 FAMILY PHOCID^. the present connection : " The fat adhering to the skin of the seal is detached from it, cut into pieces, and melted in caldrons, after which the oil is poured in barrels. This is the simplest way of making seal-oil, and the Imnters often employ it. But oil is also manufactured by steam, in establishments built for this purj)ose on the left bank of the Volga, opposite Astrachan, by some rich merchants. Thirty- five 'versts' (about twenty miles) below Astrachan the Sapojnikow Brothers have built a steam oil-factory at the ' vataga' (fishing establishment) of Ikri- annaya. This factory is particularly busy in the spring, when whole cargoes of seal-fat arrive, which is either boiled immedi- ately in order to extract the oil, or is safely stored away in cel- lars. These cellars are long, floored, and furnished with four ventilators and several windows. Large oak-wood tubs, plated with lead on the inside, and capable of holding 700 ' ponds ^ (25,200 pounds) of oil each, are placed at intervals in holes dug in the ground. The oil which runs out of the seal fat piled up in layers flows into these tubs by way of an inclined plane. The oil is then poured into barrels Kalmyks are employed chiefly to detach the fat from the skins. They spread the skin, with the fur down, on an inclined plank, which they lean against their breast, in order to have the free use of both their hands. Then, armed with a two-handled knife, they scrape the fat from the skin. The oil, which is pure and clear, running down dur- ing this operation, flows into a reservoir let into the ground, holding 400 'pouds' (14:,400 pounds,) and forming a cube, each side of which measures one 'sagene' (7 feet). This work is ex- tremely fatiguing. A strong and experienced Kalmyk can, how- ever, clean 500 or even 700 skins in a single day. The workmen form associations, sharing their labor and their gain. "The fat is then melted in large tubs, where it is exposed to the action of steam. The oil flows through a funnel-shaped ap- paratus, and, finally, through pipes into immense oak-wood res- ervoirs. There are three such reservoirs connected by pipes, and let into the ground, so that the oil from the first flows into the second, and then into the third, from whence, through cocks, it i^asses into casks, which can be shipped as soon as filled. Each one of these reservoirs has a diameter of 3 ' sagenes,' (21 feet,) a depth of 1 'sagene,' (7 feet,) and can hold 4,800 'pouds' (172,000 pounds) of oil. "The oil thus extracted forms the first quality. The second quality is obtained by melting the residue in caldrons, and by NEEDLESS WASTE OF SEAL-LIFE. 551 pressing it. The color of this oil is dark brown. Before the res- idue is put into the caldrons, capable of holding 200 'i^ouds' (7,200 pounds) each, it is thrown into a receptacle with an in- clined bottom, and the whole mass is stirred violently by means of wooden shovels. This is done in the sunlight, so that the heat may help to melt the mass. This receptacle is joined to the caldron by a large gutter, which is walled uj) in the furnace. Through this gutter, the residue is led into the caldron, there to melt, which done, the mass is taken out with dippers and cast into a box, which is then j)ressed. By means of this last opera- tion all the remaining oil contained in the residue is extracted. "The oil factory of the Sapojnikow Brothers foruierly man- ufactured about 100,000 'ponds' (3,000,000 pounds) of seal- oil, which was sent to Moscow, where it was chiefly used in leather-factories; but during the last fifteen years, this estab lishment has gone considerably, and other wealthy Astrachan merchants, among them Messrs. Ylasow, Smoline, and Orek- how, have established several factories for the oil. " The skins of the seals are used for making knapsacks and for covering valises." * WASTEFUL DESTEUCTION OF SEALS. There is often a lamentably great and needless waste of Seal- life at the Newfoundland and other sealing- grounds. Mr. Car- roll, in 1871, pointedly called the attention of the government authorities to the so-called "panning" process, as a matter calling for statutory regulation. He says, " No greater in- jury can possibly be done to the seal fishery than that of bulk- ing seals on pans of ice, by crews of ice-hunters. Thousands of seals are killed and bulked, and never seen afterwards. When the men come up with a large number of old and young seals, that cannot get into the water, owing to the ice being in one solid jam, they drive them together, selecting a pan sur- rounded with rafted ice, on which thousands.of seals are placed one over the other, perhaps fifteen deep. A certain number of men is picked out by the shij) master to pelt and put on board the bulked seals, whilst others are sent to kill more. It often happens that the men are obliged to go from one to ten miles, before they come up with the seals again, and very often the men pile from five hundred to two thousand in each bulk, which *Rep. U. S. Commis. Fish and Fisheries, pt. iii, 1673-4 and 1874-5, pp, 95, 96. 552 FAMILY PHOCIDJE. bulks are from one to two miles apart ; care is also taken that flags are stuck up as a guide to direct the men where to find such bulked seals. So uncertain is the weather and precarious the shifting about of the ice, as well as heavy falls of snow and drift, that very often such bulked seals are never seen again by the men that killed and bulked them, as the vessels and steam- ships are frequently driven by gales of wind far out of sight or reach of them, and frequently wheeled or driven into another spot, where the men again commence killing and bulking as before. In many instances it has happened that the crews of vessels, as well as the crews of steamships, have killed and bulked twice their load, ifo doubt seals that are bulked are often picked up by the crews of other vessels, but such is the law, that as long as the flags are erected upon the bulks, and the vessel or steamship is in sight, no man can take them, not- withstanding the vessel's or steamship's men that bulked them may be ten miles away from thera, whilst another vessel may be driven within a quarter of a mile of the thousands of bulked seals, but owing to the law dare not take them." Sometimes af- ter Seals are bulked heavy gales of wind spring up, driving the vessels or steamships that claim them, as well as any others in the vicinity, twenty or thirty miles from them, and they are thus lost. "Ice-hunting masters make it a rule to have the seals bulked on large flat pans," In this way the skins are damaged by exposure to the weather, being injured by severe frosts, as Well as by the sun, so that "between frost and sun thousands of seal skins are rendered valueless." Loss also often happens by the capsizing of the pan of ice on which the skins are piled, and "the seals are never seen afterwards" — this forming the " greatest evil known to ice-hunters." In the spring of 1871, about four miles to the south of Bonavista Cape, there were three pans of ice, marked by flags, on which were piled not less than four thousand seals, but owing to the severity of the weather the men from the shore could not reach them. Owing to the heavy sea and bad weather none of them were ever obtained, as the pans passed over the Flower Rocks upon which the seals were ground to pieces. In the spring of 1872, some five thousand seals, obtained to the westward of Bonavista by the inhabitants of that place, were heaped upon the ice. " There were thirteen flags to be seen in the morning over bulked seals, and when the drift ice struck the land in the evening only six of the flags were visible, the ice having rafted over both DECREASE OF SEALS FROM INJUDICIOUS HUNTING. 553 flags and seals. Some days after, when the ice moved off from the shore, several bulks of seals were found, but in such a putrid state that they could not be handled. At the lowest calculation," continues Mr. Carroll, " I make bold to state that not less tha,n from ten to twelve thousand i^ounds currency worth of seals' pelts is lost to the country each sealing voyage [or season], by the present system, carried on by the sealing masters and their crews ! " The partial remedy that he suggests is that while no man should have the right to take any Seals of which he is not the owner as long as the owners watch over them, yet as soon as the proper owners leave them the Seals should be free prop- erty to any one who can take them away.* DECREASE IN THE NUMBER OF SEALS FROM INJUDICIOUS HUNTING. Formerly so numerous were the Seals commonly hunted in the North Atlantic and Arctic waters (consisting chiefly of the Harj) or Greenland Seal), that for many years the annual- de- struction of hundreds of thousands seemed not in the least to diminish their numbers, and as late as 1873 Mr. Carroll * gave it as his opinion that they were actually on the increase at the Newfoundland sealiug-grounds, an opinion concurred in by othei? authorities. Here, indeed, their number seems unlim- ited, but it is otherwise in the sealing-districts about Jan May en and elsewhere at the various sealing-stations north of the northern coast of Europe. As already detailed (see anted, pp. 503-510), a marked decline began to be apparent as early as 1865 to 1870, which each succeeding year increased at an alarm- ing rate. Attention was at once directed to the cause, which was evidently overdestruction by the rival sealing-fleets of England, Germany, and Norway, and ruinous and indiscrimi- nate slaughter at improper seasons. The agitation of the mat- ter which followed resulted, as already shown, in the enactment of close-time acts for the protection of the Seals during the period when the young are brought forth. The act on the part of the English came into force in 1876, and soon after similar legislative action was taken by the other interested govern- ments. While a close-time must be favorable to the increase of the Seals, or at least to the maintainance of their present * Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, pp. 82-34. + Ibid.,p. 26. 554 FAMILY PHOCID^. numbers, too little time has thus far elapsed to show to what extent it may prove beneficial. The chief victims of the seal-hunter in the Antarctic seas and on the Mexican and Lower Californian coasts — the Sea-Ble- phauts — long since (as previously stated, see antea, pp. 517-522) became practically exterminated on all the islands and coasts where they were formerlj' hunted, and where at the beginning of the present century they were found in immense troops, and in seemingly exhaustless numbers. SEALS AND SEAL-HUNTING IN THE OLDEN TIME IN THE GULF OF SAINT LAWRENCE. This already protracted account of the Seal-fishery may be fittingly closed with the following extract from Charlevoix respecting the Seals of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and the Seal-fishery as practised there one hundred and sixty years ago. Charlevoix's account is contained in his letters of travel addressed to the Duchesse of Lesdigiueres, which I give here in the quaint language of the Dodsley translation i^ublished 1761. Under date of March 21, 1721, he says: "The sea- wolf owes its name to its cry, which is a sort of howling, for as to its fig- ure it has nothing of the wolf, nor of any known land animal. . . . They never hesitate in this country to place the sea- wolf in the rank of fishes, tho' it is far from being dumb, is brought forth on shore, on which it lives as much as in the water, is covered with hah-, in a word, though nothing is want- ing to it which constitutes an animal truly amphibious. . . . Thus the war which is carried on against the sea- wolf, though ■ often on shore, and with muskets, is called a fishery ; and that carried on against the beaver, though in the water, and with nets, is called hunting. "The head of the sea- wolf," he continues, "resembles that of a dog ; he has four very short legs, especially the hind legs ; in every other circumstance he is entirely a fish [il est Poisson] : he rather crawls than walks on his legs ; those before are armed with nails, the hind being shaped like fins ; his skin is hard, and is covered with a short hair of various colours. There are some - a entirely white, as they are aU when first brought forth ; some grow black, and others red, as they grow older, and others again of both colours together. "The fishermen distinguish several sorts of sea- wolves; the largest weigh two thousand weight, and it is pretended have EARLY SEAL-HUNTING IN THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE. 555 sharper snouts than the rest. There are some of thera which flounce only hi water [qui ne sont que fretiller dans I'eau] ; our sailors call them frasseurs, as they call another sort nau, of which I neither know the origin nor meaning. Another sort are called Grosses fetes, Thic7:-heads. Some of their young are very alert, and dextrous in breaking the nets spread for them ; these are of a grejish colour, and are very gamesome, full of mettle, and as handsome as an animal of this figure can be * ; the Indians accustom them to follow them like little dogs, and eat them nevertheless. "M. Denis [Denys] mentions two sorts of sea- wolves, which he found on the coasts of Acadia ', one of them, says he, are so very large, that thek young ones are bigger than our largest hogs. He adds that a little while after they are brought forth, the parents lead them to the water, and from time to time conduct them back on shore to suckle them ; that this fishery is carried on in the month of February, when the young ones which they are not desirous of catching, t scarce ever go to water; thus on the first alarm the old ones take to flight, making a prodi- gious noise to advertise their young, that they ought to follow them, which summons they never fail to obey, provided the fishermen do not quickly stop them by a knock on the snout with a stick, which is sufiicient to stop them. The number of these animals upon this coast must needs be prodigious, if it is true, what the same author assures us, that eight hundred of these young ones have been taken in one day. . . . "It is by all agreed that the flesh of the sea-wolf is good eating, but it turns much better to account to make oil of it, which is no very difficult operation. They melt the blubber fat of it over the fire which dissolves into an oil. Oftentimes they content themselves with erecting what they call cliarniers, a name given to large squares of boards or plank, on which is spread the flesh of a number of sea- wolves ; here it melts of it- self, and the oil runs through a hole contrived for the purpose. This oil when fresh is good for the use of the kitchen, but that of the young ones soon grows rank, and that of the others if kept for any considerable time, becomes too dry [defleche trop]. In this case it is made use of to burn, or in currying leather. * An allusion probably to the Phoca vitulina, which is said to be very de- structive to nets. t The original — " lorsque les Petits, ausquels on en veut principalement" — states just the opposite. 556 FAMILY PHOCID^. • It keeps long clear, has no smell, or impurity whatsoever at the bottom of the cask. "In the infancy of the colony great numbers of the hides of sea- wolves were made use of for muffs. This fashion has long been laid aside, so that the general use they are now put to is the covering of trunks and chests. When tanned, they have almost the same grain with inorocco leather ; they are not quite so fine, but are less liable to crack, and keep longer quite fresh and look as if new. Very good shoes and boots have been made of them, which let in no water. They also cover seats with them, and the wood wears out before the leather ; they tan these hides here with the bark of the oak, and in the dye stuff with which they use black, is mixed a powder made from a certain stone found on the banks of rivers. This is called thunder- stone, or marcasite of the mines. "The sea wolves couple and bring forth their young on rocks, and sometimes on the ice ; their common litter is two, which they often suckle in the water, but ofteuer on shore ; when they would teach them to swim they carry them, say they, on their backs, then throw them off in the water, afterwards tak- ing them up again, and continue this sort of instruction till the young ones are able to swim alone. If this is true, it is an odd sort of fish, and which nature seems not to have instructed in what most sort of land animals do the moment they are brought forth. The sea-wolf has very acute senses, which are his sole means of defense : he is, however, often surprised in spite of all his vigilance, as I have already taken notice ; but the most common way of catching them is the following. " It is the custom of this animal to enter the creeks with the tide ; when the fishermen have found out such creeks to which great numbers of sea- wolves resort, they enclose them with stakes and nets, leaving only a small opening for the sea- wolves to enter ; as soon as it is high-water they shut this opening, so that when the tide goes out the fishes remain a dry, and are easily dispatched. They also follow them in canoes to the places to which many of them resort, and fire upon them when they raise their heads above water to breathe. If they happen to be no more than wounded they are easily taken ; but if killed outright, they immediately sink to the bottom like beavers ; but they have large dogs bred to this exercise, which fetch them from the bottom in even seven or eight fathoms of water. Lastly, I have been told, that a sailor having one day surprised GENUS PHOCA. 557 a vast herd of them ashore drove them before him to his lodg- ings with a switch, as he would have done a flock of sheep, and that he with his comrades killed to the number of nine hundred of them. ^Sit fides penes autoremP* Subfamily PHOCIN^ Gray. Genus PHOOA, Linne {emend.). Phoca, LiNisrfi, Syst. Nat., 1758, i, 37; ibid., 1766, i, 55 (in part). Pttsa, ScoPOLi, Introd. Hist. Nat., 1777, 490. — Type, Phoca fcetida. (See infra, under genus Halichoerus.) Caloc6phale \_Calloceplial(is'\, F. Cuviee, Mem. du Mus., xi, 1824, 182. — Type, Phoca vitiilina, Liun6. Calocephalus, F. CuviER, Diet. Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 544; lix, 1829, 462. Pagophilus, Gray, "Zool. Erebus and Terror, 1844, 3" (subgenus); Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, 25 (genus). — Type, Phoca groenlandica. Pagomys, Grat, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1864, 31. — Type, Phoca foctida, Fa- bricius. Ualicyon, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1864, 28. — Type, '^Halieyon richardV = Phoca vitiilina. Haliphilus, Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., xvii, 1866, 446. — Type, Hali- choerus antarcticus, Peale = Phoca vitulina. Incisors |^2 5 molars, except the first, 2-rooted and multi- lobed ; facial portion of the skull narrow, elongated, the dorsal outline gradually declining anteriorly ; general form of the skull rather flat, depressed, the interorbital region very narrow. The genus Phoca, as here defined, is composed of the smallest species of the family. The three here treated in detail, and the only ones thoroughly known, differ widely in cranial and other osteological characters, and by some writers have been each re- garded as the type of a distinct genus, and may be considered as entitled at least to subgeneric rank. The only genus closely allied to Phoca (unless Histriophoca be excepted, the cranial characters of which are unknown) is Erignathus, consisting of a single species, still placed by many writers in the genus Phoca. The form of the skull, however, is widely different, the muzzle being broad and short, the frontal region convex and very high, the orbital fossae and the auditory buUsB very small. Erignathus further differs from Phoca in having small supra-orbital pro- cesses ; in the total absence of the acromion process of the scap- * Journal of a VoyagetoNortli America (Dodsley translation), vol. i, 1761, pp. 222-226. For the original see Journal d'un Voyage fait par ordre du Eoi dans I'Amerique septentrinonale (12mo ed., 1744), pp. 211-216. 558 FAMILY PHOCIDiE. ula, and in lacking the abrupt eversion of the upper border of the ilia. The subgenus Phoca, consisting, so far as certainly known, of a single species {Phoca v if ulina), differs from Pusa { = Pagomys, Gray), and from PagopMlus, principally in its generally heavy structure, especially of the skull and dentition, and in the thick- ness of the body and the shortness of the limbs, particularly of the tibial and radial segments. In Pusa and PagopMlus the skull is similar in general outlines and proportions, it differing in both from Phoca in its generall}^ much slighter structure, very small teeth, flatness of the dorsal aspect of the brain-case, and the slen- . derness of the muzzle and whole facial region, as well as in the form of the lower jaw. PagopMlus differs from Pusa in having the posterior nares completely divided into two distinct pas- sages, by the complete ossification of the narial septum, in the broad form of the scapula, and in having only three, instead of four, anchylosed sacral vertebrtie — characters possibly of generic rather than subgeneric value. The well-known representatives of these groups are respectively Phoca foeUda and P. grcenland- ica, to which are to be referred also the Phoca caspica and the Phoca, sihirica.* As already noticed {antea, p. 417) the name Phoca, by strict adherence to rules of nomenclature, should be reserved for the Phoca Iconina, Linne, this being the only Linnean species of Phoca left after the removal (in 1824) of Phoca vitulina as the type of F. Ouvier's genus Gallocephalus. t Pusa of Scopoli, 1777, with Phoca foetida as the type, however, long antedates Gallo- cephalus, and would be strictly the name of the group were Phoca set aside. Yet as Pusa may be deemed by some as unten- able, and as to restrict Phoca, on, at best, a slight technicality, to what is now called Macrorhlnus, would be to subvert all the traditions of nomenclature relating to the generic name of our smaller Phocids, it seems best not to attempt, on so slight a pretext, a change in nomenclature that would doubtless be re- ceived with reluctance, if indeed it could be for a long time brought into general use. Callocephalus has been in more or less general use for the smaller Phocids ever since it was x)roposed by F. Cuvier in 1824, especially among the earlier French writers, and it has * If the Phoca nummularis of Temminck prove to be a valid, species its closest affinities are doubtless with P. vitulina. Ou this point see infra. t In the same paper, but eight images later, Phoca leonina, Linn6, was made the type of the same author's genus Macrorhinus. i PHOCA VITULINA HARBOR SEAL. 559 been also adopted by several EugUsh. and German zoologists. It has been given especial prominence by Dr. Gray and those who have followed his nomenclature. Latterly, however, Gray restricted it to the single species Phoca vitulina. Cuvier a,nd his followers placed in it not only Phoca vitulina^ P.fcetida, and P. groenlundica, but also P. harbata. As early as 1844, Gray removed Phoca harbata from the genus Callocephalus as the type and sole species of his restricted genus Phoca. At the same time Pagophilus, with Phoca (/rcenlandica as type, was proposed as a subgenus of Callocephalus^ but was later raised by him to full generic rank. In 1844 the same author introduced the " genera " Halicyon and Pagomys, with ^^ Phoca richardi,''^ Gray {= Phoca vitulina) as type of the former, while Phoca fcetida was chosen as the type of Pagomys. In 18G6 he bestowed the generic name Haliphilus upon the species Gill a few months before had called Phoca pealei. This being merely Peale's Halichoerus autarcticus, and the same as Gray's Salicyoii richardsi, the latter had now in use at the same time three ge- neric names for the single species Phoca vitulina, namely, Callo- cephalus, Halicyon, and Haliphilus! Pusa, ijroposed by Scopoli in 1777 as the generic name of a Seal previously figured and described by Mliller, is perhaps not without objections, although Scopoli's sole reference being to Mliller, the species intended is fixed beyond question, notwith- standing that his diagnosis is a pure absurdity. Miiller's figure was copied from a plate published twelve years before by Hout- tyn, which latter was a copy of a figure published by Albinus in 1756. Albinus's better plate and description were evidently based on an adult female Phoca fcetida. The name Pusa was overlooked or ignored till Gill in 1872 revived it as a substitute for Halichoerus.* PHOCA (PHOCA) VITULINA, LinnS. Harbor SeaL Phoca communis, Linne, Mus. Ad. Fred, i, 1754, 5. Fhoca vitulina, LiNis^, Syst. Nat., 1758, i, 38; ibid., 1766, i, 56; Faun. Suec, 1761, 2. — MtJLLER, Zool. Dan. Prod., 1776, 1. — Schreber, Sauget., jii, [1776?] 333, pi. Ixxxiv (figure from Buifon). — Erxleben, Syst. Reg. Anim., 1777, 583. — Fabricius, Faun. Groenl., 1780, 9 ; Skriv. Natuxh.- Selsk., ii, 1791, 98. — Gmelin, Syst. Nat., i, 1788, 63. — Kerr, Anim. King., 1792, 123.— Edmonston, View of Zetland, ii, 1809, 292.— G. * For a detailed history of Pusa, and a full transcript of Scopoli's diag- nosis, see infra under genus Halichoerus. 660 PHOCA VITULINA II ARBOR SEAL. CuviER, Ann. Mus. d'Hist. Nat. Paris, xvii, 1811, 377 (physical and intellectual faculties). — Desmarest, Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., xxv, 1817, 583, pi. sliv, fig. 3; Mam., 1820, 244.— Duvernoy, M^m. Mus. d'Hist. Nat. Paris, ix, 1822, 49, 165 (anatomy). — Scoresby, Voy. to Greenl., 1^23, 416. — E. Sabine, Parry's 1st Voy., Suppl., 1824, cxci. — Harlan, Faun. Amer. , 1825, 107. — Godman, Am. Nat. Hist., i, 1826, 311. — F. Cuvier, Diet. desSci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 543. — Schinz, Nat- urg. u. Abild. der Sauget., 1827, 166, pi. Isiv ; Synop. Mam., i, 1844, 480.— Fleming, Hist. Brit. Anim., 1828, 17.— Fischer, Syn. Mam.. 1829, 236.— Owen, Proc. Com. Zool. Soc. Lond., i, 1831, 151 (anat- omy).—Gray, Grilfith's Cuv. An. King., v, 1837, 176.— Bell, Brit. Quad., 1837, 263, figg. (skull and animal) ; ibid., 2ded., 1874,240.— NiLSSON, "Vet. Akad. Handl., 1837, ; HI. Fig. till Skand. Faun. ii, 1840, haft 20;" Arch, fiir Naturg., 1841, 310; Skand. Faun., Daggdj., 1847, 276.— Macgillivray, Brit. Quad., 1838, 199, pi. xviii. — Ball, Trans. Roy. Irish Acad., xviii, 1839, pi. iv, figg. 11-13, pll. V, vi; Sketches of Brit. Seals, 1839. j)l. viii, figg. 23-25 (animal), pi. ix, figg. 26-32 (anatomy). — Hamilton, Amphib. Carn., 1839, 127, pll. ii-iv, vi. — Richardson, Zool. Beech ey's Voy., 1839, 6 (northwest coast of North America). — Blainville, Ost^og., Phoca, 1840-1851, pi. ii (skeleton), pl.v (skull), pi. ix (dentition). — Jukes, Excurs. iu Newfoundland, i, 1842, 309. — Thompson, Nat. Hist. Vermont, 1842, 38; ibid.. Append., 1853, 13 (Lake Champlain). — Wagner, Schre- ber's Sauget., vii, 1846, 26, pi. 84. — •' Gaimard, Voy. en Islande et au Groenl., 1851, Atlas, pi. xi, figg. 3-5." — "Korner, Skand. Daggdj., 1855, pi. xi, fig. 1." — GiEBEL, Siiuget., 18.55, 136. — Blasius, Naturg. Wirb. Deutschl., i, 18.57, 248, figg. 136,137 (skull).— Gunn, Zoolo- gist, 1864, 9277, 9359.— " Holmgren, Skand. Daggdj., 1865, 213."— Giix, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 186(5, 12. — Packard, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., X, 1866, 270 (Labrador). — Lloyd, Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway, 1867, 381, colored plate. — Allen, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., i,1869, 193 (Massachusetts); ibid., ii, 1870, 25 (com- parison with Otariidae). — Reeks, Zoologist, 1871, 2541 (Newfound- land).— CoRDEAUX, Zoologist, 1872, 3203 (Lincolnshire coast, Eng- land).— Elliott, Cond. of Affairs in Alaska, 1875, 121. — Clark, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1874, 556 (Vancouver's Island and Califor- nia, etc.). — CORNALIA, i,62 (Mediterranean). — Lilljeborg, Fauna ofver Sveriges och Norges Ryggrads., 1874, 672. — Collet, BemsBrk- ninger til Norges Pattedyrfauna, 1876, 56. — Van Beneden, Ann. du Mus. Roy. d'Hist. Nat. du Belgique, i, 1877, 19 (geographical distri- bution, Avith chart). — Rink, Danish Greenland, its People and its Products, 1877, 123, 430.— Alston, Faun. Scotl., Mam., 1880, 13. Callocephalus vitulinus, F. Cuvier, Diet. Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 540. — Gray, " Zool. Erebus and Terror, 1844, 3 ; " Cat. Osteol. Spec. Brit. Mus., 1847, 32; Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, 21, fig. 7; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 20, fig. 7 ; Zoologist, 1872, 3333, 3335 (Brit. Isl.); Hand-List Seals, 1874, 2, pi. i. — Brown, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, 34^ 411 ; Man. Nat. Hist., etc., Greenl., 1875, Mam., 41.— Malm, Goteborgs och Bohusliins Fauna Ryggradsdjuren, 1877, 144. Phoca variegata, Nilsson, Skand. Faun., i, 1820, 359. SYNONYMY. 561 *' Phoca acopuUcola, Thienemann, Reisen von Nord. Europa, etc., i, 1824, 59, pi. V (ad. male)" (apiid Wagner, Blasius and others; referred to Halichocrus grypus by Gray). ^^ Phoca littorea, Thienemann, Reisen von Nord. Europa, etc., i, 1824, 61, pi. vi (male), pll.vii, viii (skulls)" {apud auvtori var.). 1 Phoca tigrina,, Lesson, Man., de Mam., 1827, 206 (=" Phoque tigr^," Krasch- enninikow. Hist. Kamtscli.). Phoca linnwi, Lesson, Diet, class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 414 (^ P. vitulina, Linnt?). ^ Phoca chorisi, Lesson, Dicf. class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828,417. — Fischer, Syn. Mam., 1829, 241 (="Chien de mer de D6troit de Behring," Choris, Voy. Pittoresq., pi. viii). Phoca canina, Pallas, Zool. Rosso-Asiat., i, 1831, 114 (at least in part). ^ Phoca larglui, Pallas, Zool. Rosso-Asiat., i, \Q'M, 113. ? CaUocepMlus largJia, Gray, Cat. Seals, 1850, 24 (= P. largha, Pallas). ? Pagomys f largha, Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 24 (same). tPhoca nummularis, Temminck, Faun. .Japon., Mam. Mar., 1842,3(=?P. largha, Pallas). — Wagner, Schreber's Siiuget., vii, 1846, 24 (same). — Von Schrenck, Amur-Lande, i, 1859, 180 (same). — Middendorff, Sibirish Reise. ii, Th. ii, 1853, 122 (same). t Pagomys^ mtmmtilarix. Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1864,31 (=Phoca nummularis, Temminck). Phoca concolor, Dekay, New York Zool., i, 1842, 53, pi. xviii, fig. 2. Plioca juhata. Hutching, Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California, 189, fig. HalichoerHS antarctwus, Peale, Rep. U. S. Ex. Ex., viii (Mam. and Orn.) 1848, 30, pi. V, (animal) wood-cut (skull). Lohodon carcinophaga, Cassin, Rep. U. S. Ex. Ex. {^Halichcerus antarcticus, Peale). Haliplxilus antarcticus. Gray, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist., xvii, 1866, 446 (:= Halichocrus antarcticus, Peale). HaUcyon richardsi. Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1864, 28 (Vancouver's Island) ; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 30, fig. 9 (skull) ; Proc. Zool. - Soc. Lond., 1873, 779 (Japan) ; Hand-List Seals, 1874, 4. (See Clark, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond, 1873, 556.) Phoca pealei. Gill, Proc. Essex Inst, v, 1866, 4, 13 (= Halichoerus antarcticus, Peale).— SCAMMON, Marine Mam., 1874, 164, pi. xxii, fig. 1 {^=" Phoca pealii,! Gill)." Halicy on pealei. Gray, Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 2. Phoca , Newberry, Pacif. R. R. Rep. Ex. and Surv., vi, pt. iv. No. 2, 1857, 51.— Cooper, Pacif. R. R. Rep. Ex. and Surv., xii, pt. ii, 1860, 78. Halicyoni calif ornica, Gray, Cat. Seals aud Whales, 1866, 367 (= " Hair Seal, Phoca juhata," of Hutching). Phoca fcetida, Bartlett, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, 402" (on the young at birth; a malidentificaton — see Sclater, ibid., 1871, 701). Vitulus maris Oceani, Rondelet, De Piscibus, 1554, 458, with fig. — Gesnbr, Hist. Anim. de Pisci. et Aquat., 1558, 705, (fig.). — Aldrovandus, De Piscibus, 1738, 723. " Vitulus marinm, Olaus Magnus, Hist, de Gent. Sept. 15.55, 701." Phoca vulgaris, .Fonston, Hist. Nat. de Piscibus et Cetis, 1649, 221, pi. xliv. Misc. Pub. No. 12 36 562 PHOCA VITULINA HARBOR SEAL. Phoca sell vitulus marinas, Ray, Syn. Quad. 1713, 1H9. — Bkisson, Reg. Anim., 1760, 162. Phoca, Worm, Mus. Worm., 1655, 289. Phoca dentihns caninis tectis, Lixx6, " Syst. Nat., 36"; Fauna Suec, 1746, 4. Phoca medice ma()nitadinis, Steller, Nov. Coinm. Petrop., ii, 1751, 290. Spraglei, Egede, Gronlands Naturel-Hist., 1741, pi. facing p. 46. BoUe, Swlhitnd, Pontoppidan, "Norg. Nat. Hist., ii, 1752, 203, fig. "; Nat. Hist, von Norwegen, ii, 1753, 237. Kassigiak, Cranz, Hist, von GriJnl. (zweite Aufl.) i, 1770, 163 (1st ed. 1765, not seen) ; Hist, of Greenl., i, 1767, 123. Phoque de notre Ocean, Buffon, Hist. Nat., xiii, 1765, 333,339, pi. xlv. Phoque commune, BuFFON, Hist. Nat., Suppl., vi, 1782, 330, pi. xlvi. — G. CuviER, Oss. Foss., iv, 1823, 278; v, 200.— F. Cuvier, Hist. Nat. des Mam., livr. xli, 1824. Seal, Pennant, Brit. Zool., 1766, 34. Common Seal, Pennant, Syn. Quad., 1771, 339; Arctic Zool., 2nd ed. i, 1792, 175. — Parsons, Phil. Trans., xlvii, 1753, 120, pi. vi. Leopard Seal, Scamaion, 1. c. Seel; Sa'lhund ; Landsa'l; Spragled Sa>l, Danish. Knuhhsjdl ; Sprdcklig Skdl ; Wikare Sjwl, Swedish. Steen-Eobhe, Norwegian. Seehund; Gemeine Seehund ; Gefleckte Seehund; Eohhe ; iS'ee^a?6, German. Phoque; Phoque commune ; Feau-marin; Loup-marln; Chien-itiarin ; French. Seal; Common Seal; Harbor Seal ; River Seal ; Bay Seal ; Land Seal ; Fresh- wafer Seal; Sea-Calf; Sea-Cat; Sea-Dog, English authors and Eng- lish local names. Selchie; - oil a dark j;i'ouikI. The markings vary in size froiii very small spots to large, irregular patches and streaks. The more common color is brownish-yellow, varied with spots and ■ life".. ,11 i|liri|li;j; • |'ll!lll'!''!il|!r'/]!);!lil||ii''''' jjji'(;'M!J;asr'!ir!'''i'i"!'''"r;»"i'? patches of darker, but not unfrequently the general color is blackish, more or less varied with spots, patches and streaks of lighter. The lower surtaee is generally thickly marked with small oval or roundish spots, smaller and less confluent than 564 PHOCA VITULINA HAT7BOR SEAL. those of the upper surface. Specimens from Denmark and the Atlantic coast of North America are indistinguishable from those from Lower California, Washington Territory, and Alas- ka. Specimens from the Pacific coast present the same wide range of color- variations, and precisely the same phases as those from the shores of the Atlantic. Captain Scammon gives the weight of two adult females from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, as 56 and 00 pounds respectively. Mr. Michael Carroll gives the weight of adults (sex not stated) as 80 to 100 i^ounds. Mounted specimens, apparently adult, vary in length from three to five feet. Scammon says that on the Pacific coast it " never exceeds six feet in length," and gives the length of the two above-mentioned females as respectively from "tip of nose to tip of tail" 3 feet 8 inches and 3 feet 10 inches. Mr. Paul Schumacher gives the length of a "female Marbled Seal," sent to the Museum of Comparative Zoology from Santa Barbara Island, California, as 0 feet from tip of nose to the end of the hind flippers, which would make the length to the end of the tail about 5 feet 6 inches. Lilljeborg gives the total length to the end of thehind flippers as 5 feet 8 inches (Swedish) or 1740 mm. Bell says, "Length of adult from three to five feet", \uthors generally give the length as from 3 to 0 feet. I find the length of an adult (disarticulated) skeleton to be about 4 feet, or 1225 mm., while Lilljeborg gives the length of the skeleton as 5 feet 1 inch or 1530 mm. In the large series of skins and skulls I have examined very few were marked for sex, and I find nothing explicitly stated by authors in relation to sexual difference in size. Unlike the Phoca fcetida, P. grcenJandicn, and most other Pho- cids of the northern waters, the first coat is shed before or soon after birth, but as to the exact time at which it is cast authori- ties disagree. Mr. Bartlett, in describing a young Seal ©f this species (wrongly identified at the time as PJioca foetifla)^ born in the Garden of the London Zoological Society June 8, 1868, says : "It was born near the edge of the water, and in a few minutes after its birth, by rolling and turning about, was com- pletely divested of the outer covering of fnrund hair, which formed a complete mat, upon which the young animal lay for the hour or two after its bu-th".* *Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 205. DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERS. 565 It is sometimes stated that the ftetal coat is retained for four or Ave days after birth, but other writers affirm that it is shed at the time of birth. Mr. Kumlieu, in his MS. notes * on this species, says that the Esquijnaux affirm that the "youngs remain in the white coat but three or four days, differing greatly in this respect from Pngomys fcetidus.^^ Distinctive Characters. — The common Harbor Seal, the Kinged Seal, and the Harp Seal, during its earlier stages, are not always certainly distinguishable by color, and are appar- ently not easy to determine by any other external characters, save one, that have yet been pointed out. The Ringed Seal {Phoca foetida) can always be recognized by the length of the first digit of the manus, which slightly exceeds all the others. When adult, and in the flesh, they must each present well- marked external differences, not only in color but in proportions and form. P. fcctida is the smallest of the three, while the Harp Seal (P. grcenlandica) is the largest, and when adidt, is easily distinguished by coloration alone. P. vituUna, judging from the skeleton, is a comparatively robust form, with a large head, broad nose, and rather short limbs. The others are more slender, with a narrower and more pointed nose, and a smaller and more delicately shaped head. By the skull, or by any of the i>rincipal bones of the skeleton, particularly of the limbs, they can be easily distinguished, as will be shown by the fol- lowing rather extended osteological comparisons, with the ma- terial for which I am fortunately well pro-vided. As is well known, P. vitulina is easily distinguished from the other species of PJioca above named by its heavy dentition, the molars especially being very broad and thick, closely crowded together and set obliquely in the jaw, whereas in both P, foetida and P. (jroenlandiea the teeth are very small, normally implanted, and separated bj' well-marked diastema. They also *Mr. Ludwig Kiimlien, naturalist of the "Howgate Polar Expedition" (I877-'78), kindly placed at my service Ms report, while in manuscript, on the mammals collected and observed by him in and near Cumberland Sound, from which the extracts given in the following pages as from Mr. Kumlien's "MS. notes" were taken. A year later, and as these pages are passing through the press, his full report has appeared as " Bulletin No. 15" of the United States National Museum, under the title '^Contributions to the Nattiral History of Arctic America, made in connection with the Howgate Polar Expedition, 1877-78. By Ludwig Kumlien. Naturalist of the Expedi- tion." Washington: Government Printing Office. 1879. 8vo, pp. 179. The account of the Seals occupies pp. 55-64. 566 PHOCA VITULINA HARBOR SEAL. have the cingulum smooth, while iu P. vitulina it is more or less distinctly beaded (sometimes striated) ou the anterior por- tion of the inner side, especially in earlj- life, and ou the three anterior teeth. In old age, however, this feature often becomes wholly obliterated. The oblique position of the teeth in the Jaw evidently results from their large size, the space for their reception being too short to permit of their standing end to end in the usual manner. Their large size also results in, or neces- sarily accompanies, a considerable modification of the whole facial portion of the skull, which is greatly thickened and. broadened, in comparison with the same part in the other above- mentioned species. Passing to the palatal region, P. vitulina and P. fcetida present an essential agreement, the posterior nares in both being rather abruptly narrowed posteriorly ; the hind border of the j)alatines is deeply hollowed, and the narial septum is imperfectly developed at its posterior border. In P. fcetida it remains wholl}" unossified behind the palato- maxillary suture, except the buttress-like extensions along the narial roof and floor, and ossification of the septum is carried but little further in P. vitulina. In P. groenlandica, however, the septum is fully and even heavily developed to the very end of the squarely truncated hind border of the palatines, dividing verti- cally the posterior narial opening, which is scarcely at all con- tracted, into two distinct passages. Its transverse breadth is nearly twice its vertical width, while in P. vitulina these dimen- sions are nearly equal. The auditory buUse differ considerably iu form in each of the three species here compared. In general form they have in each the outlines of a nearly equilateral triangle, but the sides are set in each at a different angle relatively to the transverse axis of the skuU. In P. fcetida the anterior border is nearly parallel with the plane of this axis ; in P. vitulina the two form an acute angle, while in P. groenlandica they form nearly a right angle. The anterior face of the bullae is nearly jjlane in P. fcetida, strongly hollowed in P. grcenlandica, and sUghtly so in P. vitulina. In both P. fcetida and P. groenlandica the lateral ex- tension forming the lower border of the meatus auditorius is depressed and swollen or rounded below, forming an abruptly constricted neck to the bulla proper, but in P. vitulina it slopes evenly from the highest part of the bulla and terminates in a uniformly tapering triangular point. The facial portion of the skuU, as idready intimated, is broad DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERS. 567 and heavy in P. vitiilina, to give room and support for the thick strong teeth ; in P. foetida it is short and narrow, and uniformly tapering; in P. grcenlandica the muzzle is narrow, rather lengthened and attenuated. The teeth of the molar series in P. vituUna are relatively about two and a half to three times larger than in either of the other species. In respect to other characters of the skull, the orbital fossse are relatively larger in P. foetida than in either of the othei'S, with the inner wall more deeply excavated, and the zygomatic border rather angular (sometimes very markedly so) instead of regularly convex. P. vituUna differs still further in the greater development and inward curvature of the malar process of the zygomatic arch. Another striking difference is seen in the gen- eral contour of the upper surface of the skull, which in P. vitvUna is rather sharply convex, with (in old males) the ridges formed for the attachment of the masseter muscles closely approxi- mated along the median line, or sometimes actually meeting to form a low, broad, incipient sagittal crest, while in both P. groenlandica and P. foetida the whole top of the skull is nearly flat, and the ridges for the attachment of the masseter muscles form a thickened line at the edge of the skull where the lateral and dorsal surfaces meet at a rather sharp angle. The lower jaw in P. vituUna is very heavy and short ; the symphysis is very short, behind which the rami abruptly bow outward and widely diverge ; the rami are very thick, with the axis of expansion nearly vertical, and there is no inward cur- Tature of the inferior border. In P. grcenlandica the lower jaw is very slender with a rather long symphysis ; the rami are very thin and broad, the inferior borders of which curve inward so as to nearly or quite meet for one-third of the length of the jaw, or nearly as far back as the last molar, while the plane of verti- cal expansion is very oblique. The lower jaw in P. foetida quite nearly resembles, in general form, that of P. groenlandica. In P. vituUna the vertical diameter of the ramus just behind the last molar is only about two and a half times greater than the transverse is at the same point, while in P. groenlandica it is fully four times greater. P. vituUna also differs from the others by the abrupt angle formed by the ascending ramus.* * As Tvill be noticed later {infra, p. 573) the lower jaw in P. vituUna varies greatly in form and stoutness with age, and probably also with sex. In the foregoing comparison the lower jaw of a very old male P. vituUna has been compared with others corresponding in age and sex of P. grcenlandica and P. foetida. 568 PHOCA VITULINA HARBOR SEAL. "Without going into a detailed comparison of the bones of the general skeleton, a few points may be briefly noticed. The scapula has nearly the same general outline in both P. vitu- lina and P. foefida, but dift'ers widely from that of P. groenJan- dica, mainly through the great development of the posterior upper portion of the blade, which is greatest in P. intuUna. In other words the scapula in P. grcenlandica is less " sickle-shaped" than in the others owing to the greater development of the pre- scapular portion and the less development of the post-scapular part. In P.fcetida the infra-acromial portion is much elongated, so that although the scapula is much smaller than in P. vitulina, its length is greater. In P fcetida the length to the breadth* is as 1 to 0.847 ; in P. intulina, as 1 to 1.155 ; in P. grcenlandica as 1 to 0,908. The width of the post-scapular fossa to the whole breadth is, in P. fcetida, as 0.577 to 1 ; in P. vitulina as 0.609 to 1 ; in P. grcenlandica as 0.664 to 1. The bones of both the fore and the hind limbs vary considera- bly in size and form with each species, but only the difference in the relative length of the several segments of the limb, com- pared with its whole length, will be here noted. In both fore and hind limbs the second segment is relatively much shorter in P. vitulina than in either P. fcetida or P. grcenlandica ; in P. grcenlandica the pes is relatively much lengthened while the manus is of the same length as in P. vitulina. The proportion- ate length of the femur to the tibia varies as follows : in P.fce- tida the femur to the tibia is as 1 to 2; in P. vitulina as 1 to 1.8; in P. grcenland'ca as 1 to 2.3. The proportionate length of the femur to the pes is as 1 to 2.7 in P. fcetida, 1 to 2.4 in P. vitulina. and 1 to 2.9 in P. grcenlandica ; of the femur to the whole limb, respectively, 1 to 5.7 ; 1 to 4.3 ; 1 to 6.2. This difference is mainly due to two elements of variation, — the shortness of the tibia in P. vitulina and the great length of the pes in P. grcenlandica. The ratio of the pes to the whole limb, however, is nearly con- stant, being as follows: in P. fcetida, 1 to 2.14; in P. vitulina, 1 to 2.16 ; in P. grcenlandica, 1 to 2.13. P. vitulina presents another noteworthy point of difference from its allies in the relative shortness of the pelvic bones, which is directly proportionate to that of the tibia and radius, or vsecond limb segments. In both P. vitulina and P. grcenlandica the length * The supra-scapular epiphysis is iu each case omitted from the compaii- son, and only the scapulae of adults of comparable ages are employed. DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERS. 5G9 of the pelvis is precisely that of the tibia, being respectively 200 mm. aud 255 mm. P. fcvtida presents a different ratio, due not to the shortness of the pelvis so much as to the great length of the tibia, the tibia measuring 190 mm. and the pelvis 170 mm. Xot only is the dentition exceptionally heavy in P. vituUna, but the whole skull is ponderous, in striking contrast with the light thin skull of either of the other species. In other words, P. vituUna is a hig-headed, short-bodied, and short-limbed spe- cies. While the linear dimensions of old male skulls fully equal or somewhat exceed the same measurements of equally old male skulls of P. grcenlandica, the length of the limbs, and also the entire skeleton, is much less, as shown by the following measurements : * Species. Length of the — SkuU. Fore limb.* Hind limb. Whole skeleton. Phoca vitulinat Phoca groenlandicat Phoca foetidaj: Millimeters. 220 210 163 Millimeters. Millimeters 499 550 534 582 677 450 Millim,eteri 1,225 1,630 1,308 " Including scapula. t Adult male". X Adult female. The fore limb, as well as the total length of the animal, is even actually shorter than in P. fmtida, although the latter is a much smaller animal. The ratio of the length of the skull to the length of the whole skeleton in the three species in ques- tion is as follows: in Phoca vituUna^ as 1 to 5.G; iu FJioca' grcen- landica, as 1 to 8 ; in Phoca fwtida, as 1 to 8.G. Measurements (in millimeters) of the principal jjarts of the skeletons of these three species are presented in the following table, from which it will be seen that the shortness of the caudal vertebrae in Phoca vituUna is also a noteworthy j)oint. This is due in part * The largest skull of F. vituUna iu a series of ten measures 223 mm. in length and 144 mm. iu extreme breadth, while the largest skull of P. grcen- landica in a series of twelve measures 228 mm. in length and 133 mm. in breadth. No other in the series, however, exceeds a length of 220 mm. or a breadth of 128 mm. , old skulls of P. vituUna averaging the longer, with the breadth very much greater. 570 PHOCA VITULINA — HARBOR SEAL. to the small size of these vertebrae, but in part to their reduced number.* Measurenientaof the principal parts of the skeleton in Phoca vitulina, Phoca grcm- landica, and Phoca fceiida. Principal parts. Length of the skull 1 Length of the cervical vertebraa I Length of the dorsal vertebrae . . j Length of the lumbar vertebrae. Length of the sacral vertebrae 1 . Length of the caudal vertebrae . Length of the scapula Length of the hvunems j Length of the radius ' Length of the manna Length of the pelvis : Length of the femur I Length of the tibia Length of the pes o 220 210 445 216 120 230 135 114 105 145 200 112 200 270 §1 bO.' o o c8 o o 210 240 510 255 100 317 152 123 130 145 255 109 255 313 163 200 410 190 100 245 137 100 95 128 170 94 190 250 * The vertebral formulae of the five species of northern Phocids, of which I have before me several complete skeletons of each, are as follows : Species. Cervical vertebrae. Dorsal vertebrae. Lumbar vertebrae. Sacral vertebrae. Caudal vertebrae. Phoca vitulina Phoca foetida Phoca groenlandica . . , Erignathus barbatus Cystophora cristata. 15 15 15 15 15 10 14 13 13 10 The number of sacral and caudal vertebrae, especially the latter, may be subject to individual variation, as Gerrard (Cat. Bones of Mam. iu Brit. Mu8., 1862, p. 143) gives 3 sacral and 12 caudal for P. vitulina. Lilljeborg also gives only 3, but adds that a very old skeleton has 4. In each of the four skeletons of this species which I have examined 4 vertebrae are firmly anchylosedto form the sacrum; in three of these the caudal series is imper- fect. Gerrard gives also only 3 sacral for Erignathus barbatus (Ibid., p. 145), while in two skeletons I find 4 in each. Lilljeborg gives the length of the tail in Phoca vitulina at 69 mm.- and in Phoca foetida, male, 150 mm., female, 144. t In two very old skeletons of Phoca groenlandica I find the sacrum to con- sist of only three anchylosed vertebrae. In both the other species the sa- crum consists of four anchylosed vertebrae. INDIVIDUAL AND SEXUAL VARIATION. 571 In respect to other features, it may be added that the relative length of the first and second phalanges of the thumb in P. vitulina and P. grcenlandiea is reversed. While the length of the whole digit is nearly the same in the two, the phalanges notably vary, the first phalanx being short and the second long in P. viiuUna, while in P. grcenlandiea the first is long and the second short. The relative length of the digits of the manus is nearly the same in both, P. fcetida, as already stated, being easOy distinguished from either by its having the first digit decidedly the longest and the others successively shorter. Individual and Sexual Variation. — The wide range of color- variation has been already noted in the general descrip- tion of the external characters, and this appears to be in great measure independent of either sex or age. After allowing for the thickening of the bones and the development of rugosities for the attachment of muscles, there still remains a considerable range of variation in the skull and other bones that may be con- sidered as purely indi\idual. The variations in the skull are shown to some extent by the subjoined table of measurements, but unfortunately very few of the skulls I have examined have been marked for sex. Those known to be those of aged males are noticeably the largest and heaviest, and the most roughened by tuberosities and incipient crests. The largest and heaviest of all is a very old male skull from Santa Barbara Island, Cali- fornia, but this is nearly paralleled by another from the coast of Massachusetts, also that of a very old male. In adult skulls ranging in length from 210 mm. to 223 mm., the greatest width varies from 124 mm. to 144 mm., with corresponding variations in the dimensions of special parts. The nasal bones vary in both length and width fuUy twenty-five per cent, of their mean di- mensions. There is an equally great amount of variation in the width of the muzzle, and nearly as great in the bones of the pal- atal region. The form and size of the narial openings are espe- cially subject to variation, as shown in the subjoined table. In both PhoGafcetida and Phoca grcenlandiea the female skull is much smaller, lighter, and weaker in structure than the male skull, and I believe that corresponding sexual differences in the skull obtain in Phoca vitulina^ if indeed they are not even still more strongly marked. Among old skulls two well-marked forms occur, differing in the one being much less massive, smaller, and every way slighter than the other, with the facial portion of the skull narrower and the teeth smaller, the lower 572 PHOCA YITULINA HARBOR SEAL. jaw very much weaker and narrower, and the rami much less bowed outward, scarcely more so than in P. groenlandica. In this slighter form the teeth are so much smaller that occasion- ally they are placed (in the upper jaw especially) end to end in- stead of being- set obliquely, and even sometimes slightly spaced. "Although the skulls are unmarked as to sex, I believe the slighter skulls to be those of females. The sexual differences in size and cranial characters in this, the common Seal of our temperate American and European wa- ters, appear to still remain inadequately investigated, and se- ries of sexed examples seem to be still desiderata in our best collections. The only reference to the subject that I recall are the following incidental observ^ations by Mr. John W. Clark, who, in discussing the assumed distinctive characters of Dr. Gray's HaUcyon riehardsi, says : " The thickening of the lower jaw may be a sexual distinction. A skull, unquestionably of a male, pos- sesses it in a marked degree, while that of a female of ai^par- ently about the same age, is slender." * ]\[y attention has been forcibly drawn to this matter by a skull (So. 6783, Sat. Mus.) from Plover Bay (Siberian coast of Behr- ing's Straits), which I at first referred unhesitatingly to Phoca rltulina, when examined in connection with a large series from both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of America, but later, when compared again with a smaller series, I thought it might repre- sent a form closely allied to, but still specifically distinct from, P. vituUna — probably the so-called Phoca ^'- nummularis ''\ On collating it again with the full series at first examined it seemed undoubtedly to be only an old female of P. vituUna. Aside from the general slighter and more delicate structure of the skull, the most notable differences are the smaller, normally implanted, and even slightly spaced molar teeth, the narrowness of the t^icial portion of the skull, and the corresponding narrowness of the lower jaw and absence of the abruj)t outward curvature of the rami at the last molar. In general form the lower jaw is much like that of P. {/roenlandica, exce])t that the vertical width of the ramus is much less, and the plane of its vertical expansion not nearly so oblique. Other skulls, which are undoubtedly those of P. vituUna, so closely resemble this that it is impossible to regard it as otherwise than an exceptionally attenuated female skull of P. vituUna. One or two others in the series, also \}vq- sumed to be female, have the teeth small and implanted in a * Proc. Zool. Soc. LoiuL, 1873, p. 557. INDIVIDUAL AND SEXUAL VARIATION. 573 4 straight liue, while in still others the anterior teeth are so im- planted, only the ijosterior two of the series being more or less oblique. The variations attending increase of age are chiefly the grad- ual thickening of all j)arts of the bony framework of the skull, and in the males the development of all the processes for the attach- ment of muscles, of slight rugosities, an incipient sagittal crest, and a more abrupt outward cui'vature of the mandibular rami. It is also noteworthy that the teeth are frequently less crowded in the jaw and less oblique in position in the adult and old-age stages than during the earlier periods of development. It would seem hardly necessary to note the varying position with age of the ridges bounding the temporal muscles, since such variation is usually seen in mammals which have these ridges well marked, were it not that a difference in the position of the temporal ridges has been cited by Dr. Gray as a character distinctive of his so-called ^'•HaJlcyon richardsV^ as compared with Phoca vitu- Una* In very young animals the brain-case is smooth, showing no trace of the temporal ridges ; later they are slightly marked and widely diverge ; as the age of the animal increases these ridges become stronger and less divergent, and in very aged ex- amples nearly or wholly meet along the median line of the skull, forming a low, broad crest, slightly divided along the middle by a shallow furrow, which may or may not widen posteriorly into a small flat triangular space, t * Hand-List of Seals, etc., 1874, p. 5. t For aflditioual remarks on individual variation in the characters of the skull see Clark, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1873, pp. 556, 557. 574 PHOCA VITULINA HARBOR SEAL. S CD S "^ I •93v 2 &» b "3 ^ t> AiBfjajioijo q!>3a9i S I^Sctcocoo^ •9BB0-niBjq JO mpiAV (jsaj^ajf) £ § Od O) OS 0 * • § g •esBO-uiBjq JO q;3a9i S 00 00 Hi 00 •ise\j}iq XiofHpuB (jb ni^is jo ^qSieq ;j89^b9j£) S S » N 05 in o t- 00 t- t- t- s s •^X9ai9A8irBJ!» 'sgaBU aou9;iiB jo q^pBajg; s g? s s s s g •jSnB0t!)j9A '99j'Ba jou9;aB JO q:jpB9ag; ss S g : : S S •^{9ej9ABnBJ^ '89JBU aou9!)sod JO q^p^gjg; 33 OS OS o> 00 « N M 00 g 35 •i£n^ai?J9A 's9JBa jotju^eort jo q:>pi39Ja; S o 5-1 o OS t- IM r-l iH 00 O CO CQ CI •in^iiqjoj9|ni linJiB jo q^pB9jq %we9^ 1-1 1— 1 CO in « fH M CO in •89mu'B0 fjB ipima JO q(jpB9ja: § 00 to 00 00 sod (j-b noiSoj \'e%vfsi jo g^piA •■BUfX'Bni JO J.9pjoq JBX09AXB JO q^Snai •ipini'eq ptoSAlidjd jo l^osot-oocoosoN pno o^ ojafTLS Ki'e'[\ixvui-o%v[ed raog 90TiB!ieT{i | ;'ni>-*TipB9Ja; •q^Sa9i Oi-tOt^OOOCDOSCO t»CM= OS : 00 I « s; O ^1 :: •o O « 9 t M a U S -S l> CO *j9qtnnn 9n9o^'B'^'BQ to M" O CO •n to CO CO CO 00 to t^ no Tt" 00 »n t- to •* iH CD CO ^ ^ CD (S > n i£ n t. 3 .H N ja ^ ^ r' ^ ^ 'n bJ 2. o r* w ^ O C3 a 2 o T) 1^ m 3 iSa GENERAL HISTORY AND SYNONYMY. 575 General History and Synonymy. — The common Seal is mentioned in the earliest works on natural history, having been described and rudely figured by various writers as early as the middle of the sixteenth century, as well as during the seven- teenth century. Even down to the time of Linn6 it was the only species recognized; or, more correctly, all the species known were usually confounded as one species, supposed to be the same as the common Seal of the European coasts. Consequently almost down to the beginning of the present century the "com- mon Seal" was generally supposed to inhabit nearly all the seas of the globe, Buffbn, Pennant, Schreber, and others refer- ring to it as an inhabitant of the Southern Hemisphere. Linn^ distinguished only a single species, even in the later editions of his "Systema ISTaturse." As is well known, the smaller species of Seal are with difficulty distinguishable by external characters, particularly during their younger stages. Few, however, are so variable in color as the present, and none has so wide a geographical range. It is hence not surprising that its varj-ing phases should have been made the basis of numer- ous nominal species. As shown by the above table of syn- onymy, the species was first introduced into systematic liter- ature by Linn6 in 1754, under the name Phoca communis. He later changed its name to Phoca vitulina, which specific desig- nation it has since generally retained. Although the name vitulina was, without doubt, based primarily on the animal commonlj^ designated by that name, it originally covered ref- erences to other species, but its limitation to the species now under consideration has been so long currently accepted that only needless confusion would result from any hair-splitting device by means of which some later and more strictly appli- cable name might be substituted. To Fabricius is due the credit of first clearly discriminating the various species of Seals inhab- iting the Arctic waters, and by him, in his classic memoir on the Seals of Greenland,* the present species was first described in detail, and its early literary history clearly set forth. Pen- nant, Schreber, Erxleben, and Gmelin, it is true, had already recognized other sj)ecies, based, however, mainly on Fabricius's earlier work, "Fauna Grcenlandica," and on Miiller's "Prodro- mus ". The latter, so far as the Seals are concerned, rests also on Fabricius's manuscript notes published by Miiller. Later, as al- * Udforlig Beskivelse over de Gronlandske Stele. Skriv. af Naturhistorie- Selskabet, Iste Bind, Iste Hefte, 1790, pp. 79-157; 2det Hefte, 1791, pp. 73-170. 576 PHOCA VITULINA HAEBOR SEAL. ready indicated, numerous writers have contributed to its history. The first synonym of note was published by Xilsson in 1820, who renamed the species variegata, but the name never came into general use, and was soon after abandoned by Nils- son himself, who later adopted vitulina. Thienemann, in 1824, described the species as Phoca littorea, and also in the same work gave the name Phoca scopulicola to an animal referred by some writers to Phoca vitulina and by others to HaUchcerm grypus.* Lesson has furnished his usual quota of synonyms by giving to Linne's Phoca vitulina the name Phoca linncei, and by bestowing the names tigrina and chorisi on the common spot- ted Seal of the Xorth Pacific, the first being based on the Phoque tigre of Krascheuninikow from Kamtschatka, and the other on Choris's figure of his Chien de mer of Behring's Straits, neither of which can be positively determined, but may be re- ferred with little doubt to the present species. The Phoca canina of Pallas is generally conceded to be a syn- onym of Phoca vitulina. The same author's Phoca largha, ap- plied to a Kamtschatkan Seal, has been the source of more trouble, it being too inadequately described to admit of positive determination. Temminck believed it to be identical with a Seal from Japan, and renamed it Phoca nummularis. In his re- marks on the Seals of this region he says : "Le troisieme Phoque des parages septentrionaux de I'ocean pacifique nous est connu d'apres trois jeunes indi^idus et d'ajires un nombre 6gal de peaux incompletes d'individus adultes, tons raj)portes du Ja- pon par M. M. de Siebold et Burger. C'est evidemment le deu- xi^me Phoque de Steller, Descr. du Camtsch. j). 107, et I'espece dont Pallas fart mention en traitant du Phoque commun, 1. c. [Zool. Eosso-Asiat.] p. 117, nota 2 ,• puis le Phoque, figure sans^ le moindre detail descriptif, dans le voyage de Choris, PI. 8, sous le nom de Phoque du detroit de Behring ; peut-etre con- vient-il egalement de rapprocher de cette espece inedite le Phoca largha de Pallas, ibid. p. 113, n**. 13. Quoi qu'il en soit, nous avons cru devoir conferer a ce Phoque le nom qu'il porte, suivant Pallas, 1. c. p. 117, chez les Busses, savoir celui de Phoque uummulaire, Phoca nummularis." There being no evidence to the contrary, it may be assumed, as most subse- quent writers have assumed, that Temminck's Phoca nummu- * Thienemanu's work, " NatiuMstorische Bemerknngeu gesammelt auf eiuer Reise im Norden voii Euroi)a, vorzliglicli in Island in d. Jahm 1820 bis 1821," I have been unable to see. Giebel and Blasius refer P. scopidieoJa to P. vitulina, while Gray assigns it to H. grypus. GENERAL HISTORY AND SYNONYMY. • 577 laris and Pallas's Phoca larglia are the same. Temminck has given a detailed description of the six skins above mentioned as received from Japan, and also of fragments of the sknll re- moved from the skins of the young individuals. He notes especially the wide range of color-variation presented by his skins, each of which differs considerably from all of the others, the variations being greatest in the adult examples. He gives the length of the largest adult specimen as about five feet, and that of the young as two and a half to three feet. He de- scribes one skin as having exactly the markings represented in Choris's figure, and says it has a close resemblance to certain varieties of the Ringed Seal. The coloration of these specimens, as described, presents nothing incompatible with their refer- ence to either Phoca foetida or Phoca rituHna^ both of which species occur in the region in question. The fragments of the skulls are not described in detail, but he says they serve to show that the skull of his Phoca nummu- laris greatly resembles that of the " Phoque k croissant, notam- raent par la configuration de la region interorbitaire, qui est^ par devant, plus large que dans le crane du Phoque annele. Quant au systeme dentaire," he continues, "il n'otfre pas la moindre disparite de celui du Phoque a croissant et du Phoque annele." He states his conclusion as follows : " Ce Phoque est en quelque sorte intermediaire entre le Phoque a croissant (Phoca oceanica) [=Phoca grcenlandica, auct.] et le Phoque annelle, (Phoca hispida, Schreber, Saugth., Ill, p. 312, n°. 6, Tab. 86; Phoca foetida, Miiller, Prodr., p. 8; Phoca annellata, Nilsson, Skand. Fauna, I, p. 362) ; car il otfre beaucoup d'ana- logie avec le premier par la configuration de son crane, notam- ment par celle de la region interorbitaire ainsi par celle de ses dents, tandis qu'il se rapproche davantage du second par son systeme de coloration."* Temminck's specimens have also passed under the inspection of Dr. Gray, who says: "This species [Gray's "P«^owys? nummularis,''^ 1864, his " Pagomys f Largha'\ 1866] is only known from some skins and three fragments of skulls in the Leyden Museum. My excellent friend, Professor Schlegel, the ener- getic Curator of the Leyden Museum, has most kindly sent to me for examination and comparison the fragments of skulls above referred to : they consist of the face-bone and the lower * Fauna Japon., Mam. Mar., p. 3. Misc. Pub. No. 12 — ^37 578 PHOCA VITULINA HARBOR SEAL. jaws of three specimens ; the most perfect specimen has part of the orbit and the upper part of the brain-case attached to it. They are all from very young specimens, of nearly the same age ; and, unfortunately, the most perfect one is without the hinder portion of the palate, so that one cannot make sure that it has the same form of palatine region that is found in Pagomys ; but the part of the side of the palate that is present, when compared with the same part in Pagomys, leads one to think it most likely to be of the same form as in that species. a rpjjg general form and size of the face, and the form of the teeth are those of a skull of Pagomys fcetidus of the same age. It only differs from the latter in the lower j aw being rather shorter and broader, in the grinders being larger, thicker, and rather closer together, in the central lobe of the grinders being considerably larger, thicker, and stronger, and in all the lobes of the grinders being more acute. The lower margin of the lower law is dilated in front, just as in Pagomys foetidiis ; but the jaws behind the dilatation diverge more from each other, leaving a wider space between them at the hinder part. The form of the hinder angle of the jaws is very similar in the two si)ecies. The orbit is rather smaller and more circular ; for in P. fcetidus it is rather oblong, being slightly longer than wide. The forehead ap- pears, as far as one can judge by the fragments, to be flatter and broader, and the nose rather shorter." Dr. Gray also adds, in his diagnosis of the species: "The lower jaws short and broad; the grinders thick, with a broad, thick central lobe, and nearly side by side (in the skulls of the young animals)." He also gives comparative measurements of a skull of a young P. fcetidus and of P. nummularis, but with a good series of young skulls of the former, from the foetal stage upward, I fail to fully under- stand his measurements. " The Phoca nummularis,^^ Dr. Gray continues, "has been con- sidered to be identical with Phoca Largha of Pallas, from the east shore of Kamtschatka, the Phoca Ghorisii of Lesson, and the Phoque tigre of Kraschenuenikow (which has been named Phoca tigrina by Lesson), on the strength of their coming from nearly the same district ; but I am not aware that specimens of any of the latter species exist to verify the union and determine what are the species described under these names."* Although neither Temminck nor Gray makes any reference *Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1864, pp. 31, 32 ; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, pp. 24, 25. See also Gray's "Hand-List of Seals," etc., 1874, p. 6. GENERAL HISTORY AND SYNONYMY. 579 ■ to Phoca vitnlina in hiscom]>arisons of PJioca nummularis with , other species, the distinctive characters given, so far as they rehite to the sk\ill, point decidedly toAvard P. vitulina, especially '? as respects the dentition, the width of the facial region, etc. The differences in the lower jaw, as compared with that of P. fcetida show its closer similarity to that of P. vitulina. and the larger, thicker, and more closely set teeth, with their larger and more acute cusps are also differences that point in the same direction. It is to be noted, however, that neither of these writers alludes to the mode of implantation of the teeth, but had they been set , obliquely as is usually (not always) the case in P. vitulina^ it is hardly to be supposed that Gray would have failed to so state. , As already noted, in P. vitulina the size of the teeth, their mode \ of insertion, and the width of the anterior or facial portion of the skull are subject to considerable variation, the teeth being sometimes set end to end in a straight line, and even with slight spaces between them. Since, however, they are commonly more obliquely and more closely set in young skulls than in adult ones, it seems hardly probable that three young skulls of this ' species would by chance be found to agree in having the teeth in- ' serted in a straight line, if, indeed, they were all sufficiently in- jj ! tact to show the dentition. The skull from Plover Bay, Behring's Straits (No. 6783, Kat. Mtis.), already described {antea, p. 572), seems to agree very closely with the characters given by Gray , for Temminck's P/wcl. xiii, fig. 2 (animal); pi. xiv, figg. 4-6 (muzzle, etc.); pi. XV, figg. 3, 4 (bones of fore limb) ; pi. xvii (skull) ; pi. x\iii, fig. 2 (skull). "Phoca dimidiaia, Schlegel, Mus. Leyd." (apud Gray). Callocephalus dimidiatus, Gray, Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, 24. Callocephalus ? dimidiatus, Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 22. Phoque marhre, F. Cuvier, Hist. Nat. des Mam., livr. ix, 1819 (coast of France, — accidental ) . Seal shot near the Orkney Islands, Home, Phil. Trans., 1822, pi. xxviii (skull). ? Fossil Seal, Thompson, Joum. Anat. and Phys., xiii, 1879, 318 (fossil, Scot- land). Fiordscel, Fabricius, 1. c. SiinJc-Eodhe, voN Middendorff, 1. c. JVatsek or Fjord Seal, Rink, 1. c. "NetsicTc, adults generally; Tizah, adult males; Netsiavih, yotrng after shedding till one year old ; Ibeen, young in the white coat, Cum- berland Eskimo " (KUMLIEN). GrdSjdl; Grd-Wikare SMI; Binglad STcal; ViJcaresjiil, Ftts/ai, Swedish. Steenkoibe, Norwegian. Der geringelte Seehund; Der rauhe Seehund, German, 600 PHOCA FCETLDA RINGED SEAL. Nerpa, Russian. Ringed Seal ; Marhled Seal; Floe Eat, English. "Pickaninny Pussy, young, pigeon-Englisli of the whalers" (KUMLIEN). ? Bodach, Hebridian. External Characters. — Adult, generally blackish-brown above; darkest on tlie back, lighter on the sides, with large oval, whitish spots ; beneath nearly uniform yellowish-white ; nose and ring round the eye usually black; mystacial bristles and claws dusky or blackish; pelage rather harsh. Length of the adult male, 5 to 6 feet; female smaller. The newly -born young are usually white or yellowish- white ; the pelage, soft and woolly. At the age of about four weeks this gradually gives place to the coarser, more rigid pelage of the adult, and the color changes to dusky, marked sparsely with small blackish spots. Yearlings are often yellowish- white ; dusky along the middle of the back, with here and there small spots of blackish. There is a wide range of individual variation in color, in the newly-born young as well as in the adults, as the following re- marks will show. Three adult specimens from Disco Island, Greenland, pre- sent the following variations in color: In No. 8699 (Nat. Mus.) the general color above is yellowish-white, irregularly mottled on the back with oblong spots and streaks of dusky or bluish- black; whole lower parts uniform yellowish -white. In No. 8700 (Nat. Mus.) the dorsal surface is everywhere marbled with light spots having dark centres. There are also patches of dark brown of very irregular outline. The dark-centred light rings are much more distinct than in No. 8699. No. 8698 is yellowish- white marbled with dark brown, the latter tint form- ing chains of dark-centred light spots. The front part of the head is blackish; the lower parts are uniform yellowish-white. Several yearling specimens, from Cumberland Sound, collected by Mr. Ludwig Kumlien, are whitish or yellowish-white, with small dusky or blackish spots. Wagner has described a specimen from Labrador as having the back blackish-brown, with a greenish-gray shimmer, and marked with spots of yellowish of varying size, some of them occurring singly, and others joined in pairs into 8-shaped figures; on the sides they form groups of rings, rather symmetrically arranged on the two sides of the body ; lower surface pale yel- low, with a tinge of olive. A younger specimen, also from EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 601 liabrador, is desoribed as duller in color, more grayish, and Tvitli coal-black markings.* Kntorga's variety octonoiuta is described as blackish, darkest along the back, with whitish spots mostly oo-shai)ed; lower sur- face lighter than the upper; the pelage comjiosed of rather soft, fine hair. The same author's variety, undulata, is de- scribed as blackish-brown, lighter below and darkest along the * Schreber's Siiugt., Th. vii, p. 31. 602 PHOCA FCETIDA RINGED SEAL,. back, the spots silvery- white, of irregular shape, and rarely in the form of rings. * Xilsson has distiuguished a black, a white, and a brownish- gray color-variety. The first is described as dark brownish- black, blacker above and more grayish-brown below, marked everywhere with pale streaks, which sometimes form small whitish oval rings ; head and neck with single small whitish spots ; nose and eye-rings uniform black ; limbs uniform brownish-black. The white variety is described as uniform soiled- white, slightly darker on the middle of the back. The brown variety is said to be uniform brownish-gray ; paler below» Mr. Kumlien states that the new-born young are also "very variable in color ; some are pure white ; others white on the lower parts, but more or less dusky on the back ; others again are fine straw-yellow, with the same dusky variation as in the white ones. The yellow is also variable in the intensity of the shade. Earely some are found that are quite dusky all over^ especially on the head and back ; these are generally small and scrawny. The hair," he adds, "is also quite as variable in texture as in color. In some it is tine, long, and woolly (mostly in the pure white examples) ; in others it is straight or wavy^ while some have short and quite hispid hair." There appears to be also a quite wide range of variation in size ; at least the statements of authoi-s indicate that such is the case. It seems probable that in some instances measure- ments given as those of the adult were really taken from ex- amples not full-grown. Xilsson, in 1837, gave the length of the species as about 3 feet, and later (1847) as 3 to 4 feet. Fa- bricius says it rarely exceeds 4J feet in length. Wagner refers to a Labrador specimen as being 4 feet 2 inches long. Capt. J. C. Ross states that the average length, from the nose to the end of the tail, of twenty specimens measured by him, was 55 inches, or 4 feet 7 inches, the hind Hipper extending 9 inches beyond the body, thus giving an extreme length of 5 feet 4 inches. He gives the average weight of these same specimens as 199 pounds, and the circumference immediately behind the fore flippers as 49.7 inches, t Dr. Rink, however, gives the average weight of seven specimens, "perhaps somewhat below the middle size," as only 84 pounds. | Lilljeborg and Malm- gren record much larger dimensions. The former gives the * Bull. Soc. Imp. ties Nat. de Moscou, 1839, pp. 189, 191. t Ross's Second Voyage, App., p. xx. t Danish Greenland, etc., p. 123. INDIVIDUAL AND SEXUAL VARIATION. 603 length of the male, from the nose to the end of the tail, as 5 feet 2 inches, or 1,500 mm., and from the nose to the end of the hind flippers as 5 feet 7 inches, or 1,710 mm. The same dimensions of the female he gives as, respectively, 4 feet 6 inches (1,380 mm.) and 4 feet 9 inches (1,470 mm.).* Malmgren states that the largest full-grown individuals he had seen (in the Gulf of Bothnia) attained a length of 5.J Swedish feet from the nose to the end of the tail, and measured nearly 6 feet to the end of the hind flippers. He further states that old or full-grown specimens are rarely taken, and that the meas- urements usually given are those of specimens one or two years old. He further observes, "Sogar in den finnischen Landseen Ladoga und Pyhafelka soil die ganze Lange der alten Individuen nach der Aussage erfahrener Manner beinahe einer Klafter, d. h. sechs Fuss betragen. Doch in diesen Seen wird diese Kobbe gewohnlich im zweiten und dritten Jahre, selten erwachsen, geschossen. Dasselbe ist nach Fabricius auch Gronland der Fall ; ich vermuthe daher, dass dies die Ursache ist, wesshalb die Lange des Thieres zu klein angege- ben ist, da sie wahrscheinlich nach den ein- oder zweijahrigen Individuen, die man am gewohnlichsten erhalt, bestimmt worden ist."t It is certainly evident that the specimens de- scribed by Nilsson and Wagner were young. Lilljeborg and Malmgren are the only authors who have apparently examined, or at least described, full-grown specimens. Mr. Kumlien states that the young are about two feet long when born, and weigh from 4 to GJ pounds, and that they aver- age 30 inches in length (varying from 23 to 36 inches). Individual Variation and Variations dependent upon Age and Sex. — The Ringed Seal, like the Harbor Seal, varies greatly in color, irrespective of sex and age, both in respect to the ground color and the markings, as has been already shown in the description of the external characters. Like nearly all the Phocids, the young when born are coveted with a white or yellowish-white coat of rather soft, woolly hair, which is changed in about four weeks for the sparser, harsher, and darker livery of the adults. The younger animals, however, are grayish or yellowish brown, darker along the middle of the back, and marked irregularly with small dusky spots, the mar- * Fauna Ofver Sveriges och Norges, i, pp. 683, 684. t Archiv fiir Naturg., 1864, pp. 83, 84. 604 PHOCA FCETIDA RINGED SEAL. bled coloring usually characterizing the adults not being at- tained till the second or third year. The sexes vary in size, as already noted, the female being considerably the smaller. This difference of size is well shown in the measurements of the skulls given below. Aside from the skull of the female being smaller than that of the male, its structure is weaker, the sur- face less roughened for the attachment of muscles, the muzzle narrower, the teeth smaller, and the lower jaw much slenderer. In the series of skulls collected by Mr. Kumlien, which were carefully marked for sex, the old males have an average length of about 186 mm., and an average breadth of about 115 mm., while the same dimensions in the old females are respectively 168 mm. and 108 mm. In general, skulls of the same sex and of corresponding ages vary considerably in details of structure and proportion, but the only purely individual variations worthy of special com- ment are exhibited in the teeth, which are surprisingly variable in respect to size, and in the number and shape of the acces- sory cusps. That these variations are not due to age and the accidents of attrition is shown by the fact that they are as well marked when the teeth first cut the gum as at later stages. The last upper molar is especially variable in size and in the prominence of the cusps, the accessory cusps being sometimes well developed and again almost wholly obsolete. The last upper molar has usually only two points, the posterior of which is small, but there is occasionally another still smaller on the an- terior inner border of the tooth. Generally the other upper molars have each three cusps, of which the anterior is the smallest, and frequently is wholly obsolete on the second molar when the third, fourth, and fifth molars are each 3-poiuted. Frequently, however, all the upper molars, except the first, are 4-pointed, while in a nearly equal percentage of the skulls ex- amined the molars are all only 2-pointed, or all, except the third, which may be 3-pointed. Sometimes the third or fourth upper molar is 3-i)ointed, while the others are 2-pointed. In one skull all are S-jiointed, including even the first. The lower molars are less subject to variation in respect to the number of i^oints, they being almost invariably 4-pointed, except the first, which is usually 3-pointed. The chief varia- tion I have noticed is that the fifth is sometimes only 3-j)ointed, like the first, while the first is sometimes 4-i)ointed, like the -others. The size and shape of the cusps vary greatly, being INDIVIDUAL AND SEXUAL VARIATION. 605 sometimes thick and short and again slender and very long These variations are all as strongly marked in the young killed a few days after birth as in the adult, showing that the varia- tion in the number and shape of the cusps is not due to pecu- liarities of wearing. In the 3-pointed teeth two accessory cusijs are developed behind the principal one, while in teeth with four points there is also a small accessory cusp in front of the prin- cipal one. In one instance a first lower molar has two minute points placed in front of the principal one, there being a (purely supernumerary) cusp on the outer anterior border of the tooth. In the males the teeth average (in linear dimen- sions) about one-eighth larger than in the females ; but the size varies so much in individuals of the same sex that the teeth are as large in some females as in some males. 606 PHOCA FCETIDA RINGED SEAL. e •« o 00 Jl •j'BXoni ^681 0!^ enniBj jo 9§p8 i^nojj in ^ in in -* § OS CO in 5 •^Tjf J8A0X JO q^nai 00 o t— 1 OS o I-l 00 05 00 o 00 o o C) rH in 2 CQ O o CO 00 ~ •98'80-intJjq JO q^H^Lli. !JS8:^B8J[Q 00 in g in s s O 03 00 O OS CO 00 00 •asBO-uiBjq JO q^noi o in s rH CQ CO o 00 CO s g •aennq ^o^iptiB %v iiniig JO :mSraq 'jsac^Beocf) OS to rH • O O t- 00 CO CO o CO m CO OS CO •^lasiOASnej^ 'eaaBn joua^UB jo q:jp'B8ag; in CO .-1 cq (N IT CQ CJ ?5 CO CQ SI s i3 ?3 •^n^ot^iaA 'eaaBn jou9:jti'b jo q'^pBejg; ?3 O OS o IN O rH CJ CO CQ S CQ g5 00 rH 13 § •^I98I9Ae^I'ea!^'e^J'B^JOla^^eo(iJoq^pB^Ja; S in cn cj CO CQ in CQ CQ CO CQ CO CQ CQ •^n^oiQj9A 'B9JBn aou9:jso(I JO q'jpBajg; 00 I-l o in i-H 1^ CO 1-i in O CQ CO •Xn'B'jtqjoJ9^m iFi^s JO q^pBajq (jeB9i tn in in CO CO CO cc CO t- CO b- in iri in ■sginuBO ^.v unjiB jo q;ptj9Ja: to DO in lO CQ 05 CQ co 00 C4 CQ CQ CQ CO CQ lO CQ •9Jinn8 jiljBt -lix'Bni-o:^nojj '\v q^jx^Baaq 'sauoq ^bsb^ a> t- CO r> CO in oc a 00 t~ 00 CO t- in •jfpoua^UB q'jpBgjq 'Banoq ■['geB^ (M T— 1 rH CO o rH en CO rH rH in rH CQ CQ o rH CO CO CQ ■q!>Sn9X '89noq xbsb^ 00 CO CO W •* O 05 CO 00 CO CO •>* in CO OS CO CO O CO in •gsxirxBin jo pna jou9!jsod %TS uoiSaj iBi^BiTsd JO qfjptjii CO CO •* CO in 00 CO 00 • •BXfts'Bni 9q:j JO j9pjoq jB^daA^B 9q'; jo q^Sn9T; •TpnnBq pioSj^ja^d jo paa o:^ GiiKjns ^BHixBni-OQ.BiBd inoaj 9oaB!}eT(j o t* t* in ^ CO CO CO •eeaoojd pionajS o% 93nixBin •I9%m JO 9Sp9 iou9!jnB raoj j 9oaB;>si(j •enuo!)rpnB 8n^B9ni of. 93[iixBni -J9()m JO eSpa jou9^ub raojj "9on'B!>8i(i •jBioni ^8Bi jo 9Sp9 J9pmq o% ge^n^'Bta -J9:;iii JO 9Sp9 j[oii9:>UB Vnojj oonB^eiQ; s CQ O O •i[nuiBq pioS^f i9:)d jo pna o:) ee^x'eni -J9':jm JO oSp9 J0U9CJUB moaj 9onB:j8ia; •egqojB o]'\vmo2Az !jb qijpBajq :je9:jB9j£) rH CO r~ CO rH O OS O •88900jd piO^SBtd i^B q!fpB9ia; •q:;Sa9i •X9g "o "o "d o o o t o •jaqnma 9nSoxB:^B0 CO o .5 a < M o o o o r^ r^ r^ r^ in CO c- 00 CO CO CD CD in m in in CO CO CO CO H a R COCOCDOOCDCO COMPARISON WITH ALLIED SPECIES. 607 Differential Characters. — In color the Einged Seal is not easily distinguishable from certain phases of the Harbor Seal, but it differs from it in its general form, which is much slenderer, with longer limbs and tail, narrower head, and more pointed nose. The Ringed Seal may, however, be distin- guished externally from both the Harbor and the Greenland Seals by the form of the manus, in which the first digit is the longest, the others successively slightly decreasing. The cra- nial characters, and especially the dentition, differ too widely from those of the Harbor Seal to even require a comparison in the i)resent connection, as do also most of the principal bones of the skeleton (see antea, pp. 565-571). The Einged Seal differs externally from the Greenland Seal in its smaller size and in the very different coloration of the adults of the two species. When in the " white coat," and in the earlier spotted stages, coloration often fails to be diagnostic, but they may be distinguished by the character of the manus already given. The dentition of these two species, allowing for the difference in size, is quite similar, although the teeth are relatively (as well as absolutely) larger in Fhoca groenlandica. In the general form of the skull there is also a close resem- blance, although the facial portion is rather more attenuated in F. grcenlandica. The form of the palatal region, however, is widely different in the tAvo, the broad shallow posterior nares, completely di\^ded into two separate passages by a bony sep- tum, and the squarely truncate, instead of deeply emarginate, posterior border of the palatine bones serving at a glance to distinguish P. groenlandica. The relationship of Pkocafoetida to the Baikal and Caspian Seals (Phoca sibirica and P. casjnca) is apparently much closer than to any other. The earlier writers, however, as Erxleben, Gmelin, and Pallas, associated them with Phoca rittdina, they forming respectively Erxleben's varieties ;S and y of this spe- cies, and Gmelin's varieties sibirica and caspica. The Caspian Seal was first recognized as a distinct species by ISTilsson in 1837, and called by him Phoca caspica. Later its specific dis- tinctness was admitted by Gray (1844), Wagner (1840), and Eadde (18G2). Nilsson was also the first to make known the fact of its much closer resemblance to Phoca fcetida (= P. an- nellata, Nilss.) than to Phoca vitulina.* Wagner arrived at the * After detailiug its characters, lie remarks, "Jeder sieht ein, dass diese Form der Ph. annellata viel naher stelit, als der Ph. vituUna. Docli bildet sie ohne alien Zweifel eine von ersterer bestimmt verschiedeue Art : sie ist viel 608 PHOCA FCETIDA RINGED SEAL, same conclusion, affirming most emphatically that the Caspian Seal yvas in no way closely related to Phoca vitulina, but found its nearest affine in Phoca fcetida.* The distinctive characters claimed by these authors for the Caspian Seal, as compared with PJioca fcetida, are larger size, smaller and more widely sep- arated teeth, greater convexity of the cranium, longer, stiffer^ and more numerous mystacial bristles, and a somewhat differ- ent pattern of coloration. The ilitferences claimed by Nilsson and Wagner were confirmed by Eaddet in 1862, who gave a detailed comparison of the cranial characters of Phoca caspica with those of Phoca fcetida. Yet, in face of all this testimony,, we find Mr. Andrew Murray, as late as 1866,| affirming that the Caspian Seal "is Phoca vitulina," and that the Baikal Seal is nothing but Phoca fcetida.^ It aj)pears, however, that the grosser, anders gefiirbt, liat viel sturkeres Barthaar, abstehendere iiud klei- nere Ziiliue, und den Zwisclieubalkeu iiacb hinten zu abgeruadet, wodurclt eine rundliclae UebegangsllLiclie zwiscben Stirn und Scbliifeugrube entsteht, wo sich bei Ph. annellata stets eine scharfe Kante fiudet." — Wiegmann's Arch, fiir Nattirg., 1841, p. 314. * On this point be says, " Auch aus meiuer Vergleichung geht es liervor, dass Phoca casjnca keiueswegs mit der Ph. vitulina, sondern nur mit der Ph. annellata, in niichste Beziebung treteu kann. Als Uutersohiede finde ich, dass die Eiugelzeicbnuug bei Ph. casjnca minder ausgebildet ; ist dafur sind die Bartschnurren weit zablreicher, liinger und steifer, die Kralleu scbwacber und nicht kohlscbwarz wie bei Ph. annellata, sondern bellbrauu mitweisslicben- Spitzen. . . ." — Schreber^s Saugth., Tbeil vii, p. 35. tEeisen im Siiden vom Ost-Sibiriens, vol. i, ]}\}. 296-304. tGeograijb. Distr. Mam., p. 126. § It is perhaps not strange that Mr. Murray should have referred the Seal of Lake Baikal to Phoca foetida, especially inasmuch as Radde had affirmed the two to be identical after having compared specimens, but his strange perversion of the record in the case of the Caspian Seal deserves a passing notice. He says: "The species in the Casjiiau [Sea] (Phoca caspica) is de- scribed as very nearly allied to our common Phoca vitulina, and that in Lake Baikal as equally close to Phoca fcetida (Ph. annellata, Nilss.), a species found in the North Atlantic ; and but for their geograj)hical position, no one would think of separating them from these species. In fact, the one is the Phoca vitulina, and the other the Phoca fcetida. Nilsson and Gray no doubt both consider them distinct, but I do not apprehend that either of them does so from actual observation [Nilsson characterized Phoca caspica from specimens!], and it is scarcely possible to doubt that the peculiarity of the locality must have had some influence on their minds. On the other hand, Pallas, Gmelin, Fischer, [these authors referred hoth to Phoca vitulina as varieties of that species !] and Eadde, regard them as belonging to the two species they resemble, and Eadde's personal experiences must outweigh any foregone conclusion arrived at by others who have not had the advan- tage of seeing the animals themselves." — Geogr. Distr. Mam., p. 126. That COMPARISON WITH ALLIED SPECIES. 609 Caspian Seal* is distinguished not only by well-marked exter- nal and cranial characters but by certain strongly-marked pe- culiarities of habits, coui^lcd with which are to be considered its long- continued geographical isolation and otherwise excep- tional conditions of environment. Radde's Tiews are misrepresented is evident from the following: " Phoca caspica," says Eadde, " steht in dieser Hinsicht [i. e., allgemeinen Shadel- form], wenn ich den eiuzigen nur vorliegenden Schadel als typischen be- tracten darf, imbedingt der Phoca annellata naher als dev gemeinen Robbe" (Eeiseri imSiicl. vom Ost-Sibiricns, i, p. 297); and throughout bis article takes pains to show how wide are the differences between Phoca caspica and Phoca vituUna ! * PHOCA (PUSA) CASPICA, Mlsson. Caspian Seal. Der Seehund; S. G. Gmelin, Reise durch Russl., iii, 1770, 246. Der caspische Seehund, Schrebee, Saugtli., iii, [1776?] 310. Phoca vitulina, y, Erxlebex, Syst. Eeg. Anim., 1777, 588. Phoca vitulina, S, caspica, Gmelix, Syst. Nat., i, 1788, 64.— Kjerb, Anim. King., 1792, 124. Phoca caspica, Nn,ssON, "K. Vet. Akad. Handlgr. Stockholm, 1837, — "; Arch, fiir Natnrg., 1841, 313.— ScHiNZ, Syiiop. Mam., i, 1844, 481.— Wagner, Schreber's Saugth., vii, 1846, 33.— Eadde, Eeisen im Siid. vom Ost-Sibiriens, i, 1862, 297-302 (passim). Gallocephalus caspicus. Gray, "Zool. Erebus and Terror, 1844, 3"; Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, 24. Gallocephalus 1 caspicus, Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 22. Phoca canina [var. caspica], Pallas, Zoog. Eosso-Asiat., i, 1831, 116, nota 1 (in part only). The history of the Caspian Seal, in relation to its literature and syn- onymy, is briefly as follows: It appears to have been first described in 1770 by S. G. Gmelin in the narrative of his travels in Russia. It was first intro- duced into systematic zoology by Schreber, about six years later, but only under a vernacular name. Schreber's account of the animal was wholly com- piled from Gmelin. Erxleben, in 1777, recognized it as a variety of Phoca vitulina, without, however, naming it, his citations embracing Gmelin and Schreber, as above. J. F. Gmelin, in 1788, referred it also to Phoca vitulina, of which he made it a variety, bestowing upon it the name caspica. The next reference to it of importance is made by Nilsson, who, in 1837, dissevered it entirely from Phoca vitulinu, claimed its specific distinctness, and showed its closer relationship to P. fcetida than to P. vitulina. Its subsequent history has already been amply detailed. Respecting the habits of the Caspian Seal, Schultz writes as follows : "These Seals gather in large herds, and, plunging continually into the water, chase scaly fish, of which they eat only the breast, leaving the re- mainder of the body, with the entrails, to the sea-birds, which are constantly hovering above them. Endowed with a very acute sense of smell, the Seals at times escape the vigilance of their enemies, the fishermen, with the excep- Misc. Pub. No. 12 -39 610 rilOCA FCETIDxV PtlXGED SEAL. The Baikal Eeal was specifically distinguisbed mucli later, it having- been referred even by Radde, as late as 18G2, to Phoca imneUata {=foeticla). xilthough it was recognized varietally by Erxleben and Grmelin a century ago, and the question of its spe- cific distinctness raised by ISTilsson in 1837, it was first formally separated as a species by Dybowski in 1873,* under the name Flioca haicalensis. From three years' observation of the living animal, and from study of the skulls of young and full-grown animals, he reached the conclusion that the Baikal Seal shoukl not be referred to '■^Plioca annellata,''^ it being easy to distinguish from it at all stages. Dybovvski has given excellent figures of the skull, and detailed descriptions of its cranial and external characters, and of its habits, but, unfortunately, makes no com- 13arative references to any other species, nor does he state ex- plicitly in what its distinctive specific characters consist. His very detailed table of measurements, and excellent figures of the skull, however, when compared with P/iora/cefif/rt, leave no reason to doubt the specific distinctness of the Baikal Seal from that species. The skull of the Baikal Seal is especially remarka- ble for its attenuation, and particularly for the length and nar- rowness of the facial portion. Even the brain-case is narrow, for while its length is the same as in average skulls of P. foetida, its width is less. The orbital fossae are disproportionately large, whence results a great lateral expansion of the rather slender zygomatic arches, so that the breadth of the skull at the orbits is considerably greater than at the mastoid processes (as 100 to 87), instead of these two dimensions being about equal, as in P. fcetida. Dybowski gives the average length of two adult skulls tioii, however, of the young, which, inexj^erieuced as they are, follow the lishiug-boats for long distances, and seem to take special pleasure in hearing the lishermen whistle or sing It is an interesting spectacle to see the young Seals lying on their back, sleepingpeaceahly while being rocked by the waves, and throwing uj) from time to time small jets of water by bi'cathing."* It further axji>ears from the author's detailed account of Seal-hunting iu the Caspian Sea (see antea, pp. 514-517) that these anim.als are preeminently gregarious, and resort, at certain seasons, to favorite localities on the shore in immense herds, to bask in the sun. The pairing season occurs about the beginning of January, and the young are brought forth on the ice. In habits the Caspian Seal thus difters notably from the Ringed Seal, which never resorts to the land iu vast herds. "As translated in Rep. U. S. Com. Tish and Fisheries, pt. iii, 1873-4 and 1874-5, pp. 92, 93. * Archiv fiir Anatomic, Physiologic uud Weisseuschaftliche Medicin, Jahr- gang 1873, pp. 109-125, pi. ii, iii. COMPARISON WITH ALLIED SPECIES. 611 tlie same dimensions in exceptionally large old male skulls of P. fcetida to be 186 mm. and 115 mm. The width at the mastoid processes in the Baikal Seal, however, is only 100 mm.,* against 112 mm. in P.foetida. A very strongly marked difference is ob- servable in the relative length of the facial portion of the skull in the two species, this being very much narrower and longer in the Baikal Seal than in the other, this, of course, involving a corresponding narrowness of the nasal bones and the palatal region. The vertical height of the skull is also much less than in P. fcetida. Without going further into details, it may be suf- ficient to state that the skull of the Baikal Seal is characterized by great attenuation in every jiart, with great expansion of the orbits. In dentition and in the general form of the palatal re- gion there is a close agreement with the Kinged Seal, the Baikal Seal being, in a word, a slender form of the Phoca fcetida type. It also diflers notably in coloration, being apparently never spotted. According to Dr. Dybowski, the adults are silvery- brown ("silberbriiunlich") above, and dingy silvery-brown ("schmutzig silberbrjiun") below; in the younger animals the silver-brown color has a whitish lustre ; in the newly-born young the thick, long wool-hair is silvery- white. The length of the full-grown animal is given as 1,300 mm. While it is pretty clear that the Caspian Seal and the Baikal Seal are both specifically distinct from the Einged Seal, and that neither of them has any near relationship to Phoca vituUna, the points of difference between the two first-named are not so evident. In coloration the Caspian Seal appears to not differ greatly from the Ringed Seal; both consequently difl'er sim- ilarly in color from the Baikal Seal, namely, in being spotted, while the latter is con color. On the other hand, the Caspian and Baikal Seals agree in being considerably larger than the Ringed Seal, and in the skull being narrower in proportion to its length, with the upper surface more convex. The Baikal Seal, however, appears to be distinguished by the greater atten- uation of the facial region coupled with a much greater expan- sion of the zygomatic arches. The peculiar features of coloration presented by the Baikal Seal have been given with uniformity since the time of Steller,! who first made them known. Schreber's short description, * Estimated from Dybowski's figure. t Besclireibimg von dem Lande Kamtscliatka, 1774, p. 108. 612 PHOCA FCETIDA RTXGED SEAL. as 192 mm., and their average breadth as 118 mm., which I find founded on that of Steller, is as follows: "Erist einfaibig, silberweisa vom Harren, so gross als der gemeine." He further says: "Man findet ihm in den beiden sibirischen Landseen Baikal und Oron, die weit von dem Ocean entfernt sind und ^mit demselben durch keinem Fluss Gemeinschaft haben.^ Ob er vom dem gemeinen wesentlich verschieden sei, ist mir nicht bekannt." * Mlsson refers to a specimen sujDposed to have come from Lake Baikal as being "Braungrau einfarbig mit flasserer Fiirbung an den untern Korpertheileu". Eadde says its color is "schon grau (fast stahlgrau)" on the back, becoming lighter on the sides, and yellowish-gray beneath, t "aSteUer, a. o. ." * Saugth., iii, 310. — The above is Schreber's account in fuU. t PHOCA (PUSA) SIBIRICA, Allen ex Gmelin. Baikal Seal. The Seal [of Lake Baikal], Bell, Travels from St. Petersb. in Russia to diverse parts of Asia, "i, 1763, 261"; ibid., i, 1788, 320. Die virte Sorts Seehunde, Stellee, Beschreibung von dem Lande Kanitschatka, 1774, 108. Der sibirische Seehund, ScHn^HEn, Saugth., iii [1776?] 310 (ea; Steller). Phoca vitulina, p, Erxleben, Syst. Eeg. Anim., 1777, 588 {ex Steller et Schreber). Phoca vitulina, y, sibirica, Gmelin, Syst. Kat., i, 1788, 64.— EIerk, Anim. King., 1792, 124. ? Phoca annellata, Nilsson, Arcli. fiir Naturg., 1841, 312 (in part). Phoca annellata, Eadde, Reisen im Siid. vom Ost-Sibiriells, i, 1862, 296 (in part, — only the Baikal specimen). Phoca baicalemis, HitBOWHKi, Arch, fiir Anat. u. Pbys., 1873, 109, pll. ii, iii (skulls of adult and young). This species was apparently first mentioned by Bell (as above cited), in 1763, Avho refers to its habits, but gives no account of its characters. It was quite fully described by Steller in 1774, and was first formally intro- duced into systematic zoology by Schreber about two years later, whose account is based wholly on Steller's. It was cited as a variety of Phoca vitu- lina by Erxleben in 1777, and named as a variety of that species by Gmelin in 1788. Nilsson described a sMn and an imperfect skull under Phoca annel- lata in 1837, but thought it might prove to be a distinct species, and, more- over, was not certain whether or not his specimen came from Lake Baikal. Eadde, the first naturalist after Steller who described the Baikal Seal, from an authentic specimen, referred it unhesitatingly to Phoca anneJldta (=foetida). The single skull on which his observations were based he stated to be that of a female about three or four years old, but his figures of it show it to have been much younger, the principal sutures being rep- resented as unobliterated. He found it to be considerably smaller than COMPARISOX WITH ALLIED SPECIES. 613 From a geographical stand-poiut there is no a priori reasou for their identity, they occupying entirely distinct drainage basins, which have had no connection since comparatively re- mote geological times. Their geographical position, indeed, considered in relation to the present distribution of their nearest allies, as well as to their peculiar environment, is one^ of the most interesting facts in their history. The Baikal Seal is an inhabitant of a fresh -water lake, while the waters where the other finds a home are only to a slight degree salt. Neither of these remote interior seas has had any recent connection with the Polar Seas, where alone the nearest affines of these Seals are now found. If their oceanic connection was south- ward (as was most likely that of the Caspian Sea), at the remote either of his skulls of Pkoca fcetida, but its small size is explainable on the ground of its immaturity. He himself states that his specimen of the Baikal Seal weighed in the flesh only "S^Pud" (126 pounds), while the weight of the Baikal Seal, as he says he was informed by the Seal-hunters, ranges from " 8 zu 10 Pud" (288 to 360 pounds). Rad1. t Professor Jukes says four species are known on the coast of Newfound- laud, namely, the "Bay Seal" {Phoca vitulinn), the Harp Seal {Phocn gnen- landica), the Hooded Seal {Cyslophora cristata), and the "Square Flipper" (probably Halicliwrus grypus). The first he did not see on the ice among the Seals pursued by the sealers. The second is the one that forms the principal object of the chase. The third seems not to be numerous, but occurs occa- sionally out on the ice-iioes with the Harp Seals. The fourth is referred to as very rare, and as being larger than the Hooded Seal. Not one was heard of or seen that season. He supposes it may be the Phoca barbata. — Excur- sions in Newfoundland, vol. i, pp. 308-312. Carroll states that the species of Seal that are taken on the coast of NeAv- foundland are the " Square Flipper Seal " (probably Halichoerus grypus), the '•Hood Seal" {Cysiophora crhiaia), the " Harp Se.al " (Plioca grcenlandica), and the "Dotard" or "Native Seal" {Phoca vituUna). — Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, 1873, p. 10. t The species given by Gilpin as found on the coast of Nova Scotia are the Harbor Seal {Phoca vituUna), the Harp Seal {Phoca grocnlandica), the Gray Seal {Halichwrus grypus), and the Hooded Seal {Cystophora cristata). GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. G15 commou on both sides of tlie Isthmus of Boothia, where it forms the chief means of subsistence to the inhabitants during eight or nine months of the year.* It is commou in Iceland, and Malm- gren and Yon Heuglin state it to be numerous at Spitzbergen. The last-named author gives it as abundant in summer in the Stor-Fjord and its branches, in Hinlopen Strait, and in the bays of the northwest coast of Spitzbergen, occurring in great herds as well as singly, in the open water along the shores and in the openings in the ice-floes. He states that it is also numer- ous about Kova Zembla, where great numbers are killed for their skins and fat.f It is a common species on the coast of Finland, and further eastward along the Arctic coast of Europe and doubtless also of Western Asia.J It is also a common in- habitant of the Gulf of Bothnia and neighboring waters, and also of the Ladoga and other interior seas of Finland. It is said by Blasius to extend southward along the coast of Middle Europe to Xorth Germanj^, Ireland, and the British Channel. Professor Flower has recorded its capture on the coast of Nor- wich, England, and it undoubtedly occurs at the Orkneys and the Hebrides, where it is supposed to be represented by the species known there as "Bodach" or " Old Man". A specimen was also taken manj' years since on the coast of France, but here, as on the shores of the larger British Islands, it can occur as merely a rare straggler.§ Its fossil remains have been reported * Ross's Sec. Voy., App., 1835, p. xix. + Reise nach dem Nordpolarmeer, Th. iii, p. 50. t In an account of Professor Nordenskjold's late Arctic voyage, published in ''Nature" (vol. xxi, p. 40, Nov. 13, 1879), it is stated that Phoca foctida "was caught in great numbers, and along with fish and various vegetables forms the main food of the natives" at Cape Serdze (about 120 miles from Behring's Straits), the point where the " Vega " wintered, this and the Polar Bear being the only marine mammals seen. § ResiJectiug the southern limit of the habitat of this species in Europe, .Professor Flower has the following: "Nilsson speaks of it as being found on all the Scandinavian coasts, and as having been met with as far south as the Channel, on the strength of specimens in the Paris Museum from that locality ; but he was unable to find any xiroofs of its having been met with on the coast of England. Nor have I been able to discover any positive evi- dence that it can, at the present day, be reckoned a British sjiecies, although there is little doubt that it must occasionally visit our shores, where its occurrence would be easily overlooked." — Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1871, p. 510. Collett, contrary to the testimony of Nilsson, excludes it from the mam- malian fauna of Norway, and states that he does not know of an authentic instance of its capture on the Norwegian coast. — Bemierkninger til Norges Pattedyrfauna, 1876, ]}. 57, footnote 2. 616 PHOCA FCETIDA RINGED SEAL. by Professor Turner as having been found in the brick clays of Scotland. It appears also to be a common species in the North Pacific, there being specimens in the ISTational Museum, unques- tionably of this species, from the coast of Alaska, and from Plover Bay, on the Siberian side of Behring's Strait. Its southern limit of distribution along the shores of the l^orth Pacific, on either the American or the Asiatic side, cannot at present be given. Judging from its known distribution in other portions of the Arctic waters, there is no reason to infer its absence from the northern shores of Eastern Asia and West- ern l^orth America. General History and Nomenclature. — The earliest notices of this species in systematic works are based on the brief account given by Oranz in 1765, but there appear to be still earlier references to it by Scandinavian writers. As, however, they involve no questions of synonymy, and may in i^art relate to the Gray Seal {MaUchoerus grypus), they call for no special re- mark in the present connection. The " Gr^ Sial " of Linne's "Fauna Suecica" (1747), however, was referred by Otto Fabri- cius, in 1791, to Phoca fa3tida,hut recent writers, notably Lillje- borg, have assigned it to Halichoerus grypus, but Linne's account seems to be too vague to be positively identified, although it later became the basis of Gmelin's Phoca vitulina botnica. As already noticed, the early technical history of the species is based on the brief notice of it published in 1765 by the Dan- ish missionary, Cranz, who, in his "Historie von Gronland,'' re- ferred to it under its native or Eskimo name Neitsek. He says it is not very different from the Attarsoak {Phoca grcenlandica of systematists) "in size or color, only that the hair is a little browner or a pale white, nor does it lie smooth, but rough, bristly, and intermixed like pig's hair."* Pennant, in 1771, in his " Synopsis of Quadrupeds," called it the Rough Seal, and paraphrased Cranz's description, adding thereto the conjec- ture : " Perhaps what our Kewfoundland Seal-hunters call Square Phlpper''\ In 1776 it was enumerated in the introduction to Miil- ler's "ZoologiiB Danicic Prodromus " (p. viii), in a list of Green- land animals supplied by Otto Fabricius after the main body of the work had been printed, where it first receives a systematic name, being there called Phoca footida. No description is given, but its supposed Icelandic and Greenlandic names are ap]>euded, namely, " I. Utseh: Gr. Neitselc^ Neitsilek,^^ but unfortunately the * English edition, 1767, vol. i, pp. 124, 125. GENERAL HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE. 617 Seal called Ut-Selur by the Icelanders proves to he Halichosrus grypus. It thus happens thtit the first technical name of the species, as well as some of its earliest vernacular names, relates in part to the Gray Seal. At about the same time (certainly not earlier) it was described by Schreber in the third part of his " Siiuo^thiere" as Der rauheSeehund, his description being based entirely on Cranz's and Pennant's. No Latin name is given in the text, but on the plate ai>pears the name Phoca hispida. The date of the publication of the fasciculus containing Schreber's descript'on and figure cannot be definitely determined, but con- temporary evidence indicates that it must have appeared during the year 1776,* as it is cited by Erxleben in a work jjublished the following year, who adopts Phoca hispida for the name of tUp species. But Erxleben's first reference is to the "Long- necked Seal" of Parsons, whose diagnosis of which Erxleben cites in full. The Long-necked Seal, however, is some indeter- minable species of Otary. But all of Erxleben's other refer- ences, with one exception (for here ''Utselr"is again cited), are pertinent, and his diagnosis is evidently based on the Neitsek of Cranz. i Three years later (1780), Fabricius, in his "Fauna Groenland- ica," gave the first adequate description of tlie species, under the name Phoca fcetida, and quoted Phoca hispida as a synonym. Eleven years later (1791), in his celebrated memoir on the Green- land Seals, he reverts to the name hispida, conceding it priority, but on what ground is not ajjparent. The case is thus a peculiar one, and has already received attention at the hands of numer- ous writers, the matter having been quite recently very fuUy discussed by Professor Flower, t Although Flower favors the adoption of hispidaj he admits that " There is nothing either in Schreber's description or figure to identify the species ; and it has since been thought (as by A. Wagner in his continuation of Schreber's work, 1816) [*] to refer to a totally distinct animal, viz, Halichcerus grypus.''^ He says, further, "Although it may still be a matter of opinion which of these names ought to be *The date on the title-page of the "Dritter Theil" is 1778; the two pre- ceding parts are both dated 1775. The Seals occupy the first pages of the third part. t Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1871, pp. 507-510. [* Gray, apparently following Wagner, referred, both in 1850 and in 1866, Schreber's Phoca hispida to Halichwrus grypus, while at the same time he re- ferred Lesson's Phoca schreieri, avowedly = Phoca hispida Schreber, to his CaU locephaliis foetidus !] 618 PHOCA FGETIDA RINGED SEAL. adopted, it appears to me that, on the whole, preference should be given to Mspida, on account of priority 5 for although the earliest descrii)tions under this name are very meagre and in- accurate, they are avowedly founded on the Neitsek of Cranz, the appellation by which this Seal is known to the Greenlanders to this day, according to Mr. R. Brown,* and are therefore in- tended for this species, and especially because Fabricius, in 1790 [1791], definitely adopted the name, withdrawing that of fcetida. I am further strengthened in this opinion," he con- tinues, "by finding that those eminent Danish naturalists Steen- strupt and Eeinhardt| both use Mspida when speaking of this Seal." As regards use, although good authorities have adopted hisjnda, by far the greater number of writers, including equally eminent authorities, among them Lilljeborg and OoUett among recent Scandinavian writers, adopt /ce^w/a. The question is cer- tainly pretty evenly balanced. Granting, however, that the in- troduction of the two names was practically simultaneous, and that fcetida, as first given, was unaccompanied by a description, while Mspida had this backing, it is admitted that neither the description nor the figure is of any value in determining what species was intended, and that the Greenland name Xeitsek is the only clew to what was meant. Just this clew, backed by the best authority — Fabricius himself — we have also in the case of fcetida, while the first real description (in "Fauna Groenland- ica," 1780) of the species was given under this name, and eleven years before the species was recognizably described under the name Mspida (by Fabricius in 1791). Fabricius gave as his reasons for withdrawing the name fcetida and adopting Mspida that the latter was not only an appropriate name but also the oldest, although he ascribes the name Mspida to Erxleben. It would seem, however, that he really adopted the name from Pen- nant, considering Pennant's name " Rough Seal" a strict equiva- lent of Phoca Mspida.^ The name fcetida api^ears certainly to be most characteristic. * " 'On the Seals of Greenland,' P. Z. S., 1868, p. 414." t" ' Melketandsaittet hos Remmesieleu, Svartsiden, og Fjordsteleu (Phoca iariata, 0. Fabr., FJi. gronlandica, O. Fabr., og Ph. hispida, Sclir.),' Vid. Medd. f. d. Naturh. Forening, 1860. Kjobh. 18G1, s. 251-261." t " ' Om Klapmydsens ixlodte Norge og deus MelketandssBt,' Natm-li. Foren. Vidensk. Meddelelser, 1»G4." § As being of interest in this connection I submit the following rendering of F'abriciiis's opening paragraph of his history of the Fiordsa>l : ' 'This, next to the Black-side, is the species -which is most numerously met with in Green- land. 1 give to it the Danish uamejblordsail, because it keeps mostly in the HABITS, PRODUCTS, AND THE CHASE. 619 Another name of considerable i)roniinence in connection with this species is annellata of Nilsson, proposed by him in 1820 for Scandinavian representatives of the species, because he did not feel sure of their identity with Greenland examples. This name was adopted later by various writers for a species sup- posed to be distinct from the Fhoca fcetida of Greenland, notably among whom are Wagner and Eadde, while Giebel held both fcetida and liispida as synonyms of anuellatal The name discolor, introduced in 1824 by F. Cuvier as that of a new species, was later abandoned by its author, and never ob- tained currency except with a few compilers. Lesson, in 1828, characteristically changed it to frederlci, and at the same time renamed Schreber's hispida, calling it schreheri. Habits, Products, and Hunting. — The Einged Seal is preeminently boreal, its home being almost exclusively the icy seas of the Arctic Eegions. Its favorite resorts are said to be retired bays and tjords, in which it remains so long as they are filled with firm ice ; when this breaks up they betake them- selves to the floes, where they bring forth their young. It is essentially a littoral, or rather glacial species, being seldom met with in the open sea. From its abundance in its chosen haunts it is a species well known to Arctic voyagers, and fre- quent reference is made to it in most of the narratives of Arctic Explorations. These notices are, however, mostly inci- dental and fragmentary, no one having given a detailed and connected history of the species. I am, therefore, gratified to be able to present, in addition to excerpts from various more or less well-known sources, much fresh information kindly fiir- fjords and rarely goes out to sea. In my Fauna Gronlandica I called it Phoca foctida because it has a stronger stink than the other species. It was pre- viously mentioned under this name, first in my report (luoted in Miiller's Prodromus (Zool. Dan. Prodr., p. viii). It was then regarded as a new spe- cies, as I found it not in Liun6 ; he either did not recognize it or did not dis-' tinguish it from the common Seal {Phoca rituUna), for at most he only re- garded it as a variety of this under the name Gra-Sjiil (Faun. Suec, p. 2, under Spec. 4). But Pennant, however, gave it as a distinct species, with the name Rough Seal (Syn. Quadr., p. 341, n. 2G1) ; afterwards Schreber called it Der rauhe Seehund (Siiugth. III. Th. p. 312), and Erxleben Phoca hispida (Syst. Regn. Anim. p. 589), which name Gmelin (Syst. Nat., p. 64) has retained. This name is suitable and a very good one for this species on account of its hair, and, although this is also found in the Klapmydsen (Phoca Jeonina, Linn6), so are some other characters ; wherefore I do not now hesitate to prefer the name hisjnda hei'ove foctida, especially as itis the oldest, although the stench is so characteristic." — Skrivter af Xaiurhistorie-Sels- kahat, Iste Bind, 2det Hefte, 1791, pp. 74, 75. 620 PHOCA FCETIDA RINGED SEAL. nished me by Mr. Ludwig Kumlien, naturalist of the recent Howgate Polar Expedition. His observations, made chiefly during several months spent in Cumberland Sound,* are sub- stantially as follows : " This Seal is very common in all the fjords and bays, from Hudson's Straits, nortliward, along Cumberland Island, to the extreme head of Cumberland Sound ; on all the outer islands about Cape Mercy, and on the west coast of Davis Straits. I have seen skins from Lake Kennedy that I could not distin- guish from those found in Cumberland Sound. This Seal was never noticed more than a few miles from land ; was not met with in the pack-ice, nor on the Greenland coast, except far up the tjords. This was in July and August ; but I am informed that they become more common toward autumn, and are found in considerable numbers some distance from land; they are less common here, however, than on the west coast In the Cumberland waters they are resident and do not migrate at aU unless much disturbed, and then they merely seek a more secluded locality. On the Greenland coast they appear to mi- grate up the ice-fjords in summer but to be more generally dis- tributed at other seasons. '^ The Netsick, as this species is called by the Cumberland Es- kimo, shows a decided predilection for the quiet, still bays and fjords, seldom venturing far from land. They are the only Seal caught through the ice in winter, and are consequently the chief and almost sole dependence of the Eskimo for food, fuel, light, and clothing. The skins of the adults are made into summer clothing, while the young are in great demand for un- der garments and for trousers. Children often have entire suits made of the skins of the young in the white coat. Such cloth- ing looks very beautiful when new, but they are new but for a few days, and after this they are repulsive enough. The fe- males were found enceinte in the latter part of October, and a foetus nearly ready for birth was taken from the uterus Jan- uary 16. It was 2 feet from the end of the nose to the end of the hind flippers. It was so doubled in the uterus, however, as to occupy a space hardly a foot in length ; the hind flippers were turned forward on the tibise ; the fore flii)pers hugged the *^ What Mr. Kumlieu's opportunities were for tlie study of this specica may bo iui'erred from the fact that among the spoils brought with him ou hi.s returu are skulls, skins, and skeletons, r:inj>ing from the foetal to the adult stage, to the number of about liftj' specimens. HABITS, PEODUCTS, AND THE CHASE. 621 sides, and the head was bent over on the neck and inclined to one side. "In a large fjord, known as the greater Kingwak, the tide runs so swiftly at one locality that it never freezes for a space varying from ten to one hundred acres; here the ]S'etsick gather in considerable numbers all winter, and it is a favorite resort for such Eskimo as are fortunate enough to possess a gun. Being but a few miles from our winter harbor, almost daily excursions to these tide rifts were made by our Eskimo hunters. After the 1st of March very few pregnant females were killed at this place, they having by this time chosen the localities for having their young. Those killed after this date were all adult ' Tigak,' or old stinking males. " It was interesting to observe that the. young — yearlings and some two-year-olds, and such as had not yet arrived at maturity — were seldom if ever killed in this open water, but lived in colonies by themselves. When an Eskimo finds a number of athd's (breathing-holes) near together he always marks the place by raisiug little mounds of snow near the holes, for he knows that here is a colony of young animals, which have better skins and meat than the old ones, and are, moreover, much easier to capture. I have counted nearly sev- enty of these atluks on a space of two acres. "When a pregnant female has chosen the place where she is to have her young she makes an excavation from six to ten feet in length under the snow, and from three to five feet wide, the height varying with the thickness of the snow covering ; the atluk is at one extremity of this excavation, and in such a po- sition that it is always a ready channel of retreat in case of danger. "The first young were found in the Cumberland waters during the first days of March ; still, I have taken a foetus from the mother in the middle of Ai^ril. The most profitable time for hunting the young Seal is during the mouth of April. After this date they have shed so much that the skins are nearly worthless till the hispid hair has got to be of the proper length, when they are considered as the prime article and sec- ond only to the young of Callocephalus vituUnus in quality. . "The first young one that had begun to shed was taken April 15. I have seen exami)les that were nearly or quite des- titute of the white coat, but still uot haviug the uext coat in sight. Such specimens were found to have a very fine coat of 622 PIIOCA FCETIDA RINGED SEAL. tlie new hair, but so short as not to be perceptible except on close examination, yet showing the exact .location and distribu- tion of the dark and light markings ; the skin at this time is very black and often much scratched, probably by the mother in trying to make the young one shift for itself. " I often examined the stomachs of young ones, as well as of adults, but till after they had begun shedding the white coat, and were in all probability twenty-five to thirty days old, I found nothing but the mother's milk. After they begin to shift for th-mselves their food, for a time at least, consists of Gam- onari of different species. "Before the young begin to shed the white coat they are from 23 to 36 inches from the nose to end of flippers ; the aver- age the season through, from a good series of measurements, was about 30 inches "They weigh at birth from four to six and one-half pounds, but the young grow at an astounding rate, becoming exceed- ingly fat iu a few days. The blubber on the young a few days old is almost w^hite and thickly interspersed with blood-ves- sels ; it is not fit to burn. "There is usually but one young at a birth, still twins are not of rare occurrence, and one instance came under my ob- servation where there were triplets, but they were small, and two of them would probably not have lived had they been born. " The season for hunting the young at latitude 67° north be- gins about the middle of March and continues until the latter part of Aj)ril. The first two weeks of April are the most pro- ductive, as later the hair is apt to be very loose, and many even have large bare patches on them. When the season fairly opens the Eskimo hunter leaves the winter encampment with his family and dog team for some favorite resort of this Seal ; he soon constructs his snow hut and is as well settled as if it had been his habitation for years ; for the Seals he catches bring him and his family food and fuel, and snow to melt for water is always plenty, so that his wants are easily suxDplied, and he is contented and happy. " The manner of hunting the young Seal is to allow a dog to run on ahead of the hunter, but having a strong Seal-skin line about his neck, which the Eskimo does not let go of. The dog scents the Seal in its excavation, which could not have been de- tected from the outside by the eye, and the hunter by a vigor- ous jumj) breaks down the cover before the young Seal can HABITS, PRODUCTS, AND THE CHASE. 623 reacl) its atluk, and if he be successful euougli to cut off its retreat it becomes an easy prey; otherwise he must use his sealing-hook very quickly or his game is gone. It sometimes happens that the hunter is unfortunate enough to jump the snow clown directl}" over the hole, when he gets a pretty thor- ough wetting. The women often take part in this kind of seal- ing and become quite expert. The children begin when they are four or five years old; the teeth and flippers of their first cat ch are saved as a trophy and worn about the little fellow's neck ; this they think will give him good luck when he begins the next year. " There exists a considerable spirit of rivalry among the mothers as to whose offspring has done the best, size, etc., con- sidered ; this runs to such a high pitch that I have known some mothers to catch the Seal and then let the child liill it, so as to swell the number of his captures. "Some of the Eskimo hunters, belonging to the 'Florence,' brought as many as seventy at one load. They were kept frozen, and we almost lived on the meat during the season, and learned to like it very much. " Some of the Hispid Seals pup on the ice, without any cov- ering at all ; six instances of this nature came under my obser- vation, and they were all young animals. The young exposed in this manner almost always become the prey of foxes and ravens before they are old enough to take care of themselves. "As the season advances and the young begin to shed their coats the roof of their igloo is often, or perhaps always, broken down, and the mother and young can be seen on sunny days basking in the warm sunshine beside their atluk. The mother will take to the water when the hunter has approached within gunshot, and leave the young one to shift for itself, which gen- erally ends in its staring leisurel}' at the hunter till suddenly it finds a hook in its side. A stout Seal-skin line is then made fast to its hind flippers and it is let into thcatluk ; it of course makes desperate efforts to free itself and is very apt to attract the attention of the mother, if she is anywhere in the vicinity. The Eskimo carefully watches the movements of the young one, and as soon as the mother is observed, begins to haul in on the line ; the old one follows nearer and nearer to the surface, till, at last," she crosses the hole at the proper depth and the deadly harpoon is planted in her body and she is quickly drawn out. If the mother has seen the hunter api^roaching the atluk, how- ever, she win not even show herself. 624 PHOCA FCETIDA EINGED SEAL, " I have never known of an instance where they have at- tempted to defend their offspring- from man. I once saw a raven trying to kill a young Seal, while the mother was making- frantic but very awkward attempts to catch the bird in her mouth. "When the young first assume the coat of the adults (about the time the ice begins to loosen) they seem possessed of a vast amount of curiosity, and while swimming near the land, as they almost always do, can be lured within gunshot by whist-- ling or singing. They would often play about the schooner, diving underneath and coming up ©n the opposite side, appar- ently enjoying it hugely. They delight to swim among the pieces of floating ice in the quiet bays. The young and year- lings of this species are often found together in small bands. " The adult females will average four feet and a half to the end of the flipfters. Such specimens are probably from four to seven years old. The males are a little larger. There is great variation in the skulls, but the sexes can readily be distinguished by the skull alone, the males having a longer and narrower- head, with the ridges more prominent. "It is only the adtdt males (called ' Tigcik^'' = Stinker, by the' Eskimo) that emit the horribly disagreeable, all-permeating, ever-penetrating odor that has suggested its specific name. It is so strong that one can smell an Eskimo some distance when he has been partaking of the flesh ; they say it is more nourishing than the flesh of the females, and that a person can endure great fatigue after eating it. If one of these Tigak comes in contaxjt with any other Seal meat it will become so tainted as to be repulsive to an educated palate; even the atluk of the Tigak can be detected by its odor. [*] "The food of the adults consists largely of difterent species of crustaceans, and during winter especially they subsist to a [* Respecting the foetid odor emitted by this species, Dr. Rink observes as follows: " It derives its scientiiic name from the nauseons smell peculiar to certain older individuals, especially those captured in the interior ice-ljords, which are also on an average perhaps twice as large as those generally occurring off the outer shores. When brought into a hut and cut up on its floor, such a seal emits a smell resembling something between that of assafojtida and onions, almost insupportable to strangers. This peculiarity is not notice- able in the younger specimens or those of a smaller size, such as are gen- erally caught, and at all events the smell does not detract from the utility of the flesh over the whole of Greenland." — Danish Greenland, its People and its Products, p. 123.] HABITS, PRODUCTS, AND THE CHASE. 625 considerable extent upon fish. I liave found in them the re- mains of Cottus scorpius, C. grcenlandieus, Gadns agce (com- monly), and Liparis vulgaris. During the time the adults are shedding, and for nearly a month previous, I could detect nothing but a few pebbles in their stomachs; they become poor at this time, and will sink when shot in the water. " The milk is thick and rich, and is sometimes eaten by the natives. The excrement looks like pale, thickly-clotted blood. "Albinos are sometimes found, of which the Eskimo tell mar- velous stories, one being that when they rise to breathe in their atluks they come stern first, and in fact they think such ani- mals liave their breathing apparatus on the posterior end of the body. I imagine this originated from a native once harpooning an albino in its atluk and finding his harpoon fastened in one of the hind flippers. A hairless variety of this Seal is some- times caught, which the Eskimo call Ohitook. I have seen one such skin; it had a few fine curly hairs scattered over it, but they were different in texture from the ordinary hair. I do not know if the specimen otherwise differed from the ordinary Seal. " Toward spring, when the sun is shining brightly, these Seals can be seen in all directions basking on the ice. Although to all appearance asleep, they manage to wake up regularly every few minutes to make sure that there is no danger about. "At this season it is a favorite method of the Eskimo to hunt them by crawling flat on his belly toward the Seal, and, when discovered, to imitate the movements of the animal, and to advance only when the Seal looks in the opposite direction; in this manner they often approach so close as to be able to push them away from their atluks. " This Seal is of some commercial importance, the Scotch whalers often buying from the natives during the winter a thou- sand skins. These are brought with the blubber, and often cost the purchaser not over three to seven cents apiece, and this mostly in tobacco, trinkets, or ship-stores. -To encourage them to iirocure more skins, they are furnished, with a cheap hreeeh- loading gun and a few hundred cartridges, which they soon waste, and then their guns are of course worthless. At the rate both young and adults are slaughtered at the present day, they will soon become so scarce that there will not be enough to sup- ply the wants of the natives." * * Copied, with slight verbal changes, from Mr. Kiimlien's MS. notes, since published in "Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus.," No. 15, pp. 55-61. Misc. Pub. No. 12 40 626 PHOCA F(ETIDA RINGED SEAL. In addition to the account of the Rough or Eiuged Seal given by Mr. Kumlien — which is by far the most important single con- tribution to its history I have met with — I quote the following. Mr. Robert Brown, in his account of the Mammals of Greenland, says: "They delight to live in retired bays in the neighbor- hood of the ice of the coasts, and seldom frequent the open sea. In the Greenland and Spitzbergen Seas they chiefly live upon the floes in retired situations at a considerable distance from the margin of the ice. Dr. Wallace observed them for a considerable time in the months of June and July, between N. lat. 76° and 77°, in possession of a large floe, i^art of which was formed of bay ice, where they had their 'blow-holes' {the atluJc of the Danes) ; his ship lay ice-bound for nearly three weeks, at about three miles from this large floe, and hence he had con- siderable opportunity of observing them. They passed the greater portion of their time apparently asleep beside their holes ; and he never saw them all at one time ofl" the ice, unless alarmed by iiarties from the ship or by the Polar Bear. When the ice slackened away and the sheets of open water formed around the ships, the Seals used to swim near them; and occa- sionally at these times a few were kUled. In the water they are very cautious, swimming near the hunter, gazing on him as if with feelings of curiosity and wonder ; but on the ice beside their blow-hole it is almost impossible for the hunter to ap- proach them, so much are they on the alert and so easily alarmed. In Davis's Strait it especially feeds about the base of icebergs and up the ice-fjords. The great ice-fjord of Jak- obshavn is a favorite haunt of theirs ; the reason for this pre- dilection is apparently that their food is found in such localities in greater abundance. The bergs, even when aground, have a slight motion, stirring up from the bottom the Crustacea and other animals on which the Seals feed; the native, knowing this, frequently endangers his life by venturing too near the iceberg, which not unfrequently topples over upon the eager Seal-hunter," * Dr. Kane thus describes their behavior when basking on the ice. Writing under date of May 20 he says: " The seal are out upon the ice, one of the most certain signs of summer. They are few in number, and very cautious. We notice that they invariably select an open floe for their hole, * Brown, Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1868, pp. 414, 415; Man. Nat. Hist., Geol., etc., of Greenland, Mammals, pii. 44, 45. HABITS, PRODTICTS, AND THE CHASE. 627 and that they never leave it more than a few lengths. Their alertness is ijrobably due to their vigilant enemy, the bear. . . . . The first act of a seal, after emerging, is a careful survey of his limited horizon. For this purpose he rises on his fore flippers, and stretches his neck in a manner almost dog- like. This maneuver, even during apparently complete silence, is repeated every few minutes. He next commences with his hind or horizontal flii^pers and tail a most singular movement^ allied to sweei)ing, brushing nervously as if either to rub some- thing from himself or from beneath him. Then comes a com- plete series of attitudes, stretching, collapsing, curling, wag- ging; then a luxurious, basking rest, with his face toward the sun and his tail to his hole. Presently he waddles ofi" about two of his own awkward lengths from his retreat, and begins to roll over and over, pawing in the most ludicrous manner into the empty air, stretching and rubbing his glossy hide like a horse. He then recommences his vigil, basking in the sun with uneasy alertness for hours. At the slightest advance up goes the prying head. One searching glance, and, wheeling on his tail as on a pivot, he is at his hole, and descends head fore- most." * Dr. Eichardson describes this species as being less cautious and less active than the Harbor Seal, observing that it is ^' easily surprised either on land or water, and is moreover a sol- itary and lazy animal, being wont to lie basking in the sun in place of hunting after its prey, and thus being often found lean from want of nourishment." t They appear, however, to behave quite differently under different circumstances ; at least the ac- counts of authors on these points are more or less at variance. Thus Captain J. C. Ross states : " In the month of May, the Rough Seal, with its young, lie basking in the sun close to holes in the ice, and are at that time very difficult to approach ; but the natives imitate both their cry and action so exactly as to deceive the animals until they get sufficiently near to strike them with their spear. Fabricius says it is the most heed- less of all the Seals, as well on the ice as in the water. From our experience we would certainly give them a very different character, for none of our sportsmen were ever able to get suf- ficiently near to shoot them. The natives of Boothia say they *Grinnell Exp., 1854, pp. 375, 376. t Parry's Second Voyage, App., p. 333. 628 PHOCA FCETIDA RiffGED SEAL. are not in their i^rime until the third year, and we never heard them complain of the ofl'ensive smell, which their more fastidi- ous brethren in Greenland are said to dislike so extremely."* Malmgren states that even the young, when lying on the ice, are extremely difficult to kill, for they go immediately into the water on the first view of the hunter, while, on the contrary, he observes, the young of the Gray Seal {Ralichoerus grypus) has such a terror of the water while it wears its woolly coat that it scrambles out on to the ice as soon as it is thrown into the water, t The habits of the Ringed Seal, as observed in European waters, seem to agree with what has already been related re- specting their life-history in Davis's Strait and Cumberland Sound. Malmgren, for example, states that the females bring forth their young on the western coast of Finland on the ice near the edge of great openings between the 24th of February and the 25th of March, or at the time given by Fabricius and later writers for the same event on the coast of Greenland, and in no respect does their mode of life appear to differ in the icy seas about Spitzbergen from what has already been related. The Ringed Seal is of far less commercial value than the Harp Seal, but in this respect may be considered as holding the second rank among the northern Phocids. Brown states that "it is chiefly looked upon and taken as a curiosity by the whalers, who consider it of very little commercial importance and call it 'Floe-rat.'" Von Heuglin, however, states that many thousands are annually taken by the sealers for their skins and fat, in the vicinity of Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen. It is of the greatest importance, however, to the Esquimaux and other northern tribes, by whom they are captured for food and clothing. Mr. Brown informs us that it forms, during the latter i^art of summer and autumn, "the principal article of food in the Danish settlements, and on it the writer of these notes and his companions dined many a time ; we even learned to like it and to become quite epicurean connoisseurs in all the qualities, titbits, and dishes of the well-beloved Neitsik ! The skin," he continues, "forms the chief material of clothing in North Greenland. All of the id noUoi dress inNeitsik breeches and jumpers ; and we sojourners from a far country soon en- * Ross's 2d. Voy., App., p. xx. t Arcli. fur Naturg., 1864, p. 83. HABITS, PRODUCTS, AND THE CHASE. G29 cased ourselves in the somewhat hispid but most comfortable nether garments. It is only high dignitaries like ' Herr Inspek- tor' that can afford such extravagance as a Kassigiak (Callo- cephalus vituUniis) wardrobe ! The Arctic belles monopolize them all." * liiuk states that the number annually captured in South Greenland has been calculated at 51,000. t Capt. J. C. Koss states that the Esquimaux wholly depend upon it for their winter food, and Von Schrenck alludes to the great importance of this animal to the natives of Amoor Land. Although the methods of capture employed by the Eskimo have already been to some extent described, I transcribe the fol- lowing from Captain Eoss, who says: "... when all other animals have retired to a more temperate climate the Seal is sought by the Esquimaux, whose dogs are trained to hunt over the extensive floes of level ice, and to scent out the concealed breathing-holes of the Eough Seal. So soon as one is discovered, a snow wall is built around it, to protect the huntsman from the bitterness of the j)assing breeze; where, with his spear uplifted, he will sit for hours until his victim rises to breathe, and falls an easy sacrifice to his unerring aim. In this manner a party of thirty hunters killed loO of these animals during the first two months they remained in our neighborhood ; the fishery for ten or twelve miles around was then comj)letely exhausted; so they broke up into various smaller parties and dispersed in various directions." J Dr. Rink states that the Xetsek is " stationary throughout the coast" of Danish Greenland. "Only stray individuals of this species", he observes, "emigrate to the main drift-ice of Baf- fin's Bay in July, and return to the coast when the first bay-ice is forming in September, or occasionally appearing whenever the weather has been stormy. But the chief stock, whose favor- ite haunts, as has been described, are ice fjords, does not seem to leave the coast at aU. It is almost exclusively this seal that is captured as 'utok' and by means of the ice-nets." § * Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 417 ; Nat. Hist., Geol., etc., Greenland, Mam., p. 45. tDauisli Greenland, etc., p. 123. t Ross's 2d Voy., App., p. six. § Danish Greenland, etc., p. 123. 630 PIIOCA GRCENLANDICA HARP SEAL. PHOCA (PAGOPHILUS) GECENLAlS'DICA, Fabricius. Harp Seal. Phoca groenlandica, Fabricius, Miiller's Zool. Dan. Prod., 1776, viii ; Fauna Grcenl., 1780, 11; Skiiv. Nat. Selsk., i, 1790, 87, pi. xii, fig. 1 (skull).— Erxxeben, Syst. Eeg. Aniin., 1777, 588. — (Jmelin, Syst. Nat., i, 1768, (54. — Kerr, Auim. King., 1792, 125.— Shaw. Gen. Zool., i, 1800, 262.— Desmarest, Nouv. Diet. Sc. Nat., xxv, 1817, 576; Mam., 1820, 245, 376.— "Nilsson, Skand. Faun., i, 1820, 370; Kongl. Vet. Akad. HandL, Stockholm, 1837, — "; Arch, fiir Na- turg., 1841, 314; Skand. Faun. Diiggdj., 1847, 288.— "Tiiiexemaxn, Eeise im Norden von Europa," etc., 1, 1824, 104, pi. xiv (ad. male), pi. XV (ad. female), pi. xvi (male of two years), pi. xvii (male of one year), pi. xviii (young eight days old), pi. xix (skull), pi. xx (digestive organs), pi. xxi (attitude in swimming). — Richardson, Parry's2d Voy., Suppl., 1825, 336.— Harlan, Faun. Amer., 1825, 109.— GoDMAN, Am. Nat. Hist., i, 1826, 343.— Gray, Griffith's An. King., V, 1827, 177, pis. xci, xcii.— J. C. Ross, Parry's 3d Voy., 1828,191; Ross's 2d Voy., Append., 1835, xx.— Fischer, Synop. Mam., 1829, 238, 576.— Bell, Brit. Quad., 1837, 269 ; ibid., 2d ed.,. 1874, 252, figg., animal and skull. — Macgillivray, Brit. Quad., 1838, 209, pi. xix.— Hamilton, Amphib. Camiv., 1839, 156, pi. viii.— Blainville, Ost^og., Phoca, 1840-1851, pi. v (skull), pi. ix (dentition). — Jukes, Excurs. in Newfoundland, i, 1842, 309. — SCHINZ, Synop. Mam., i, 1844, 482.— Wagner, Schreber's Siiugt., vii, 1846, 21, pi. Ixxxv A. — Giebel, Siiugeth., 1855, 136.— Blasius, Na- turgs. Wirbel. Deutschl., i, 1857, 255, figg. 140, 141.— Nordmann, Vit. Medd. Naturh. Forening, 1860 (1861), 25.— Malmgren, Ofv. af Kongl. Vet. Akad. Forhl., Stockholm, 1863, 139; Arch, fur Naturg., 1864, 78.— Von Middendorff, Sibirische Reise, iv, Th. 2, 1867, 934.— Flower, Journ. Anat. and Phys., iii, 1868, 270, fig. 3 (milk-dentition).— QuENNERSTEDT, Kongl. Svens. Vetensk. Akad. Handl,, vii, No. 3, 1868, 12, pi. i, fig. 1.— "Kinberg, Ofv. af Kongl. Vet. Akad. Forhl., Stockholm, 1869, 13," (fossil, Sweden).— MuRiE, Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1870, 604, pl.xxxii (attitudes and terrestrial locomotion). — Von Heuglin, Petermann'sGeogr. Mitth., 1872, 30. — Lilljeborg, Fauna ofver Sveriges och Norges Ryggrads- jur., 1874, 690.— Turn1':r, Jonm. Anat. and Phys., ix, 1874, 168 (Brit. Lsl.).— COLLETT, Bemwrk. Norges Pattedyrf , 1876, 58.— Rink, Danish Greenland, its People and its Products, 1877, 124, 430. — J Dawson, Canad. Nat., 2d ser., viii, 1877, 340 (fossil, Postpliocene clays, near Ottawa, Canada). — Alston, Faun. Scotland, Mam., 1880, 14. Callocephalus (/rccnlandicus, F. CuviER, Mem. du Mus., xi, 1824, 186, pi. xii, fig. 2 ; Diet, des Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 546. — Lesson, Man. deMam., 1827, 197. Bir5LI0GRAPHY. 631 Pagophilus grcenlandicus, Gray, Cat. Seals Brit. Mas., 1850, 25, fig, 8; Cat. Seals and Whales, ISfiG, 28, fig. 8; Zoologist, 1872, 3333, 3336 (British Coast, accideutal) ; Haud-List of Seals, 1874, G, pi. iv. — Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 12. — Packard, Proc. Bost. Soc. Na,t. Hist., X, 1866, 271.— Brown, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, 340, 416.— Reeks, Zoologist, 1871, 2541.— Van Beneden, Ann. du Mus. roy. d'Hist. Nat. du Belgique, i, 1877, 20 (geogr. distr.). — Malm, Goteborgs och Bohusliins Fauna Ryggiadsjuren, 1877, 144. Phoca (Pagophilus) grcenlandica, Von Heuglin, Reisennach dem Nordpolar- meer, iii, 1874, 51. Phoca grcenlandica var. nigra, Kerr, Anim. King., 1792, 125. Phoca oceanica, Lepechin, Act. Acad. Petrop., i, 1777 (1778), 295, pll. vii, viii. — Des.-marest, Mam., 1820, 242, 275. — Fischer, Synop. Mam., 1829, 238.— Hajiilton, Amphib. Carniv., 1839, 162, pi. viii*. CaUocephalus oceanicus, Lesson, Man. de Mam., 1827, 196. "Phoca semilunaris, Boddaekt, Elen. Anim., 1785, 170." Phoca albicauda, Desmarest, Mamm., Suppl., 1822, 839 (locality unknown). Phoca lagura, G. Cuvier, Oss. foss., 3d ed., v, 1825, 206 (young, "Terra Neuve"). — Fischer, Synop. Mam., 1829,238 (same). — Blainville, Ost6ogr., Phoca, 1840-1851, pi. ix (dentition). — SCHINZ, Synop. Mam., i, 1844, 483.— Gaimard, Voy. en Islande, Atlas, 1851, pi. xi, fig. 6 (skull). CaUocephalus lagura, F. Cuvier, Diet, des Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 546. — Gray, Griffith's An. King., v, 1827, 177. Phoca miilleri, Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 413. Phoca desmaresfi, Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 416 (=P. albicauda, Desm.). Phoca pilayi, Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 416 (=P. lagura, G. Cuv.). Phoca dorsata, Pallas, Zoogr. Rosso- Asiat., i, 1831, 112. ? Phoca albini, Alexandra, Mem. Acad. Torino, ii, 1850, 141, pi. i-iv (skeleton). Phoca annellata, Gaimard, Voy. en Islande, Atlas, 1851, pi. xi, tig. 9. Swart-sUde, Egede, Det gamle Gr0nland8 nye Perlustration, 1741, 46, fig, BlacJcside Seal, Ellis, Voy. to Hudson's Bay, 1748, plate facing p. 134. Attarsoak, Cranz, Hist, von Gronl., i, 1765, 163. Vadeselur, Olafsen, Reise durch Island, i, 283, ii, 42. Schwarzseitige Seehund, Schreber, Siiugt., iii, 310. Harp Seal, Pennant, Syn. Quad., 1771, 342; ibid., 1793, ii, 279, pi. xcix. Phoque a croissant, Buffon, Hist. Nat., Suppl., vi, 1782, 325. Harp Seal, Saxby, Zoologist, 1864, 9099 (Shetland).— Carroll, Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, 1873, 15. Grdnlandsjdl, Swedish. Gronlandsdl, Sulryg, Svartside, Nonvegian. Svartside, Danish. G-riinlands-Robbe, Sattel-Robbe, Gronlandische Seehund, German. Phoque a croissant, French. Harp Seal, Greenland Seal, Saddleback, JFhitecoats (young), English. Kioluk, Cumberland Eskimo (Kumlien), 632 PHOCA GRCENLANDICA HARP SEAL. External Characters. — Adult Male. — General color whitish or yellowish- white, nose and head to behind the eyes black ; chin and throat usually with black spots. A broad, lunate spot of black on the sides, extending- from the shoulders nearly to the tail, generally broadest anteriorly where the two bands unite on the median line ; narro \ver, and sometimes in- terrupted, posteriorly, but usually again meeting on the hinder portion of tlie back, thus forming an ellipsoidal figure. These black bands usually begin over or a little anterior to the shoul- ders, and extend backward to the end of the tail. There are also generally irregular spots of black on the hind limbs. Length about 5 to oi feet, rarely, it is said, attaining the length of 6 feet. Adult Female. — Similar in general color to the male, but with the black markings indistinct or wholly absent. Size about one-fourth less. Young. — The new-born young are white or yellowish -white, sometimes pale golden, the pelage soft and woolly. This, after a few weeks, gives place to the coarser, harsher pelage of the adult, and the color becomes pale-gray, darker on the head and lighter below, often with small, dusky spots on the dorsal sur- face. In the second and third years the general color remains the same, but the spots become larger and darker. In the fourth year, in the males, the spots are still larger, and begin to coa- lesce ; the head becomes black, and the saddle-shaped mark on the sides begins to be clearly distinguishable, but the mature pattern of coloration is said to be not fully developed till the fifth year. Few Seals* vary so much in color with age as the Harp Seal. This was long since mentioned by Cranz, who says : "All Seals vary annually their colour till they are full grown, but no sort so much as this [the AttarsoaTc] , and the Greenlanders vary its name according to its age. They call the foetus iblau ; in this state these are white and woolly, whereas the other sorts are smooth and coloured. In the 1st year 'tis called Attaralc, and 'tis a cream-coloui". In the 2d year Atteitsialc, then 'tis gray. In the 3d Aglelctol; painted. In the 4th MilaJctolc, and in the 5th year Attarsoalc. Then it wears its half-moon, the signal of maturity. "t Fabricius states that it is called during the first year AtdraJc, * ' * Probably parallel variations occur in Histriophoca fasciata. tHist. of Greenlaud, Englisli ed., vol. i, 1767, p. 124. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. , 635 -and later in the same summer (after the first moult), AtaitsiaJc,^^ by which name it is also called during the first winter ; the sec- " ond year it is called UtoMitsiaJc ; the third year AgUUok or Aglel-tungoal; and in the winter AgleUytsialt ; the fourth year it retains the same name Agletol; also varied to AyleMorsoak, but after the fourth moult takes the name MillalcfoJc. Later it is ■called AtdrsoaJc.* * Skrivter af Naturh.-Selskabet, Bind i, Hefte 1, 1790, pp. 92-94. 63? PHOCA GRGENLANDICA HARP SEAL. Dr. Eink states that at the present day the Greenlanders, as well as the Europeans, divide the "Saddle-backs" into four or live diiferent classes according to their age, hut that in familiar language they oidy distinguish by different names the full-grown animals from the half-grown ones, the latter being called "lilue- sides ".* The young, when first born, are called by the Newfoundland Sealers " White-Coats"; later, during the first moult, "Bagged- Jackets"; when they have attained the black crescentic marks, they are termed " Harps ", or " Sadlers ", and also "Breeding* Harps"; the yearlings and two-year-olds are called " Young Harps "or "Turning-Harps", and also "Bedlimers" (or "Bel- lamers", also spelled " Bedlamers"). The older and some recent writers state that the mature pattern of coloration is not at- tained till the fifth year, while Jukes, Brown, Carroll, and others state that it is acquired in the third or fourth year. There is also a diversity of statement respecting the sexual differences of color in the adults, some writers affirming that the sexes are alike, while others state that the female is witliout the harp- mark, or has the dark markings of the male only faintly indi- cated. Mr. Carroll says: "The*reason why the.yare called harp seals, or ' sadlers,' is, the male seal, as well as the female, has a dark stripe on each side from the shoulders to the tail, leaving- a muddy white striije down the back. The male harp seal is very black about the head as well as under the throat. . . . The female harp is of a rusty gray about the head and wliite under the throat." Both Jukes and Reeks, however, refer to the absence of the harji-mark in the female. Mr. Brown, in his account of the Seals of Greenland, has given a very full account of the changes of color resulting from age and sex, and, in default of a sufticient series of specimens, and of personal experience, I transcribe his observations, as i)resent- ing the most explicit and detailed statement available. He says : " It seems to be almost unknown to most writers on this group that the male and female of the Saddleback are of different colours ; this, however, has long been known to the Seal-hunters. 3Iale. — The length of the male Saddleback rarely reaches (> feet, and the most common length is 5 feet, while the female, in gen- eral, rarely attains that length. The colour of the male is of a tawny grey, of a lighter or darker shade in different individuals, * Danish Greenland, its People and its Products, p. 124. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 635 on a sliglitly straw-coloured or tawny -yellowish ground, having sometimes a tendency to a reddish-brown tint, which latter colour is often seen in both males and females, but especially in the latter, in oval spots on the dorsal aspect. The pectoral and abdomiual regions have a diugy or tarnished silvery hue, and are not white, as generally described. But the chief character- istic, at least that which has attracted the most notice, so much as to have been the reason for giving it several names, from the peculiar appearance it was thought to present {e. g. ' Harp Seal,' ' Saddleback,' i&c), is the dark marking or band on its dorsal and lateral aspects. This ' saddle-shaped ' band commences at the root of the neck posteriorly, and curves downwards and backwards at each side superior to the anterior flipj)ers, reaches downwards to the abdominal region, whence it curves back- wards anteriorly to the posterior flippers, where it gradually dis- appears, reaching further in some individuals than in others. In some this band is broader than in others and more clearly im- pressed, while in many the markings only present an approxi- mation, in the form of an aggregation of spots more or less isolated. The grey colour verges into a darker hue, almost a black tint, on the muzzle and flippers ; but I have never seen it white on the forehead as mentioned by Fabricius. The muzzle is more prominent than in any other northern Seal. ^''Female. — The female is very different in appearance from the male ; she is not nearly so large, rarely reaching 5 feet in length, and when fully mature her colour is a dull white or yellowish straw-colour, of a tawny hue on the back, but similar to the male on the pectoral and abdominal regions, only, perhaps, somewhat lighter. In some females I have seen the colour totally differ- ent ; it presented a bluish or dark-grey appearance on the back, with peculiar oval markings of a dark colour, apparentlj^ im- pressed on a yellowish or reddish-brown ground. These spots are more or less numerous in diflerent individuals. Some Seal- hunters are inclined to think this a different species of Seal, from the Saddleback, because the appearance of the skin is often so very different and extremely beautiful when taken out of the water, yet as the females are always found among the immense flocks of the Saddleback, and as hardly two of the latter females are alike, but varying in all stages to the mature female, and on account of there being no males to mate with them, I am inclined to believe with Dr. Wallace that these are only younger female Saddlebacks. The muzzle and flippers of 636 PHOCA GRGENLANDICA HARP SEAL. the female present the same dark-chestnut appearance as in the male." In respect to the color of the young, and to changes of color with age, he observes : " (a) The colour after birth is a pure woolly white, which gradually assumes a beautiful yellowish tint when contrasted with the stainless purity of the Arctic snow; they are then called by the sealers 'white-coats,' or ' whitey-coats'; and they retain this colour until they are able to take to the water (when about 14 or 20 daj'S old)." At this time the color '-(/J) begins to change to that of a dark speckled and then spotted hue ; these are denominated ' hares ' by the sealers, (y) This colour gradually changes to a dark bluish colour on the back, while on the breast and belly it is of a dark silvery hue. Young Seals retain this appearance throughout the summer and are termed ' Bluebacks ' by the sealers of Spitzbergen, 'Aglektok ' by the Greenlanders, Blaa-siden by the Danes. (')) The next stage is called Millaktok by the Greenlanders. The Seal is then approaching to its mature coat, getting more spotted, &c., and the saddle-shape band begins to form, (s) The last stage {in the male to which these changes refer) is the assumption of the halfmoon-shaped mark on either side, or the ' saddle ' as it is called by the northern sealers. "I consider that about three years are sufficient to complete these changes. This is also the opinion held in Newfoundland, though the Greenland people consider that five years are nec- essary. I wish, however, to say that these changes do not pro- ceed so regularly as is usually described, some of them not last- ing a year, others longer, while, again, several of the changes are gone through in one year ; in fact, the coats are always gradually changing, though some of the more jjrominent ones may be retained a longer and others a shorter time. It would require a very careful and extended study of this animal to decide on this point, which, owing to their migrations, it is impossible to give. After all, these changes and their rapidity vary accord- ing to the season and the individual, and really will not admit of other than a general description." * Dr. Rink gives the weight of a full-grown Saddleback of me- dium size as 353 pounds, the skin and blubber weighing 116 pounds, the blubber alone in winter amounting to 80 pounds, * Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1868, ])p. 417-420 ; Man. Nat. Hist., Geol. and Phys. of Greenland, etc., 1875, Mam., p^j. 45-49. — Compare alse vonHeugliu, Keisen nach dem Nordpolarmeer, etc., 1874, pp. 5*3-54. SEXUAL AND INDIVIDUAL VARIATION. 637 while in summer it is scarcely 24 pounds. Carroll,, however, gives a much larger weight. He states that " when they are in full flesh the weight of a male Harp Seal varies from 700 to 800 pounds," and that "when prime" the skin and fat alone will weigh 200 pounds, and the same parts of a female 125 pounds. He gives the weight of a Harp Seal when born as G to 8 pounds, according to tlie age of the mother. At fifteen days old he says the " skin and fat will weigh 40 to 45 pounds," and the carcass, after the fat is taken off, about 15 pounds. When thirty days old the weight of the skin and fat he says is only 30 pounds, and at nine months old not more than 40 pounds, but at twelve months.is 90 pounds; the young Seals, as stated by other ob- servers, losing much of their fat on being left by their mothers to secure their own food, although the general size continues slowly to increase. • Sexual and Individual Variation, and Variations de- pendent UPON AoE. — The variations in size and color depend- ent upon sex and age having been already noted, little remains to be said in the present connection beyond a brief reference to the skull. Here the age and sexual variations appear to be strictly parallel with those already described in PJioca feet Ida. The i)urely individual variation is also similar in character, except, so far as can be judged from the small series of skulls before me, the variations in the teeth are less marked. The subjoined table of measurements of skulls indicates the range of variation in size and other features. None of the skulls are positively marked for sex, but there seems to be little difficulty in distinguishing the sex by the smaller size, weaker structure,, narrower muzzle, and the much weaker dentition in what may be doubtless safely assumed to be the female, since very old skulls, strictly comparable as respects age, vary in just these points. Female skulls appear to rarely exceed, or even quite attain, a length of 200 mm., while old males range from about 210 mm. to 228 mm. 638 PHOCA GRCENLANDICA HARP SEAL. I St f 'S' s OS '^ S ^ 1 S .32232 ^« o> o >^ > > > i> > o^'^ • jBIotn (JBBI 0^ enraBi jo aSpa !jnoa j CO t^ CD U^ »H O to lO in ■>* to lO - •ji'eCaaAi.ot jo q^Saai o lO CO ■* in o CO CO C t> t- •^SpsiaASUBJ^ '88 jen joua;UB .;o q:^pBaja: t- CO CO o o o (N (N CO CO CO CQ O CO t-H ■sgmueo ^'e unj^e jo q^jpBgig; —f M O lO ■* O CO CO CO (M CO CO -Xtx'B^^-o:^^OJJ (jb q;pT!9iq 'ganoq xesu^ X 'S a a> a ao •j£Xioi.i9:>TiB q-jpBajq '89noq x^SB^ lO lo tk ■* ■* in CO •qjSnax '89uoq xbsb^ 9 joii9:;ub riioij eoaB^sid oo o •* CO CO tr- ee c- c6 in t- CO •rxnniBq ptoS^jo^d jo pa9 o; seixtxBm 'i9%m JO 9^p9 jouaiuB niojj 9DnB;8ta: IM CO O t- (M CO iH »H tH 00 CM rH r-( rH rH rH rH •SaqDJB OIJBOIoSAZ JB qJX)B9.iq !J89J.B9J£) in ■*ocoodi:-[-oococorti->iieii iHCCIrHOirHrHOJCOdiHrHrH •e9SS930jd pio;8Bai jb qjpB9Ja; 00 t- CO 00 in in tH iH fH O iH tH •qjSu9i inct- rHi-IOCOCslO(MC3rHtH05C5 (MWlMTHOqMC^ie'lNIMrHiH •X9S . : P , c e; a 1 c rS ^ -4- c ffl !2 1- c c \4^ > c 4 i -2 •jaqrann enSoxB^BO CO CO CO CO -K iH ++ t— 1 t-l 1— 1 1— ( * * * * •*- ++ ++ 4_^ .!-► 4H. •g 1 O >; ,2 :o o IS) o t» ■■§ u Pa B O O i s a> o r3 o 3 O O m a o o pq 0 n o to .9 ce I a o 'A GENERAL HISTORY AND NOMENCLATUl^E. 639 General History and Nomenclature. — The Harp Seal, like the Crested Seal, presents characters, at least in the I" ale sex, that readily attract the attention of even the casual dl^ server — the one by its "saddle" or "harp-mark" of black on a' light ground, the other by its inflatable hood. Accordingly both were mentioned by various early writers, but notably by Egede, Ellis, and Cranz, and the indications they gave of their existence enter into the technical history of the species, forming as they do the basis of the first systematic names. Erxleben described the species in 1777, under the name Phoca (jroenlandicaj his de- scription being founded mainly on information previously made public by Cranz. Fabricius, however, had already designated the species by this name the previous year, but the only clue he furnished to the species meant consists merely in his citing its Icelandic and Greenlandic names. In 1778 Lepechin de- scribed and figured the species under the name Phoca oceanica, between which and groenlandica there is thus almost a question of priority.* Although Fabricius in 1790 correctly referred Le- pechin's species to P/ioca groenlandica, it has since frequently fig- ured in the works of compilers as a distinct species, although his figures and description t clearly indicate its relationship. Boddaert, in 1785, added another synonym by renaming the species semilunaris, while Desmarest, in 1822, described what is believed to have been a young individual of this species under the name Phoca alhicauda. G. Cuvier, in 1825, also de- scribed a young specimen as Phoca lagura, this name having for a time considerable currency as that of a veritable species. Lesson, in 1828, made here his usual contribution of synonyms by deliberately changing names previously given for those that better suited his fancy, at his hands the Phoca groenlandica of authors becoming Phoca millleri, and the two nominal species previously mentioned as based on young specimens becoming respectively Phoca desmaresti and Phoca pilayi. In 1831 the species was again intentionally renamed dqrsata by Pallas, who quotes as synonyms of dorsata both Phoca groenlandica and * Lepechin is usually quoted at 1777, but his paper appears not to have been published till the following year, thus giving Erxleben's name one year's xjriority, and Fabricius's two. t Lepechin gave the incisive formula as |^, — "In maxilla superiori inci- sores IV"; "in maxilla inferiori incisores modo IV." As suggested by Fa- bricius nearly a century ago, in the iirst case "IV" is evidently a lapsus for VI. (See Fabricius, Skrivter af Naturhistorie-Sclskabet, Bd. i, Hf. 1, 1790, p. 97, footnote.) 640 ,^PHOCA GRGENLANDICA HARP SEAL. r Phocaj)ceanica. Gaimard, in 1851, simply througli malideiitifi- catiou, referred examples of the present species to Phoca annel- Mta. Of the nine synonyms of this sj^ecies one is nearly contem- poraneous with the tenable name, and under the circumstances of its occurrence was unavoidable; live are due to deliberate,, intentional, and needless change of names; two are based on. immature examples, and one is the result of malidentitication. Geographical Distribution. — Although the Harp Seal has a circumj^olar distribution, it appears not to advance so far northward as the Kinged Seal or the Bearded Seal ; yet the icy seas of the Korth are preeminently its home. It is not found on the Atlantic coast of North America in any numbers south of Newfoundland. A few are taken at the Magdalen Islands, and while on their way to the Grand Banks some must pass very near the Nova Scotia coast. Dr. Gilpin, however, includes it only i)rovisionally among the Seals that visit the shores of that Province. It doubtless occasionally wanders, like the Crested Seal, to points far south of its usual range, as I find a skeleton of this species in the collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, bearing the legend "Nahant, Mass., L. Agassiz". I have at times felt doubtful about the correctness of the as- signed locality, as this seems to be the only proof of the oc- currence of this species on the Massachusetts coast. I have, liowever, recently been informed by Dr. C. 0. Abbott, of New Jersey, that a Seal, described to him as being about six feet long, white, with a broad black band along each side of the back, was taken near Trenton, in that State, during the winter of 1878-79. This description can of course refer to no other species than Phoca groenlandica, and as it comes from a wholly trustworthy source it seems to substantiate the occasional oc- currence of this species as far south as New Jersey. Von Heug- lui gives it as ranging "in den amerikanischen Meeren siid- wiirts bis New York,"* but I know not on what authority. The Harp Seals are well known to be periodically exceed- ingly abundant along the shores of N ewfoundland, where, dur- ing spring, hundreds of thousands are annually killed. In their migrations they pass along the coast of Labrador, and ajjpear with regularity twice a year off the coast of Southem Greenland. Capt. J. C. Koss states that in BafBn's Bay thej *Keisen nach dem Nordpolarmeer, p. 56. MIGRATIONS AND BREEDING STATIONS. ^^^ keep mostly "to the loose floating floes which constitute what is termed by the whale fishers 'the middle ice' of Bafiin's Bay and Davis Straits." He says he never met with them in any part of Prince Eegent's Inlet, but states that they are reported by the natives to be very numerous on the west side of the Isthmus of Boothia, but that they are not seen on the east side.* They are well-known visitors to the shores of Iceland, and swarm in the icy seas about Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen. They also occur about Nova Zembla, and Payer refers to their abundance at Franz Josef Land.t They occur in the Kara Sea, and along the Arctic coast of Europe. Malmgren, Lillje- borg, and Collett state that it is of regular occurrence on the coast of Finmark, where it occurs in small numbers from Oc- tober and November till February. Although reported by BeU and others as having been taken in the Severn, and by Saxby| as observed at Baltasound, Shetland, the capture of a speci- men in Morecombe Bay, England, reported by Turner § in 1874, Mr. E. E. Alston says is " the first British specimen that has been properly identified." 1| The distribution of this species in the North Pacific is not well known. Pallas (under the name Fhoca dorsata) records it from Kamtschatka, where its occurrence is also affirmed by Steller. Temminck mentions having examined three skins ob- tained at Sitka, but adds that it was not observed by "les voy- ageurs neerlandais " in Japan. In the collections in the National Museum from the North Pacific this species is unrepresented, the species thus far received from there being the following four, namely : Phoca vituUtia, FJiocafoetida, Erignatlius barhatus, and Histriophoca fascista. Migrations and Breeding Stations. — The Saddleback, although found at one season or another throughout a wide extent of the Arctic seas, appears to be nowhere resident * Ross's Second Voyage, App., p. xxi. tNew Lands within the Arctic Circle, 1877, p, 266. t Mr. Henry L. Saxby, writing under date of Baltasound, Shetland, March 14, 1864, says, "Several Harp Seals are now to be seen in the deep shel- tered voe at Baltasound. This species can scarcely be considered very rare here, but it is said to occur in bad weather, and certainly the present visit forms no exception to the rule, the wind having for some days been blow- ing heavily from N. E., accompanied by sleet and snow." — Zoologist, vol. xxii, L864, p. 9090. § Journ, Anat. and Phys., vol. ix, 1874, p. 168. II Zool. Rec, 1874, p. 10; Fauna of Scotland, Mam., 1880, p. 14. Misc. Pub. No. 12 41 PHOCA GRCENLANDICA HARP SEAL. the whole year. Its very extended periodical uiigratioiis re- late apparently to the selection of suitable conditions for the l)rodnction of its young, and occur with great regularity. Where it spends jwrtions of the year is not well known, while, on the other hand, it may be found Avith the utmost certainty at particular localities during the breeding season. Its most noted breeding stations are the ice-floes to the eastward of Newfoundland, and in the vicinity of Jan Mayen, at which lo- calities they appear early in spring in immense herds. The Seals seen about the shores of Greenland in autumn and early winter are supposed bj- most writers to pass the breeding season in the seas to the eastward of Jan Mayen, but doubt- less a very large pi'oportion of the Seals of Hudson's Straits and neighboring waters to the northward, if not also of Baf- fin's Bay, really move southward along the Labrador coast to the iS'ewfoundland waters, since herds of migrating Seals are regularly observ^ed in autumn to pass in this direction; besides, it is hard to conceive of any other origin for the immense num- bers that resort to the ice-floes off the coast of Southern Lab- rador and Newfoundland to bring forth their young. As has been long well known, the Greenland Seal visits the shores of Greenland both in fall and spring. Dr. Eink states that "It appears regularly along the southern jiart of the coast in September, travelling in herds from south to north, be- tween the islands, and at times resorting to the Ijords In October and November the catch is most plentiful ; then it decreases in December, grows scarce in January, and becomes almost extinct in February." * Mr. Kumlieu states that they "disappear from the Cumberland waters when the ice uiakes," returning again in sj)ring with the appearance of oj)en water. Their passage southward along the Labrador coast occurs before the ice forms, and during this journey they are said to "hug the shore" and freely enter the gulfs and bays. They appear first in small detachments of half a dozen to a score or more of individuals ; tliese are soon followed by larger com- panies, which increase in frequency and numbers; in a few days they form one continuous procession, filhng the sea as far as the eye can reach. Floating with the Arctic current, their progress is extremely rapid, and in one short week the whole multitude has passed. Arriving at the Straits of Belleisle, the great body are deflected eastward, but many enter the Straits * Danish Greenland, etc., p. 124. MIGRATIONS AND BREEDING STATIONS. 643 and pass roiiud to the southward of Newfoundland; som®, however, spend the winter in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where they bring forth their young on the ice in spring. But the great mass continue onward along the eastern coast of New- foundland as far as Baccalieu Island, at the entrance of Trinity Bay, where they leave the shore for the Grand Banks, at which they arrive about the end of December. Here they rest for a month, and then turn again northward to seek the ice-floes for breeding stations. Slowly onward they struggle against the strong current that aided them so much in their southward journey, till they reach the great ice-fields, stretching from the Labrador shore far eastward, — a broad continent of ice. By the end of February the breeding-sites have been chosen, and the young are born shortly after (generally between the 5th and 10th of March). Many of the younger Seals (yearlings and two-year-olds), however, still remain on the southern banks. By the end of April the newly-born Seals are strong enough to secure their own food, and in May the numberless multitude resume their northward route, keeping far out at sea to avoid the strong current that courses along the coast. In May they begin to again arrive on the coast of Southern Greenland, and later visit the more northern shores. The Seals that resort in such great numbers to the ice-floes east and north of Jan Mayen in spring are believed to come mainly from Greenland, but doubtless a large j)art really come from the eastward a,nd northward. Lindeman, speaking of their dispersion after the breeding season, says : " By the end of June they start on their homeward journey to the north and east, the young following ; they pass from one outlying point of ice to another, where they lie to rest. In a single instance they were followed all the way to Spitzbergen, and were here also observed to still pursue an easterly direction. Whither they go and where they keep themselves till the next spring is certainly a worthy subject of investigation"."* As already stated in the general account of Seal-hunting {antea, pp. 496 et seq.), the Harp Seals assemble early in spring in countless numbers in the vicinity of " the dreary island of Jan Mayen", the ice floes a, little to the eastward and northward of which form their great central rendezvous during the breeding , season, and consequently the scene of the grand annual Seal slaughter in the Arctic seas. Their principal breeding-resort * Petermann's Geo{i;rapli. Mittbeil., Ergiinzungs Heft Nr. 26, 1869, p. -. 644 PHOCA GRCENLANDICA HARP SEAL. appears to be a small circular area., having a breadth of about four hundred miles, within which Jan Mayen Island occupies a nearlj^ central point. They are not, however, equally numer- ous throughout even this limited district, but are most densely massed between the 72d and 73d degrees of north latitude, on or near the 7th meridian east of Greenwich. The exact point, however, varies in different 3 ears, in accordance with the varying position of the ice-fields, which is influenced by the prevailing winds and the character of the season. Thus, according to Dr. Wallace, as quoted by Mr. Brown, they were found in 1859 "in considerable numbers not far from Iceland, the most northerly point of which is in N. lat. 60° 44' ; this leads me to remark," Mr. Brown continues, "that the Seals are often divided into several bodies or flocks, and may be at a considerable distance from each other, although it is most common to find these smaller flocks on the skirts or at no great distance from the main body." Where the Seals that here con- gregate in such numbers during the breeding season spend the rest of the year is not well known. Says the writer last quoted, " After the young have begun to take the water in the Spitz- bergen sea, they gradually direct their course to the outside streams, where they are often taken in considerable numbers on warm sunny days. When able to provide for themselves, the females gradually l.eave them and join the males in the north, where they are hunted by the sealers in the months of May and June ; and it is especially during the latter month that the females are seen to have joined the males ; for at the 'old sealing' (as this is called), in May, it has often been re- marked that few or no males are seen in company with the females. Later in the year, in July, there are seen, between the parallels of 76° and 77° X., these flocks of Seals, termed by Scoresby ' Seal's weddings ' ; and I have found that they were composed of the old males and females and the hluehacks [year- lings and two-year-olds], which must have followed the old ones in the north and formed a junction with them some time in June. There is another opinion, that the old females remain and bring their young with them north ; but all our facts are against such a theory {Wallace). "These migrations may vary with the temperature of the sea- son, and are influenced by it ; it is possible that in the Spitz- bergen sea as the winter approaches they keep in advance of it and retreat southward to the limit of the perpetual ice, off MIGRATIONS AND BEEEDING STATIONS. 645 the coast of Greenlaud, somewhere near Iceland, where they spend the winter. We are, however, at a loss regarding the winter habits of these Seals in that region ; here no one winters, and there are no inhabitants to note their migrations and ways of life. Different is it, however, on the Greenland shores of Davis's Strait, where in the Danish settlements the Seals form, both with the whites and Eskimo, the staple article of food and commerce, and accordingly their habits and arrival are well known and eagerly watched. The AtarsoaJc, as it is commonly called by the Eskimo, the 'Svartsidede Sselhnnd' (Black-sided Sealhonnd) of the Danes, is the most common Seal in all South Greenland. It is equally by this Seal that the Eskimo lives, and the ' Kongl-Gronlandske HandeP makes its commerce. In South Greenland when the Seal generally is talked of, or a good or bad year spoken about, everybody thinks of this Seal ; on the other hand, in North Greenland, Fagomys fcetidus and Calloceplialus vitulinus are the most common. These last two species are the only Seals which can be j)roi)erly said to have their home in Greenland, affecting ice-fjords and rarely going far from the coast. This is not the case with P. grcenlandicus ; at certain times of the year thej' completely leave the coast ; there- fore the Seal-hunting in South Greenland is more dependent upon contingencies than in North Greenland. This Seal arrives regularly in September in companies travelling from the south to north, keeping among the islands ; occasionally at this time individuals detach themselves from the drove and go up the inlets. . . ."* Both Dr. Eink and Mr. Brown believe that it is very improb- able that the Seals of South Greenlaud visit Jan Mayen in the breeding season, deeming it more likely that they resort for this purpose to the southern ice-floes off the Labrador coast. "As to their whereabouts during their absence," however, ob- serves the former, " we are somewhat at a loss for perfect infor- mation. There can be no doubt that in spring they retreat to the icefields of the ocean for the purpose of producing their young. It seems most unlikely that the seals from the west coast should have such breeding places to the east of Green- land in the Spitzbergen sea, which would require the whole stock of them to round Cape Farewell at least twice a year. But, considering that just opi)Osite to the west coast extensive * Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, pp. 421, 422; Man. Nat. Hist., etc., Green- land, Mam., pp. 51, 52. 646 PHOCA GRCENLANDICA HARP SEAL. masses of drift-ice from Baffin's Bay are moving southward throughout the greater part of the year, nothing seems more reasonable to believe than that the seals, having gone their usual beat along the west coast of Greenland put to sea in various latitudes ; after which, on crossing Davis Strait, they almost every where will meet with the drift-ice, which they will then follow on its course southward, and on returning they will make the coast of Greenland at some more southerly point, begin their usual migration, and so on."* Mr. Brown, however^ adds: "Every one knows when it commences its migration from the south to the north, but nobody knows where the Seal goes to when it disappears off the coast. Between the time they leave the coast in the spring and return in the summer they beget their young ; and this seems to be accomplished on the pack-ice a great distance from land, viz, in the Spitzbergeu sea. It is at this period that the seal-ships come after them. . . ." From what has been already stated respecting their pas- sage southward at the beginning of winter along the Labrador coast and the shores of Newfoundland to the Grand Banks^ their subsequent movement northward at the beginning of spring to the ice-floes to bring forth their young, and their later migration northward, it seems safe to assume that the Greenland division of these Seals resort mainly in winter to the open waters of the Grand Banks, southeast of Newfoundland, and that after the breeding season they return northward to the Greenland coast; furthermore that the great herds that congregate about Jan Mayen belong mainly to the Arctic waters of the Spitzbergen sea, migrating northward and southward, and more or less westward, with the changes of the season and the i)osition of the ice-fields, and that probably none of the Seals of Baffin's Bay and adjoining waters migrate to the Jan Mayen seas. As already started the Harp Seals visit the southern coast of Greenland in May, and appear on the more northern coast in June. '^ Having visited," says Eink, "the fjords in numerous herds, they again disappear in July and return in September, t Consequently this seal deserts the coast twice a. year, and as regularly returns to it in due season, always first making its * Danish Greenland, etc., 1877, p. 125. t Mr. Brown says, "This Seal leaves the vicinity of Jakobshavu ice-fjord about the middle of July or beginning of August, and comes back in Oc- tober very fat. In August and September there are none on that part of the coast." HABITS. 653 appearance iu the soutbeni, and somewhat hiter in i ^^^^^ ^^.^. ern regions." Why they leave the GreenLand coast in ^j.-^^^^^ and again visit it in September, and there remain for se^ v,^ months before departing for the south, and where they go dm ing their absence, are questions for which there is as yet no satisfactory answer. It has, however, by some been supposed to relate to the pairing season, which occurs in August, the females on their return in September being found to be with young. Mr. Kumlien states that " a few schools were noticed at different times during September, 1877, and October, 1878, from the islands of the Labrador coast to Cumberland, at times a considerable distance from land. It hence seems probable that many pass this portion of the year at points far to the southward of Greenland." Habits. — The Harp Seal is remarkable alike for its abun- dance and its pelagic and roving habits. Eminently gregarious at all seasons, and doubtless outnumbering all the other species together, it forms the chief basis of the great sealing industry of the northern seas. It is, however, as already shown, no- where a permanent resident, and during its periodical journey- ings traverses a wide breadth of latitude. Although often met with far out at sea, it is never seen far from the floating ice- fields, it generally keeping near the edges of the drifting ice. It appears never to resort to the shores and to be seldom met with on the firm ice. This is doubtless due to the fact that, unlike the Ringed and the Bearded Seals, it never forms for itself an athdc or breathing-hole through the ice, and conse- quently is obliged to keep near the large openings formed by winds or ocean currents. It is generally regarded as less saga- cious than most other species, and as submitting, without show of resistance, to the attacks of the sealers. About the beginning of March they assemble at their favorite breeding stations, selecting for this purpose immense ice-fields far from land. Their best known breeding-grounds are the ice- packs off" the eastern coast of Kewfouudland, and about the island of Jan Mayen. A few are said to breed on the floating ice in tbe Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and there are doubtless nu- merous small outlying colonies in various parts of the North At- lantic and Arctic waters. Mr. Carroll states that off the New- foundland coast the young are chiefly born between the 5th and 10th of March, or about a week earlier than is the case g46 p^OCA GRCENLANDICA HARP SEAL. masses J^ooded Seal or the "Square-flipper" (probably ^^7?'- throT' O^yp'^^'*^)- According to Lindeman, the young are born pp^h later at the Jan Mayeu breeding -grounds, or not till the _'3d or 24th of March, the "whelping-time" (as this period is termed in sealing parlance) lasting till about the oth of April. Only rarely does the female bring forth more than a single young one at a birth. The period of gestation is supposed to be about nine months. If left undisturbed the females are said to suckle the young about fifteen to eighteen days, when the young are so far developed that they are able to take to the water and seek their own nourishment. At this time they be- gin to shed their white woolly coat, and take on the harsher, grayer pelage that succeeds the foetal dress. According to Mr. Carroll, the old " Breeding Harps "' are the first to leave the fishing- ground for the purpose of "whelping." In selecting their breeding stations they endeavoi" to go as far north as they can advance with safety, or until they meet the heavy northern ice, for they know that the more northern the station the more safety there is for the young from the wash of southern storms. Yet, in spite of their delicate instincts, and notwithstanding their great cautiousness, says Lindeman, "it still sometimes hapi^ens that heavy northeast storms drive the whole area chosen into the open sea, and the immense mass of young Seals become unfortunately destroyed. I saw many in- teresting examples," he adds, "of how courageously the mother worked under such an accident in order to bring her young again uj)on the firm ice, either by trying to swim with it between her fore flippers or by driving it before her and tossing it forward with her nose." Carroll states that all kinds of Seals found about Newfoundland " will at all times endeavor to whelp as near the shore as possible, because instinct teaches them that the nearer the rocks the shallower the water, so that when they abandon their young ones the little creatures will see the bottom so as to enable them to procure their food. When young Seals are whelped near the shore," however, he continues, "and a heavy sea comes on, thousands of them are ground to i^ieces with the sea against the rocks. I have fi'equently watched the old female harps bolt up through the ice in a heavy sea and drag their young ones oft' the ice into the water out of danger. Again, when the ice begins to raft where young Seals are, thousands upon thousands of them are also chopped into piece- meal." HABITS. 653 The females take up their stations on the ice very near liL' each other, the young being- thus sometimes born not more than three feet apart ; they also all bring forth their young at very nearly the same time. The males accompany the females to the breeding stations, and remain in the vicinity, yet rarely upon the ice, congregating mostly in the open pools between the ice -floes. The mothers leave their young on the ice, to fish in the neighborhood for their own subsistence, but frequently return to the young to suckle them. The young increase rap- idly in size, and when three weeks old are said to be nearly half as large as the old ones. At this time they are the fattest and are considered to be in best condition for killing. Later the fat diminishes although the general bulk continues to in- crease. If undisturbed the old Seals will remain amongst the ice at the breeding-grounds till after the moult, which occurs late in the spring, for the purpose of rubbing oft* the old hair against the ice. The annual moulting-time, or "skin-sickness" {'■'■ Hautlirank- lieW^), as the Germans expressively term it, is evidently a period of great discomfort, and occurs within four or five weeks after the birth of the young. During this time they rapidly lose their fat, and become more watchful and restless. xVs Mr. Car- roll puts it, about the middle of A\)v\\ the old Seals, and the yearlings and two-year-olds, " mount the ice to scrub them- selves". If the day be warm, he adds, " the skiu on the back is sure to be sunburnt, so much so, that you can tear it off with your fingers; they will remain on the ice to be killed when once they get sunburnt rather than go in the water. When they do get in the water they will cry with pain and sometimes mount the ice again." For breeding stations the Seals select " sheet-ice", in which, says Mr. Carroll, they keep holes open through which they may get to their young. A rim soon forms around these holes caused by the freezing of the water forced up by the Seals in passing through them, but they are sure to keep one side of the hole on a level with the water, the side they use in going up and down. They assemble in such numbers that the cry of the vast number of the old and young may be heard to the distance of several miles, particularly if the ear be applied to the ice. The same author states that at the Newfoundland breeding- grounds no wind will break up the "whelping ice" equal to a strong southea.st wind ; no matter how deep the northern bays 646 PHOCA GRCENLANDICA HARP SEAL. mnay be, such wind will be sure to break up the ice. It is well understood, he adds, that the "whereabouts" of the young Seals depends "on wind and tide". Mr. Carroll ascribes great sagacity to the Seals in discerning the character of the weather when they are in danger of being "embayed". "They are sure to swarm out," he says, "at least two and sometimes three days before the wind blows in on the land ; they also know when a lake of water is in the sheet or drift some hundred miles more or less from where they are hy the reflection of ihe light through the ice [\\. . . . When Seals get embayed and are kept there some number of days and can- not get into the water owing to the ice being jammed, they begin to travel out in a direct line for the water. Supposing the water to be fifty miles from them, they know well by scent where it is, for you will see them stretch out their necks and sniff; should the ice part in any direction from them they will at once turn round and avail themselves of it. Much depends upon the character of the ice they have to travel on as to their rate of speed ; they travel principally by night. I have killed them with the hair and skin worn off the fore flippers and bleeding." The same writer states that in cool nights Seals will travel at an average rate of one mile per hour. Their speed depends much, however, upon the character of the ice, on level ice an old Seal being able to outstrip a smart runner in a distance of sixty yards. They move laboriously, by lifting themselves off the ice on their fore flipiiers and drawing up the hind part of the body, resulting in a "sidelong loping gallop." In travelling they sometimes become overheated, in which case the hair becomes loosened and the skin worthless.* The young Seals are said not to voluntarily enter the water until at least twelve days old, and that they require four or five days' practice before they acquire sufficient strength and proficiency in swimming to enable them to take care of them- selves. After they take to the water they congregate by them- selves, and when they mount the ice assemble in quite compact herds. Professor Jukes refers to a young one that was taken alive on board his ship as forming a verj' gentle and interesting pet. "HelayA^ery quiet on deck, opening and closing his curious nostrils, . . . and occasionally lifting his fine dark lustrous eyes as if with wonder at the strange scenes around him." His * The Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, 1873, pp. 24, 25. ENEMIES. 653 short thick fur being dry and clean, gave him a very warm at" comfortable appearance. On being patted on the head he drew it in till his face was perpendicular to his body, knitted his brow and closed his eyes and nostrils, thereby assuming a A'ery comical exiDression of countenance. Although he was fierce when teased, and attempted to bite and scratch, he immediately became quiet on being stroked or patted. They are doubtless easily tamed, and might be made very interesting pets. In the present instance the poor brute was cruelly teased by dogs and men till he became exhausted, and Professor Jukes passed his knife into his heart to end his misery.* The Harp Seals are stated to swim with great rapidity, pro- pelling themselves with their powerful hind-flippers, one writer estimating their speed when "bolting" under the ice as "at least one hundred miles per hour," and observes that as they pass beneath you you " will observe only a blue shade," even if the water is perfectly clear. Their favorite position when swimming, as affirmed by numerous observers, is on the back or side, in which jiositiou they also sleep in the water. Their social and gregarious instincts seem to be manifested on all occasions ; they not only migrate in dense herds, and assemble on fhe ice in compact bodies, but are rarely met with singly, though occasionally in small groups. As noted on pre- ceding pages, immense herds sometimes fill the sea as far as the eye can reach, or thickly cover the ice over areas of many square miles in extent. Enemies. — Aside from their destruction by man, and not unfrequently by the elements, they find a formidable enemy in the sword-fish, and are extensively preyed upon by sharks. Mr. Carroll, my chief authority on this j)oint, says that when the Seals aie floating about on single "pans," he has seen sword- fish, sharks, and other kinds of fish, taking them off. The sword-fish, he says, will get on one side of the i)an and j^ress it down to such an angle "that the Seal must slip off" among them and be torn to pieces". The Seals appear to have a great terror of these remorseless enemies, for the same authority adds, "I have been on pans of ice when seals mounted the ice to avoid the sword-fish and sharks, and obliged to fire at the mon- sters to keep them off". A seal will shake with fear, and should a man be on the pan when sword-fish and sharks are after them, * Excurs. in Newfoundland, vol. i, pp. 283, 284. 646 PHOCA GRCENLANDICA HARP SEAL. Sey will run between a man's legs for protection ".* Doubtless many young Seals not only become the prey of these creatures, but also of the rapacious Orca, so well known to prey upon the young of the Fur Seals. Food. — Like all the Phocids, the Harp Seal is well known to subsist chiefly upon fish, but also in part upon Crustaceans and Mollusks. White-fish and the cod seem to form their chief food off the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador, and from the abundance of the Seals the quantity they consume must be immense. It has even been supposed that the small catch of codfish about the island of Newfoundland is due to the great destruction of these fishes by the Seals, several millions of the latter, it is estimated, spending several months of each year in the vicinity of this island. Allowing only one fish a day to each Seal during the time they stay about the island would re- quire the annual destruction of several million quintals of these fishes. In their southward migration in autumn along the coast of Labrador, they are said to follow the schools of white- fish, on which to a large extent they are also known to feed. They also follow them into all the bays along the coast in spring. "As long as white-fish are in with the land," says Mr. Carroll, "so sure will seals of every description be there". That they also prey upon the codfish is well proven by Seals being killed with these fish in their mouths, as well as by find- ing them on the ice to which the Seals have carried them. Mr. Carroll believes that the greater the increase of Seals on the Newfoundland coast the more will the codfish decrease on the same coast. The scarcity of the one thus seems to imply the abundance of the other, so that an abundance of Seals along a coast where cod-fishing is prosecuted is not altogether an un- mixed good. Hunting and Products. — As so large a part of what has been already said in the general account of the Seal-fishery of the North Atlantic and Arctic waters necessarily relates to the present species, it is scarcely requisite in the present connec- tion to more than recall the leading points of the subject, with the addition of a few details not previously given. As already stated, the sealing-grounds par excellence are the ice-floes off the eastern coast of Newfoundland and around Jan Mayen Island, * Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, p. 26. HUNTING AND PRODUCTS. 653 where the present species forms almost the sole object of pur- suit. The sealing season lasts for only a- few weeks during spring; the enterprise* gives employment during this time to hundreds of vessels and thousands of men, the average annual catch falling little short of a million Seals, valued at about three million of dollars. While the pursuit is mainly carried on in vessels, sailing chiefly from English, German, and Nor- wegian ports, or from those of Newfoundland and the other British Provinces, many are caught along the shores of the countries periodically visited by these animals, as those of South Greenland, Southern Labrador, Newfoundland, and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The pursuit with vessels, and the va- rious incidents connected therewith, have already been detailed, and sufficient allusion^ have perhaps also already been made to the Greenland method of Seal-hunting {ajitea^ pp. 522-545). In consequence of the gregarious habits of the species, and the fact that one-half to two-thirds of those taken are young ones that are not old enough to make any effectual attempt to escape, the success of a sealing voyage deiiends almost wholly upon the mere matter of luck in discovering the herds. While the old Seals are mostly shot, the young are killed with clubs. In respect to the ease and facility with which they are cap- tured it may be noted that it is not at all unusual, in the height of the season, for the crew of a single small vessel to kill and take on board from five hundred to a thousand in a day. Mr. Brown states: "In lcSG6 the steamer Camperdown obtained the enormous number of 22,000 Seals in nine days," or an aver- age of 2,500 per day. " It is nothing uncommon," he adds, " for a ship's crew to club or shoot, in one day, as many as from 500 to 800 old Seals, with 2,000 young ones".t Such slaughter is necessarily attended with more or less barbarity, but this seems to be sometimes carried to a needless extreme. The Seals are very tenacious of life, and, in the haste of killing, many are left for a long time half dead, or are even flayed alive. Jukes states that even the young are "sometimes bar- barously skinned alive, the body writhing in blood after being stripped of its skin," and they have even been seen to swim away in that state, as when the first blow fails to kill the Seal their hard-hearted murderers " cannot stop to give them a sec- ond". "How is it," he adds, "one can steel one's mind to look * For statistics of the Seal-fishery, see antea, pp. 497-502. tMan. Nat. Hist., Geol., etc., Greenland, Mam., p. 67, footnote. 654 GENUS ERIGNATHUS. on that which to read of, or even think of afterwards, makes one shudder? In the bustle, hurry, n,nd excitement, these things pass as a matter of course, and as if necessary ; but they are most horrible, and will not admit of an attempt at pallia- tion."* Scoresby t and other writers refer to similar heartless proceedings, — as though the necessary suffering attending such a sacrifice of unresisting creatures were not in itself bad enough without the infliction of such needless cruelty. The young Seals not only do not attempt any resistance, but are said to make no efibrt to move when approached, quietly suf- fering themselves to be knocked on the head with a club. The old Seals are more wary, and are generally killed with fire- arms. Scoresby relates that ''When the Seals are observed to be making their escape into the water before the boats reach the ice, the sailors give a long-continued shout, on which their victims are deluded by the amazement a sound so unusual produces and frequently delay their retreat until arrested by the blows of their enemies ". t The annual catch of Harp Seals in Greenland is stated by Eink to be 17,500 full-grown " Saddle-backs" and 15,500 "Blue- sides", or 33,000 in all. The catch from the IS'ewfoundland ports alone often reaches 500,000, and in the Jan Mayen seas often exceeds 300,000, so that the total annual catch of this species alone doubtless ranges from 800,000 to 900,000. The commercial products are the oil — used in the lubrication of machinery, in tanning leather, and in miners' lamps — and the skins, which are employed for the manufacture of various kinds of leather and articles of clothing. The skins are said to be mostly sold to Enghsh manufacturers, who employ them in the preparation of a superior article of "patent" or lacquered leather. The flesh is esteemed by the Greenlanders as superior to that of their favorite Neitselc {Phoca foetid a). Genus EEIGNATHUS, QUI. Phoca, Gray, " Zool. Erebus and Terror, 1844 "; Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, 27, not of Linn^. Tjrpe, Phoca barbata, Fabricius. Erignatlms, Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 9. Type, Phoca harlata. Muzzle broad, forehead high, convex; small supraorbital processes. Dental formula as in Phoca; teeth small, molars * Excurs. in Newfoundland, vol. i, p. 290. tHist. of the Arct. Reg., vol. i, p. 510. t Ibid., vol. i, p. 512. ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS BEARDED SEAL. 655 spaced, slightly implanted, early becoming defective by attri- tion ; partly deciduous in old age. Palatal area broad, ellipti- cal, deeply emarginate posteriorly; uarial septum incomplete. Lower jaw short, small, the rami outwardly convex. Scapula with no acromion process. Iliac crests not abruptly everted and produced. Middle digits of the manus longest. Mammae 4. In respect to the general form of the skull, Erignathus differs from P/iom in the great height of the skull at the anterior border of the frontals. It differs also in the great breadth, arched form, and elliptical outline of the palate, and in the great depth of the narial fossaj. Although its single species is still commonly placed in the genus Fhoca, other osteological characters, espe- cially the absence of the acromion process of the scapula and the slight eversion of the iliac border of the pelvis, seem to warrant its separation. Although the animal attains to a large size, the teeth are weak, and in young specimens, or before they have become modified by attrition, are not longer antero- posteriorly, though rather thicker, than in Phoca fcetida, and are consequently several times smaller than in Phoca vitulina. The first, second, and fifth upper molars are 2-pointed, only the posterior accessory cusp being developed ; the third and fourth are 3-pointed, also without an anterior cusp. All the lower molars are 3-pointed, there being an accessory cusp both in front of and behind the principal cusp. Quite early in life the teeth become much worn, and in old age the crowns of the three middle molars become often wholly worn away, leaving only the fangs, and even these sometimes in part disappear. Mr. KumUen states that "in many adults the teeth can almost be plucked out with the fingers," so slight is their attachment. ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS {Fahricius) Gill. Bearded Seal. Phoca larbata, Fabricius, Muller's Zool. Dau. Prod., 1776, viii ; Fauna Grcenl., 1780, 15; Skriv. Nat. Selsk., i, 1790, 139, pi. xiii, fig. 3.— Erxxeben, Syst. Reg. Auim., 1777, 590. — Gmelin, Syst. Nat., i, 1788, 65.— Kerr, An. King., 1792, 126.— Shaw, Gen. Zool., i, 1800.— J. Ross, Ross's 1st Voy., App., 1819, xli.— Desmarest, Mam., 1820, 246, 378.— "NiLSSOX, Skand. Faun., i, 1820, 374 ; K. Yet. Akad. Handl., Stockholm, 1837, — " ; Wiegmann's Arch. fiirNaturg., 1841, 317; Skand. Fauna Diiggdj., 1847,294. — ''Thienemann, Reise im Norden von Europa, etc. , i, 1824, 23, pi. i (ad. female), pi. ii (male of two years), pi. iii (male of one year), pi. iv (skulls).*' — Richardson, Parry's 2d Voy., Suppl., 1825, 335.— Harlan, Faun.Amer., 1825, 111. 656 ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS BEARDED SEAL. — GODMAN, Amer. Nat. Hist., i, 1826, 342.— Gkay, Griffith's Aniiu. Kiug.,v, 1827, 178; "Zool. Erebus aud Terror"; Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, 27, fig. 9 ; Cat. Seals aud Whales, 1806, 31, fig. 10 ; Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 3; Hand-List Seals, 1874, 8, pi. v.— Fis- cher, Syn. Mam., 1829, 240.— J. C. Ross, Ross's 2d Voy., App., 1835, xxi. — Bell, Brit. Quad., 18L{7, 275, fig. of skull (in part only). — Macgillivray, Brit. Quad., 1838, 212 (in part only). — Hamilton, Amphib. Cam., 1839, 145, pi. "3" — i. e. 5 (in part only); not the British references, nor the young specimen in Edinb. Mus., apiid Brown, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1868, 419. — Blainville, Osteogr., Phoca, 1840-1851, pi. ix. — Temminck, Faun. Japon., Mam. Marins, 1842, 8 (Japan). — ? Jukes, Excurs. in Newfoundland, i, 1842, 312. — Wag- ner, Schreber's Siiugth., vii, 1842, 18. — Schinz, Syuop. Mam., i, 1844, 481. — Von Middendorff, Sibir. Reise, ii, 2, 1853, 122. — Giebel, Saugeth., 1855, 134. — VoN Schrenck, Amur-Lande, i, 1859, 181. — Malmgren, Ofv. af Kongl. Vet. Akad. Stockh., 1863, 135 ; Arch, fur Naturg., 1864, 74. — Steenstrup, Vid. Medd. f. d. Naturh. Forening, 1864 (1865), 269.— Collett, Bemairk. til Norges Pattedyrf., 1876, 58. — VoN Middendorff, Sibirische Reise, iv, Th. 2, 1867, 934. — Lloyd, Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway, 1867, 408, pL, animal. — Quennerstedt, Kongl. Svens. Vetensk. Akad. Haudl., vii. No. 3, 1868, 10.— Brown, Proc. Zool. Soc. Loud., 1868, 340, 424; Man. Nat. Hist., Geol., etc., Greenland, Mam., 1875, 53. — Torell aud Nordenskjold, Swedischen Exp. nach Spitz, u. Biiren Eiland, etc. (Germ, ed.) 1869, 78 (plate representing a grouji on the ice). — LiLLJEBORG, Fauna ofver Sveriges och Norges Ryggradsdjur, 1, 1874, 697. — Rink, Danish Greenland, its Peoijle and its Products,. 1877, 126, 430.— Van Beneden, Ann. du Mus. roy. d'Hist. Nat. du Belgique, i, 1877, 20 (geogr. distr.). — Kumlien, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 15, 1879, 61. Callocephalusba7-batus, F. Cuvier, M^m. du Mus., xi, 1824, 184, pi. xii, fig. 4; Diet, des Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 547. — Lesson, Man. de Mam., 1827, 198. Fhoca (Callocephaliis) iarbata, Yon Heuglin, Reisen nach dem Nordpolar- meer, etc., iii, 1874, 56. JErignathus barbaUis, Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 12. — ? Packard, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., x, 1866, 271. Fhooa leporina, Lepechin, Act. Acad. Petrop., i, 1777, 264, pll. viii, ix. — Fabricius, Skriv. Nat. Selsk., i, 2, 1791, 168.— Shaw, Gen. Zool., i, 1800, 258. — Desmarest, Nouv. Diet. Sci. Nat., xxv, 1817, 581 ; Mam., 1820, 243, 374.— Fischer, Synop. Mam., 1829, 237.— Ha:milton, Amphib. Caruiv., 1839, 170, pi. ix. Callocephalus leporiniis, F. Cuvier, Diet, des Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 545. Phoca lepechini, Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 415 (= rii'oca leporina, Lepechin). Phoca parsonsi, Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 414 (:= Long- bodied Seal, Parsons). Phoca albigena, Pallas, Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat., i, 1831, 109. Phoca nautica, Pallas, Zoogr. Rosso-Asiat., i, 1831, 108. Phoca naurica, Gray, Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 3 {=^"Phocanamica [lege nautica] et Phoca albigena, Pallas"). EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 657 Phoca, Vitulusmarinus, or Sea CaZ/, Parsons, Phil. Trans., xlii, 1742-3(1744), 383, pi, i. Lachtak, Steller, Nov. Comm, Acad. Petrop., ii, 1751, 290. Long-iodied Seal, Parsons, Phil. Trans., xlvii, 1751-2 (1753), 121. Uksuk, Cranz, Hist, von Gro^nl., 1765. Leporine Seal, Pennant, Syn. Quad., ii, 1793, 277. Eemmesoilen, Fabricius, 1791, 1. c. Oo-sook, Greenlanders. Ogjook, Cumberland Esquimaux (Kumlien). Lachtak or Laktak, Kamtschatkans. Storkobhe, Blaakohbe, Ravert, Norwegian (VON HJEUGriN). Hafert-skal, Storsjdl, Swedish. Bartrobbe, Bdrtige Seehund, German. ? Square fipper and Square flipper, of Newfoundland Sealers. Ground Seal, Spitzbergen Sealers (Brown). Bearded Seal, Great Seal, English authors. External Characters. — Above gray, darker along the middle of the back, the color varying in different individuals. A specimen from Disco Bay, Greenland (Nat. Mus., No. 8697), is gray, varied with black, but without distinct marks or spots. Wagner describes a specimen from Labrador as clear gray above, marbled with large indistinct yellowish spots, among them one on the back of the head more pronounced; sides and whole lower side of the body soiled white. No dark stripe along the back and head. Nilsson describes the color as being a pale gray above, still paler on the sides, and on the heUy white ; head and neck above, blackish, with a narrow band of the same color along the back. Macgillivray describes a Green- land specimen as having "the fore part of the head brown, the top light yellowish-gray ; the hind neck and an obscurely de- fined space along the back, including the tail, dull brown, the rest dull yellowish-gray". Mr. Kumlien, who has had the op- portunity of seeing many specimens in the Arctic regions, says the color is variable, the yellowish-brown being "more or less clouded with lighterordarkermarkings, irregularly dispersed". The length of adult males is usually given as "about ten feet"; females, rather smaller. I find the total length of an adult fe- male skeleton to be 7 feet 2 inches (2195 mm.). The young are described as being covered with long, soft, dark gray wool, which, in about two weeks after birth, is re- placed by a coat of shorter, more rigid, bluish-gray hair. Nils- son described a specimen supposed to be foetal as covered with dark gray wool, which is darker on the posterior part of the Misc. Pub. No. 12 42 658 ERIGNATHUS FARBATUS BEARDED SEAL, back and hind feet,* while Lepechin compared the woolly coat of the young (his Phoca leporina) to that of Lqms variahilis. Mr. Kumlieu thus describes a foetal specimen taken April 28, 1878, near Middliejuacktwack Islands : " Color, uniform grizzly- mouse color, with a tinge of olive-gray. Muzzle, crown, and irregular patches on the back and fore flippers, white. From the nose to the eyes a black line, with another crossing the head behind the eyes, the two forming a perfect cross. Nails, liorn-blue, tipped with white. Iris, dark brown. Nose, black. Muzzle, wide, lips full and fleshy, giving the animal a bull-dog expression. Body, long and slender. Beard, pellucid, abun- dant, white, stout, the bristles becoming shorter toward the nos- trils. Hind flippers, large and heavy, looking disproportionate to the size of the body. Hair, rather short, but fine and some- what woolly, interspersed with another kind, stiff and of a steel-blue color, which I take to be the second coat. The Es- kimo are firm in the belief that the Ogjook sheds its first coat within the uterus of the mother. In this case there was cer- tainly an abundance of loose hair in the uterus, but the speci- men had been dragged some miles in its envelope over rough ice, besides having been kept three or four days in an Eskimo igloo among a heap of garbage, so that it is not to be wondered at that the hair was loose. "There was little blubber on the specimen, and this was thicklj^ interspersed with blood-vessels. "The specimen measured as follows: Feet. Inches. Extreme length 4 7 Length of head 0 S.25 Width of muzzle 0 4.5 From end of nose to eye 0 3. 2 Distance between eyes 0 3. 5 Length of fore flipper (to end of nails) 0 7. 15 Width of fore flipper 0 4.3 Length of hind flipper 1 0 Greatest expanse of hind flipper 1 1.5"t Skull and Skeleton. — The principal distinctive osteolog- ical features of the Bearded Seal having ah-eady been given in connection with the generic diagnosis, little is called for in the present connection, since a detailed account of its osteology does not fall within the scope of the present history of the species. * Archiv. fiir Naturg., 1841, p. 317. t MS. notes. SKULL AND SKELETON. 659 It may be stated, however, in general terms, that the skeleton indicates a general robustness of form, correlating with the rather broad thick head. The relative length of the different limb-segments and vertebral regions is about as in Phoca green- kindica, except that the caudal series o*^ vertebrae is much shorter. The bulk of the entire animal, however, must be con- siderably greater than in P. groenlandica. The scapula is long and narrow, the proscapuhir and postscapular fossJB about equal, the latter not greatly produced at its posterior upper border, as in Phoca vitulina and P. fcetida. Aside from the absence of the acromion j)rocess, it thus differs in its nar- row elongated form, and especially in the unusual length of the shaft, from that of either of the three above-named species. P. groenlandica presents the opposite extreme, the scapula of which is broad and short. The exceptional features of the skull are the small size of the orbital fossae, the rather small size of the auditory bullae, and the large size of the nasal passages. The general form of the lower jaw is much as in P. vitulma, especially resembling it iu the lateral convexity of the rami, and in the form of the con- dylar portion, and in the abruptness of the angle. It is, how- ever, small and weak for the size of the skull, and especially so for the size of the animal.* Perhaps its most striking feature consists in the large process on the hind border just below the condyle, which is twisted over toward the inner edge of the ja.w, and has its axis of development in that direction or trans- verse to the longitudinal axis of the jaw. In comparison with the skeleton in the above-named species of Phoca, the bones of the Bearded Seal are light and porous (less so, however, than in the Cystophorinw) ; the tuberosities are all rather weakly developed, with a, less tendency to anchy- losis. To this general laxness of ossification may perhaps be attributed the slight development and consequent lack of ab- rupt eversion of iliac crests of the pelvis already noted. The subjoined table of hnear measurements of the principal bones of the skeleton is taken from that of a quite old female from Cumberland Gulf, collected by Mr. Kumlien. * I find that the lower jaw of a very old male P. vitulina just fits an adult female skull of Erignaflms harhatas, except that the latter is slightly longer. 660 ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS BEARDED SEAL. Measurements of ihe principal parts of the skeleton in Erignathus harhatus (5 ad.). MM. Length of the skull 230 Length of the cervical vertebrae 250 Length of the dorsal vertebrse 800 Length of the lumbar vertebrae 390 Length of the sacral vertebrae 175 Length of the caudal vertebrae 350 Length of the scapula 210 Length of the humerus 162 Length of the radius 140 Length of the manus. 185 Length of the pelvis 320 Length of the femur 153 Length of the tibia 310 Length of the pes 380 Length of the whole skeleton 2195 Length of the fore limb (exclusive of scapula) 487 Length of the hind limb 843 The series of skulls of this species shows that the female is rather smaller than the male, with a rather weaker osseous structure. While old males have rudimentary but quite strongly marked anteorbital processes, equally old female skulls some- times show not the slightest trace of them. The largest male skuUs do not exceed a length of 260 mm., while one marked as female attains nearly 240 mm. The Bearded Seal, although, often started to be the largest Phocid of the northern seas, has the skull much smaller than either Haliehcerus grypus or Cysto- phora cristata, while the skeleton of the latter indicates an an- imal of much greater bulk. Adult female skidls of the Bearded Seal, in fact, scarcely exceed in linear dimensions very large old male skulls of Phoca vitulina. MEASUEEMENTS OF THE SKULL. 661 0 bD bo a a o o la la -q -w 2 13 O O M W -^ <1 O 2^ •JBioni ^BBi o:^ entcTBa jo oSpa (juojj ■jAvt jaAio^ JO qjSaai ■QSBO-arejq jo q;ptAi. !jS8:}'B9Jf) ■* CO t- IM 00 •asBO-uiBjq JO qjSnai o •aeiinq ^^laeiaAenuj^ 'sajBU jotJ9:>n'B jo q^pBajg; •jf^BOW-i^A 'saa-BU J0IJ8HI8 JO q:)pB8J[2 'i!iasj9ABaBjj'sajBnJou3j80(Ijoq;pB8ja; 00 i s 00 •^n^oi^jaA 'saiBtt jOTja'jBod jo q^^pBajg; •jinB|iqiOJ9:jni 'xpiJie jo q:).pB9aq ;^8B91 ■89innB9 ^B \[a'S[S jo qi^pBajg; •&xnjns AiB^ -lTXB^I-o:^^OJJ %v q^pBaiq '(J9noq ^bsb^ | i» in CO LO ui ■<* m st(i | ■qnmBq pioS.tiajd jo ptia oj aJKixBoi ■jgjoi JO aSpa joua^UB inoij aoaB^siQ; •89qo:iB otj'BnioS^fz ^b qjpB9jq :;s9:jb9J-9 'ea8sa90Jd piojSBin :jb q^pBajg; •q^Snai t- c^ t- CO lO l» 00 O O i-H lO lO Ifi <0 r-l .-( ^ to o to o c~ t~ to 662 ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS^BEAEDED SEAL. Generax History and Noimenclature. — The early his- tory of the Bearded Seal is pecttliaxly involved, owing in part to the vagueness of the early references. The first notice of the species that can be fixed with any degree of certainty is Dr. James Parsons's account, published in 1744, of the '■'Phoca,^ Vitulus marinus, or Sea-Calf, shewed at Charing-Cross, in Feb., 1742-3 ", * which, if any reliance ca,n be placed on the figure, — declared by Dr. Parsons to be drawn from life and to have been pronounced by all who saw it to be an excellent likeness, — and the characters given in the text, must be unquestionably the present species. Dr. Parsons says it was a female, and very young, "though Seven Feet and half in Length, haviog scarcely any Teeth, and having Four Holes regularly placed about the navel, as appears by the Figure, which in time become PapUlK.''^ The figure shows the middle finger of the fore-flipper to be the longest, the others regularly decreasing in length on each side, while the hind-flippers terminate squarely, with all the digits of nearly equal size. As this is the only species of Seal found in the northern seas which has four mammte, and the flippers of the form here indicated, the identity of the sjfecies seems beyond question. The size, moreover, corresponds with that of old females of the present species. Its " having scarcely any Teeth" is another strong point in favor of its being the Bearded Seal, since it is well known that in old, or even middle-aged, examples of this species the molar teeth are so much worn down that only the fangs of the greater part of the molars remain, and even these may be in part lacking, while on the other hand no other Seal of this size could show this feature, either from immaturity or attrition due to old age. The identity of Parsons's Long-bodied Sealt with the Bearded Seal {Phoca harhata, auct.) was almost universally conceded till 1837, when, from an examination of what was supposed to be Dr. Parsons's original specimen, Messrs. Bell and Ball declared it to he Halichoerus grypus. Mr. Bell says, "For many years there has been deposited in the British Museum a large speci- men of Seal, which has always been considered as the Phoca harbata. It was previously in the possession of Mr. Donovan, * Phil. Trans, for the year 1742-1743 (1744), p. 383, pi. i. t It should be stated that this name was first used by Dr. Parsons for this Seal in a subsequent reference to the same specimen published in 1753 (Phil. Trans., vol. xlrii, p. 121), iu which the habitat is given as the coast of Cornwall and the Isle of Wight. GENERAL HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE. 663 who, I am informed, stated it to be the identical specimen de- scribed under the name of 'Long-bodied Seal' by Mr. Parsons, in the forty-seventh volume of the Philosophical Transactions, It has been upon his authority only that Ph. barhata has been catalogued as British, and it now proves to be the same species as that lately found on the southern coast of Ireland by Mr. Ball, the Plioca Gryphus of Fabricius, Halichoerus griseus of Horuschuch and Nilsson. It was by the exhibition of crania of this species by Mr. Ball at the late meeting of the British Association, that Professor Nilsson, who was present, was able to identify it ; and a subsequent examination of the specimen in the British Museum led that gentleman to the conclusion that this also is identical with the former." * Mr. Ball says, " On ex- amining the remains of Donovan's Ph. barhata, now in the British Museum, I recognized in it an ill-put-up specimen of oiu' Hali- choerus; and I presume the stufifer has endeavored to make the specimen correspond with the description of Ph. barhata by unduly i^lumping up the snout and shortening the thumbs, which are evidently pushed in by the wires intended to sup- port the i3aws."t Since these announcements the Long-bodied Seal of Parsons has generally been referred to Halichoerns grypus, or only doubtfully assigned a place among the synonyms of the Bearded Seal. Inasmuch as the Long-bodied Seal of Parsons forms an imj)ortant element in the ground-work on which the name Phoca barhata reposes, a further inquiry into the question here at issue may be in place. First, it may be noted, that the identity of Donovan's speci- men with that described by Parsons rests on hearsay testimony, namely, a report that he said it was the same.| Without cast- ing any implication of doubt upon the correct specific determi- nation of Donovan's specimen, as above detailed, it may be observed further that the characters given by Parsons apply to the Bearded Seal and to no other, and, fiu'thermore, that Par- sons does not state whether or not his specimen was preserved, nor does he in the original account say where it was captiu'ed. In his second notice he gives its habitat as the "Coast of Corn- * History of British Quadrupeds, etc., 1837, pp. 278, 279. tibid., p. 281. + Ball states elsewhere that Donovau's Phoca barbata ^^ seems to be the individual described by Parsons as the loug-bodied seal, and it appears to have been on the authority of this specimen that Phoca barbata has occu- pied a place in the British Fauna." — Trans. Roy. Irish Acad., vol. xviii, pt, 1, pp. 90, Dl, in a paper read " 12th December, 1836". 664 ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS— BEARDED SEAL. wall and the Isle of White" {lege Wight?). In view of the admitted uncertainty as to whether Donovan's specimen was the one described by Parsons, and the agreement of Parsons's ficcount and figure (the best figure of any Seal published up to that date), there seems to be no adequate reason for referring Parsons's Long-bodied Seal to any other than the Bearded Seal, with which for three-fourths of a ceutury it was currently associated. Another early, and in some respects important account of this species, appears to have been given by Cneiff (see antea, p. 530), under the name Grd Skcel (or " graue Seekalb" as termed in the German translation of his i)aper, which is here used). Although Cneiff's (or Kueiff, in the German orthography) GrS, Sksel is referred by Lilljeborg and others to Halichcerus grypus, its breeding habits seem to forbid its reference to that species, it being said to bring forth its j'ouug about the end of February on the ice remote from the land, while Halichcerus grypus has its young in the autumn, for which purpose it resorts to the land, selecting as its breeding haunts rocky shores and small rocky islets. The general habits of the species also better accord with those of the Bearded Seal, especially its forming an atluk or breathing-hole throngh the ice, like Phoca fcetida, these two species being the only ones found in the northern seas which have that habit. That it is not Phoca fcetida is indicated by its size, which is said to be a fall "Klafter" (about 6^ feet) long, and by his comparison of it with the Harbor Seal (" Wikare" or "Meerbusenkalb" = Phoca vituUna), from which it api)ears that the latter is only about half the size of the former.* As respects the color, he says the Gray Sea-Calves are mostly dark gray ; many are yellowish ; but they are very rarely marked with black and white spots. There is here a closer agreement with the Bearded than with the Gray Seal. There consequently seems to be no reason why Cneiff's Gr& Skael should not be referred to the Bearded Seal, and very strong reasons against its reference to Halichcerus grypus. j To resume the early history of the subject, the next notice of the Bearded Seal appears to be Steller's reference, in 1751, * He gives the weight of the graue Seekalb as " 18 Lisspfuud ", and that of the Wikare as "10 Lisspfund". t At p. 531, in the account- of Cneiff's history of sealing in the Gulf of Bothnia, I gave the species as probably Halichoerns grypus, in deference to eminent authority. GENERAL HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE. GG^ to a large Seal occurring in the North Pacific, " quse magnitudinc Tanruui superat", and which he says the Kamtschatdales called "Lachtak". He speaks of it as being the largest of the Seals of those waters. It later formed the '■'■Phoca maxima^ Steller" of authors, but Steller himself did not originate this phraseology. It is also the basis of the Phoca lachtak of Des- marest. These references have been very generally identified with the present species. Crauz, in 1765, referred to it, but* without really describing it, under the name Uksuk. Yet the little he had to say about it serves to render it certain that the Uksuk is the Phoca barhata of the later systematic writers, it being still known in Greenland under that name (now commonly spelled "Oo-sook"), just as the Pacific representatives of the species are still known under the native name Laktak. Fabricius was the first to give it a systematic designation, he calling it, in 1776 (in inedited notes in Mliller's "Zoologicae Danise Prodrom\is"), Phoca barbata, but the name was unac- comijanied by a description. He cites, however, its Icelandic and Greenlandic names "Gramselr" and "Urksuk," by which the species is still known in those countries. Four years later (in his "Fauna Groenlandica") he fully described the Urksuk of Greenland under the name Phoca barbata, when the species became first fairly characterized. In the meantime Erxleben (in 1777) had adopted the name for a large species of Seal, under which designation he cited not only the Uksuk of Cranz, the Gramseb? of Iceland, the Phoca barbata of Mliller's "Pro- dromus", and the Laktak of Kamtschatka, but also the Long- bodied Seal of Parsons, together with the various names that had been based upon these, either individually or collectively. As he arranged his references chronologically, the first names mentioned are the Long-bodied Seal of Parsons, and the Lach- tak, or ^^ Phoca niaxima^\ of Steller. His brief diagnosis is evidently based on Cranz's account of the Uksuk. The name barbata is usually ascribed toMliller, 1776, in whose work it first appeared, but rigid constructionists may claim that date as untenable, since no description accompanied the name. In this case it would fall to Erxleben, 1777, who gave of it a brief technical descrij)tion, and further established it by a full and correct citation of its synonymy. Almost simultaneously with the appearance of Erxleben's work the species was again indicated by Lepechin (in 1778), under the name Phoca leporina, based on the young from the 666 ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS BEARDED SEAL. White Sea. Although he erroneously gave the iucisive formula as f, and based his descrii)tion and figure on the young still in the white pelage, there has been little doubt among modern writers of its identity with the Phoca harhata. For many years, however, the Phoca leporina figured in the works of compilers as a distinct species, and became thus a prominent synonym, ^esson, in 1828, renamed it Phoca lepechini, at the same time naming the Long-bodied Seal of Parsons Phoca parsonsi. In regard to its general history, it may be added that Fabri- cius, in 1 791, in his monograph of the Greenland Seals, devoted twenty pages to an account of Phoca harhata., giving a careful description of its external characters, with detailed measure- ments, and the first (and a very good) figure of its skull. He adopted for it the Danish vernacular name "Remmssel," identi- fying with it Steller's Lacktak, the Icelandic names '■'■ Gramselur," "Groenselr," and '' Kampselur," and the Greenlandic names " Urksuk" and " Uksuk," as well as the Phoca harhata of Miiller's " Prodromus," of Erxleben, of the " Fauna Groenlandica," and of Gmelin, and also Parsons's Long-bodied Seal, and the subse- quent accounts based xv^on it. The next original information of special importance appears to have been furnished by Tliiene- mann, who, in 1824, in his account of the Seals of Iceland, de- voted four i^lates to its illustration, figuring the adult female, a two-year-old male, a yearling male, and the skull. In 1831 Pallas introduced two nominal species, referable here, under the names Phoca nautica and Phoca alhUjena. With the former he identified the Lacktak of Steller, while he made Le- pechin's Phoca leporina a synonym of his Phoca alMgena. These names have been generally referred by subsequent writers, either positively or with reservation, to Phoca harhata. Gray, in 1871, separated the Bearded Seals of the North Pacific from those of the North Atlantic as Phoca ^^naurica''^ {sic) apparently wholly on the ground of locality, and referred to this Pallas's Phoca nautica and Phoca alhigena. Among the more important recent contributors to the history of the species are Malmgren, Von Heuglin, and CoUett, the lat- ter, especially, having given a very full account of its habits and distribution on the coast of Norway. Geographical Distribution. — The present species is cir- cumj)olar and extremely boreal in its distribution, and appears to be migratory only as it is forced southward in winter by the GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 667 extension of the unbroken ice-fields. The southern limit of its range along the Atlantic coast of North America is at present indeterminable. Professor Jukes* gave it doubtfully in his list of the Seals of ^Newfoundland, supposing it to be the Square Flipper of sealers. Among the many examples of Seals 1 have had opportunity of examining from Newfoundland, however, I have never met with a specimen of the Bearded Seal. If the Square Flipper 'of the Newfoundland sealers be really the Bearded Seal, as seems probable, it must be, according to Car- roll, of regular occurrence in small numbers about Newfound- land. Dr. Packard t has attributed it to Labrador, where it un- doubtedly occurs, but he gives it on the hypothetical ground that " It is probably the species which is called by the sealers 'Square Flipper,' " and says that adults will -'weigh 500 to 600 pounds ". Its occurrence in Labrador, however, is apparently established by Wagner, who described a specimen, " das aus Labrador herstammf'.t Although well known to visit the shores of Greenland, and to range very far north, its limit in this direction still remains undetermined. J. 0. Ross states that it approaches the shores of Boothia "only in the summer season," and that in winter it seeks " those parts of the Arctic Ocean which are seldom, if ever, frozen over for any length of time ". § Dr. Rink says that it occurs only in small numbers in Greenland, and chiefly at the "northern and southern extremities of the coast." || Mr. Robert Brown's account of its distribution is as follows : "This species has been so often confounded with the Grey Seal {R. grypus) and the Saddleback (P. groenlandicus) in different stages and coats, that it is really very difficult to arrive at anything like a true knowledge of its distribution. ... On the coast of Danish Greenland it is principally caught in the district of Juliaushaab a little time before the Klapmyds [Gystophora cris- tata]. It is not, however, confined to South Greenland, but is found at the head of Baffin's Bay and up "the sounds of Lan- caster, Eclipse, &c., branching off from the latter sea. The Seals seen by the earlier navigators being nearly always referred in * Exciirs. in Newfoundland, vol. 1, p. 312. tProc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. x, p. 271. t Sclireber's Siiugthiere, Band vii, p. 20. § Ross's 2d Voy., App., p. xxi. II Danish Greenland, etc., p. 126. 668 ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS BEARDED SEAL. their accounts to either Phoca vitulina or P. grcenlandicus, it is impossible to trace ite western range ; it is, however, much rarer in the north than in the south of Davis's Strait. Accordingly the natives of the former region are obliged to buy the skin from the natives of the more south of [sic] settlements, as it is of the utmost value to them. This Seal comes with the pack- ice round Cape Farewell, and is only found on the coast in the spring. Unlike the other Seals, it has no atluJc, but depends on broken places in the ice; it is generally found among loose, broken ice and breaking-uj) floes."* Mr. Kumlien (MS. notes) says, " This Seal was first noticed a little to the southward of Cape Chidly, and thence northward to our winter harbor, in about lat. 67° N. According to the Eski- mo, they are the most common about Cape Mercy, Nugumeute, and the southern Cumberland waters, where they remain all the year, if there is open water. They remain in Cumberland Sound only during the time when there is open water, as they have no atlulc. On the west coast of Davis Straits they are not rare, but are said by whalemen to diminish in numbers above lat. 75° i^. They appear to be more common on the southern shores of the west coast of Davis Straits than on the northern, so that the natives go southward some distance to secure the skins. We ' noticed them among the j>ack-ice in Davis Straits in July and August. . . In Cumberland Sound they begin working north- ward as fast as the floe edge of the ice breaks up, arriving in the vicinity" of Anuanactook about the latter days of June. In autumn they move southward as fast as the ice makes across the sound, always keeping in open water. They are seldom found in the smaller fjords or bays, but delight in wide expanses of water." Respecting its southern limit on the coast of Europe, there appears to be no unquestionable record of its capture south of the "North Sea", which locality is given by Gray for various specimens in the British Museum. It was for many years sup- posed to inhabit the Western Islands of Scotland, and to have occurred at other localities in the British Islands, but on further investigation the species proved to be the Gray Seal. It is consequently omitted from the second edition of Bell's "His- tory of British Quadrupeds ". Dr. Gray, writing in 1872, said, " I have never seen a specimen from the coast of Great Britain; * Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 424; Man. Nat. Hist., Geol., etc., Greeu- land, 1875, Mam., p. 54. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 669 probably EaUchcerus (jrypus was the species taken for it." * Its occurrence in Iceland is well attested, and, according to Eobert Collett, it is found in small numbers along all the rocky coasts of Norway, from the fjords of Finmark down to latitude 62<^,t where it occurs all the year. He believes it to have been for- merly much more numerous there than it is now. Malmgren also gives it as a rare visitor to the coast of Finmark, and as oc- curring only late in autumn or winter. He records the capture of one taken near Tromso about the end of October in 1861. It is stated to be rare about Jan Mayen,| but of frequent occur- rence along the ice-fringed shores of West Spitzbergen, where, according to von Heuglin, it is found from July to September, while Malmgren believes it may winter there. Payer gives it as abundant at Franz- Josef Land, where this and the Harp Seal were the only species observed.§ It has been frequently re- ported as occurring along the Arctic coast of Europe and Asia. Von Middendorff believes it is this species that the Samoedes have reported as so abundant at the mouth of the Taimyr River, and as found on the Taimyr Sea. It doubtless not only occurs along the Chatanga to Chatangskij Pogost, but prooably reaches the mouth of the Chata.|| In respect to its distribution in the North Pacific, Temminck states that its skins are carried to Japan as an article of com- merce, and that he has seen an incomplete one brought from that country by Siebold.*] He does not state, however, that it inhabits the Japan coast, as some authors have apparently im- plied. Wagner says, " Das Leidner Museum besitzt Felle von Sitka, aber nicht von Japan." ** It has not been reported, how- ever, as found at the Fur Seal or Prybilow Islands. There are several specimens in the National Museum collected at Plover Bay, on the Siberian side of Behring's Straits. Von Schrenck states, on the authority of the natives, that it is common on the southern shore of the Ochots Sea, in the G ulf of Tartary, in the "Amur-Limane," and even in the Amoor River, but adds that the old animals only come into the mouth of the river, while the younger ones go somewhat higher up. * Zoologist, 2d ser., vol. vii, p. 3336. t Bemserkninger til Norges Pattedyrfauna, 1876, p. 58. t German Arctic Expedition, 1869-70, p. 62. § New Lands within the Arctic Circle, 1877, p. 266. II See von Heuglin, Reisen nach dem Nordpolarmeer, etc., p. 58. H Fauna Japonica, Mam. Marins, p. 2. ** Schreber's Saugthiere, vii, p. 21. 670 ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS BEARDED SEAL. He often saw its skins in Amoor Land, and says they are an article of traffic among the natives as far south as Saghalien Island. But he appears to have seen only the skins in the hands of the natives, and to give its distribution wholly on then- testimony. If the limits here assigned, and the locality of Sitka, given by Wagner, be correct, it extends much farther south, along the shores of the Korth Pacific, than it does on the coast of Europe, but in each case its habitat is bounded by about the same isotherm. Habits, Products, and Hunting. — This large Seal, the largest Phocid of the northern seas, appears to be nowhere abundant, and is usually described as rather solitary, avoiding the company of other species, and as never occurring in large herds like the Harp Seal. Of its habits, as observed on the Atlantic coast of North America, little has been recorded. If the " Square Flipper" Seal of the Newfoundland sealers be this species, of which Mr. Carroll has given some account, it is of not unfrequent occurrence olf the shores of that island. From the indications Mr. Carroll gives of its size, the form of the hind flippers (from which it appears to derive its local name), as well as the statement that it has four mammae, seems to indi- cate that it can be no other than the present species. As, how- ever, the Gray Seal nearly approaches it in size, and is not enumerated by Mr. Carroll nor Professor Jukes, and apparently is not distinguished by the sealers (although it unquestionably occurs in Newfoundland, as attested by specimens from there in the National Museum), it seems questionable whether the Gray and Bearded Seals are not confounded under the name " Square Flipper ". Since Mr. Carroll's account, however, cor- responds in general points so well with the Bearded Seal, I venture to give it provisionally as a part of the history of the species. His account in substance is as follows : The Square Flipijers are the largest Seals that are killed on the coast of Newfoundland. They never congregate with any other Seals, and are very scarce, not more than one hundred being taken each sealing voyage throughout the island. Persons who live along the northern bays, and " follow the gun " during the winter and spring, kill a few of them. Many are seen in the Straits of Belleisle, as well as about Saint Paul's Island, in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. They have their young on the ice about the 20th of March. They are called Square Flippers because the flippers HABITS, PRODUCTS, AND HUNTING. 671 are " square at the top [tip ?], thus differiug from all [other] species of Seal taken on the coast of Newfoundland." They are very quiet and very fond of their young of which they have never more than one at a time. If seen on the ice they are sure to be killed. The skin and fat of a male Square Flipper, when prime, will weigh " from 7 to 10 cwt.". When in full flesh his weight varies " from 13 to 15 cwt "; the skin and fat of the female when prime, weighs "from 4 to 5 cwt. "; the skin and fat of a young square flipper, when sixteen days old, will weigh from 160 to 170 pounds. "The skin of the male and female square flipper is of a cream color, the female has four teats (no other seal known in Newfoundland has more than two). All seals [sic] teats protrude about one inch outside the skin whilst the young is sucking, after which they are drawn in, so as to prevent injury whilst the old seal is crawling on ice or rocks. The oil rendered out of square flipi3ers [sic] fat, old and young, when prime, is considered as pure as the best young Harp oil. Length of an old square flipper, from head to tail, 11 to 12 feet."* Mr. Kumlien gives the following quite full account of its habits, as observed by him in Cumberland Gulf : "The Ogjook, as this Seal is termed by the Cumberland Es- kimo, delights in basking upon i>ieces of floating ice, and gen- erally keeps well out at sea. I have never seen any numbers together, but almost always singly. The old males do not seem to agree well, and often have severe battles on the ice-floes when they meet. Thej' use the fore flippers, instead of the teeth, in fighting. . . . "This seal has the habit of turning a summersault when about to dive, especially when fired at; this peculiarity, which is not shared by any other species that I have seen, is a charac- teristic by which it may be distinguished at a considerable distance. During May and June they crawl out upon an ice- floe to bask and sleep ; at such times they are easily approached by the Eskimo in their kyacks and killed They dive to great depths after their food, which is almost entirely Crus- tacea and mollusks, including clams of considerable size. . • . In July, during the moulting time, their stomachs contained nothing but stones, some of them nearly of a quarter -pound weight. They seem to eat nothing during the entire time of shedding — probably six weeks. Certain it is they lose all their * The Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, together with a con- densed History of the Island, 1873, pp. 12, 13. 672 ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS BEARDED SEAL. blubber, and by the uiiddle of July have iiolhing but ' white- horse', — a tough, white, somewhat cartilaginous substance, — in place of blubber. At this season they sink when shot. . . . The young are born upon pieces of floating ice, without any covering of snow. The season of procreation is during the fore part of May. After the young have shed their first woolly coat (which they do in a few days), they have a very beautiful steel-blue hair, but generally so clouded over with irregularly dispersed x>atches of white that its beauty is spoiled. . . . "The Ogjook is of great value to the Eskimo, who prize the skins very highly. All their harnesses, sealing lines, etc., are made from the raw skins ; besides this, they make the soles of their boots, and sometimes other portions of their dress, from the skin. In such localities as the whalemen do not visit, and the natives are obliged to construct skin boats, this seal is in great demand. It takes fifteen skins for an ominak or skin boat, and these skins require renewing very often. The skin of the back and belly dries unevenly, so the Eskimo skin the animal along both sides and dry the skin of the upi)er and lower parts separately. "It is a prevalent belief among the whalemen that the livers of Seals, and more especially those of this species, are poison- ous; but I am inclined to rate this as imaginative; we ate the livers of all the species we procured without any bad effects." * The Bearded Seal appears to be a well-known inhabitant of the coast of Norway and of the Arctic islands north of Europe. Collett gives it as occurring in comparatively small numbers along the jS"orwegian coast, from the fjords of Finmark south- ward to latitude 62°, throughout which range it appears to be resident the whole year. They make short journeys to the fish- ing-grounds, a few miles off the coast, but for the most part are found constantly at nearly the same localities. They have, however, their favorite breeding resorts, at which they assem- ble during the breeding season from a considerable area, dis- persing again when the breeding time is over. One of these breeding-places, and believed to be the most southern one on the Norwegian coast, is at the north westernmost of the islets of the Froyen group, off Trondhjem Fjord, to which it is sup- posed that nearly all of the individuals found south of latitude 64P resort in the breeding season. Mr. Collett states that the * Copied from Mr. Kuuilien's MS. notes, Avith slight verbal changes ; since published in Bull. U. S. Nat. Mas. , No. 15, pp. 61-63. HABITS, PRODUCTS, AND HUNTING 673 species is strictly polygamous, tlie strongest males driving away the younger ; yet the number of the females appears to be not much greater than that of the males. He states that one remarkable difference between the individuals found at the southern breeding stations and those living farther north is the different season at which the young are born. He says this occurs in Xorwaj^ in autumn. The Seals begin to gather at the chosen breeding-place about the middle of September, and, as a rule, the first young are born about the end of that month.* Pairing takes place in the water very soon after the birtli of the young, and before the old Seals depart from the breeding- places, which latter event occurs about the end of October. About half of them, however, remain near the outer rocks during winter.t According to von Heuglin, the female gives birth to her single offspring in February or March, but Malmgren states that he took a ripe foetus from the mother as late as the 31st of May, and Knmlien says the young ai-e born early in May. Fa- bricius says late in April or early in May. Carroll, as already noted, says the young are born late in March. As will be noticed later, the exceptional record of an autumnal breeding season for this species given by Oollett, on the authority of a correspondent, suggests the possibility that the species really observed was Halichoerus grypus or the Gray Seal.| The earlier breeding-time given by Carroll, for Newfoundland, may be due to the locality being so far south. According to Malmgren, they do not frequent open water. As long as the inlets and bays are closed with ice it keeps near openings in the ice, through which it ascends to the surface to rest, but when the fast ice breaks up it keeps among the float- ing ice near the coast. It does not, however, follow the ice far out to sea, but leaves it and seeks such shores as are skirted with drifting ice. On the coast of Spitzbergen it is rarelj' met with in summer, owing to the absence of ice, but as soon as the ice again arrives, either from the south or the north, they ap- pear in the bays in great numbers. In Northeast Land, where the inlets are covered with ice till late in August, and where, not far from the land, are many ice-floes, they are common the whole summer. He states that during his stay in Hinlopen * See next paragraph and infra, p. 706. t Bemserkninger til Norges Pattedyrfauna, pp. 58-60. t See infra, p. 706. Misc. Pub. No. 12 43 674 ERIGNATHUS BAEBATUS— BEARDED SEAL. Straits some Walrus-hunters shot about sixty of them in the course of two or three days about the beginning of August, and that his harpooners often killed them.* Von Heuglin also refers to its partiality for the neighborhood of ice, and says that on the coast of West Spitzbergeu he saw it only in the vi- cinity of the glaciers that reach the sea. Among the Thousand Islands and in the Stor- Fjord he found it very common, but always singly or in small companies, lie states, on the author- ity of Sporer, that in oS'ova Zembla it rarely appears on the northern shore of the islands, but commonl}" visits South Island. He says that, although he saw it there only rarely, it must be sometimes very numerous, as in the course of three days as many as three hundred have been taken by the use of three nets.f Malmgren states that the Bearded Seal is easily killed when it is in the sea, as it is then not shy, but often comes so stupidly and eagerly about the boat as to be very easily shot. When lying on the ice he describes it as extremely watchful, so that it is impossible to shoot it without using a shooting-screen, such as the Greenlanders employ. J Mr. Kumlien, however, states that during May and June, when they crawl out upon an ice- floe to bask and sleep, they are easily approached by the Esquimaux of Cumberland Sound in their kyacks and killed. It is reported to subsist chiefly upon large mollusks and crus- taceans. Malmgren records that in the stomachs of all he ex- amined he found large species of Crmigou and nippolyte {C. horeas, Sahinea septemcarinata, Hippolyfe polaris, H. soiverhyi, and H. borealis), and Anonyx ampulla in abundance; occasion- ally small fishes [Gottus tricuspiSj Keinh.), and many hundreds of the opercula of species of Buccinum and Natica clausa, as well as shells of a large Lamellarla.^ All writers, from the time of Cranz to the latest obser^'ers, testify to its importance to the Esquimaux and other native tribes of the shores it frequents. Its flesh or blubber is said to be more delicate in taste than that of any other species, and to be esteemed as a luxury. Its chief value, however, consists in its skin, which, from its great thickness, is, according to Dr. Eink, " the only one considered fit for making the hunting lines of the kayakers." Von Schrenck speaks of its being used by the na- * Arch, fiir Natnrg., 1864, pp. 74-75. t Reiseu uacli dem Nonlpolartucer in dem Jaliren 1870 und 1871, p. 57. \ Arch, fiir Naturg., 1864, j). 77. , ^ Ibid., p. 75. GENUS HISTKIOPHOCA. 675 tives of Amoor Land and Saglialien Island for the same pur- poses as Mr, Kumlien notes in respect to the Esquimaux of Cumberland Sound. Owing to its scarcity it has no great com- mercial importance, though sometimes taken by the sealers of the Spitzbergen sealiug-gronuds. Rink states that the whole annual catch of this species in Greenland hardly amounts to 1,000. Genus HISTEIOPHOOA, Gill. Histriophoca, Gill, Am. Nat., vii, 1873, 179. (Type, " Fhoca fasciata, Shaw, or P. eqnestris, Pallas.") Cranial characters unknown. Incisors, 332 5 C!., j^; M., 5^5. Incisors conical, cylindrical, directed slightly backward. Mo- lars, except the first, 2-rooted, x)laced somewhat apart, with simple crowns directed backward. Sexual differences in color strongly marked. Males, dark brown, varied with narrow bands of white. Females, light brown, with the white bands obsolete. According to von Schrenck, on whose authority the above characters are given , the molar teeth, except the first, are 2-rooted, as in Fhoca and EHgnathus^ but the crowns resemble those of the corresponding teeth in HaUchaerits, being simple and slightly curved backward. The middle molars (third and fourth) and sometimes the others, both above and below, show a minute point or accessory cusp at the base of the principal one, both in front of it and behind it, but this is a variable feature, not only as respects the number of teeth thus furnished, but in some specimens these minute accessory cusps may be wholly lacking. As the characters of the skull have not been as yet either figured or described, further comparison with other gen- eric types becomes impracticable. The genus Rlstrioplioca was proposed for the present species by Dr. Gill in 1873, but has not been fully ^characterized. Dr. Gill's diagnosis is as follows: "The structural (and especially dental) characters of this species, according to Von Schrenck, indicate a generic distinction from all the familiar forms of the subfamily Phocinw. The molars, except the first, are two-rooted, as in the typical Phocince, but in external form are simply conic, or have rudimentary cusps, thus resembling Haliclioerus. This genus may be called Hhtriophocay Taking into account the I)eculiar pattern of coloration, ar.d the conic, double-rooted 676 HISTRIOPHOCA FASCIATA RIBBON SEAL. molars, we seem to liave a type generically distinct from the ordinary Phocw, and in accordance witli tliis view the genus Histriophoca is here provisionally adopted for the Phoca fasciata of the early systematic writers. HISTRIOPHOCA FASCIATA {Zimm.), Gill Ribbon Seal. Bubbon Seal, Pennant, Hist. Quad., 1st ed., 1781, ii, 523; 3d ed., ii, 1793, 276, fig. p. 265. Phoca fasciata, Zimmermann, Geogr. Gesch., iii, 1783, 277 ( = "EuLbon Seal," Peiiuaut). — Kerr, Au. King., 1792, 127 (the same). — Shaw, Gen. Zopl., i, 1800, 257 (= "Rubbon Seal," Pennant). Phoca {Olariaf) fasciata, Richardson, Zool. Beechey's Voyage, 1830, 6 ( = "Ribbon Seal of Pennant, Avct. Zool., ii, 165"). Phoca equestris, Pallas, Zoog. Rosso-Asiat., i, 1831, 111. — Von Schrenck, Amnr-Lande, i, 1859, 182, pi. ix, fig. 1-3 (animal). Histriophoca \_fasciata'\, Gill, Amer. Nat., vii, 1873, 179. Histriophoca fasciata, Scammon, Marine Mam., 1874, 140, pi. xxii, fig. 1, 2 (animal, from Ton Sclu'enck). Pagophilus f equestris, Gray, Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 2 (in part ; includes Phoca annellata, Radde!). Bubbon Seal, Pennant, 1. c. Bibbon Seal of Alaska, Gill, 1. c. External Characters. — Adult male. General color, dark brown. A narrow yellowish-white band surrounds the neck extending forward to the middle of the head above ; another broader yellowish-white band encircles the hinder portion of the body, from which a branch runs forward on each side to the shoulder, the two branches becoming confluent on the median line of the body below, but widely separated above. In other words, the (1) front part of the head, the (2) hind limbs, and the posterior fourth of the body, the (3) top of the neck and the whole anterior half of the back, as well as (4) the fore- limbs and a considerable area at their point of insertion, are dark brown ; these four regions being separated by bands of yellowish- white, of variable breadth over different regions of the body. The brown of the anterior part of the dorsal region also extends laterally in the form of a narrow band around the lower part of the neck, where it expands to form a small shield- like spot on the breast. There are also very small spots of brown on the posterior part of the abdominal region. Adult female. — Uniform pale grayish -yellow or grayish-brown, with the exception of au obscure narrow transverse whitish EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 677 band across tlie lower portion of the back. The extremities and tbe back are darker, with a faint indication of the dark ^' saddle "-mark seen in the male. Young. — Thei yonng of both sexes are said to resemble the adult female. Von Schrenck's detailed description, on which the foregoing is mainly based, is substantially as follows : The dark-brown of the head, in the male, is followed by a broad dusky yellowish - gray neck-band, which on the middle line, both above and below, passes forward, but on the sides has the convexity jiointing backward. Behind this light neck-band is a broad, long saddle-shaped patch upon the back, which, on the middle line, runs forward in a point, but which extends itself laterally in two narrow bands meeting and expanding on the breast into a pointed spot ; posteriorly the dark dorsal i^atch is also pro- longed backward and laterally, but without meeting below. Along the sides of this dorsal area runs a broad, curved, light, soiled yellowish-gray band, with the convexity upward ; these lateral light bands become deflected downward, both anteriorly and j)o.steriorly, and form, by their union, a light band along the belly. Within these light bands anteriorly, on each side, is a large oval dark-brown spot, in which are inserted the an- terior extremities. The light ventral area encloses posteriorly two small oval dark-brown spots, and in front of these a third narrower and larger. Behind the dark area on the back is a very broad dorsal cross-band of light yellowish-gray, joiniug the light bands on the side of the body. Behind this light cross-band the whole posterior part of the body, as well as on the tail and hind limbs, is blackish-brown. As a rule the above-described dark and light color areas are very sharply defined. Sometimes, however, there extends from the dark areas a smaller spot more or less isolated. According to the same writer the color varies considerably in different individ- uals, one of those he describes having the. dark color of a dark grayish-black, and the light markings whitish or straw-yellow. He also states that in the figures given by Siemaschko the light neck-band is deflected backward from the back of the neck to the fore-limbs, leaving the whole breast of the same dark-brown color as the head. Besides this the dark-brown color of the back extends, both i)osteriorly and anteriorly, to the lower sides of the body, occupying the whole of the ventral surface, with the exception of two light bands which run cross- 678 HISTRIOPHOCA FASCIATA RIBBON SEAL. wise around the base of the anterior extremities, and a separate light band that crosses the hinder part of the body. In con- sequence of the wide departure of tlie pattern of coloration in Siemaschko's figure from his own examples, von Schrenck is left in doubt as to whether the figure is really a true copy from nature. The single specimen I have examined (!N"at. Mus. No. 9311, Cape Eomanzoff, W. H. Ball), a flat skin, lacking the flipi^ers and the facial portion, agrees with von Schrenck's figure in respect to the form and size of the neck-band, but there is a far greater preponderance of light color, which occupies rather more than half the entire surface. Only the posterior sixth of the body is black, and the dark area of the back is very much more re- stricted, and differs somewhat in outline. In this specimen the breadth of the dark dorsal portion occupies scarcely more than one-third of the whole width of the skin, the light portion on either side nearly equalling it in breadth. It widens over the neck and sends down a lateral branch on each side, the two meeting on the breast. It is contracted over the shoulders, behind which it again ex^jands, and at its posterior border sends down a very narrow branch from the right side to the middle of the belly; its fellow on the opposite side is nearly obsolete, forming merely a broken chain of small dusky spots. There is hence in this example a wide departure from the speci- mens described by von Schrenck, while the want of symmetry in the two posterior branches of the dorsal spot, and the rela- tively nearly equal amount of light and dark color, lead one to apprehend a much wider range of individual variation in coloration than von Schrenck ai^parently suspected, and that after all Siemaschko's figure merely represents a variation in the opposite direction from that here indicated, or an unusual extension of tbe dark color at the expense of the lighter mark- ings. Size. — Von Schrenck states that this animal is reported to sometimes attain the length of GJ feet. He gives the length of a full-grown male as 5 feet 6^ inches (1083 mm.), and that of a, full-grown female as 5 feet 3 inches (IGOO mm.), based on ^yosnes■ sen ski's specimens obtained in Kamtschatka, which his hunters informed him were not of the largest size. In other words, it appears to be a Seal of the medium size, or about as large as Phoca grcenlandica. I GENERAL HISTORY. 679 General, History — The first account of the present species was published by Pennant, under the name "Rubbon Seal," in the first quarto edition of his "History of Quadrupeds," in 1781 (vol. ii, p. 523). His short description, based wholly on infor- mation and a drawing- furnished by Dr. Pallas, is as follows : " Seal with very short fine glossy bristly hair, of an uniform color, almost black ; marked along the sides, and towards the head and tail, with a stripe of a pale yellow color, exactly resembling a rubbon laid on it by art ; words cannot sufficiently convey the idea, the form is therefore engraven on the title of Division III, Pinnated Quadrupeds, from a drawing communi- cated to me by Doctor Pallas, who received it from one of the remotest Kuril islands. "Its size is unknown, for Doctor Pallas received only the middle part, which had been cut out of a large skin, so that no description can be given of head, feet, or tail ; a shews the part supposed to be next to the head ; b that to the tail."* In Pennant's Arctic Zoology (vol. i, 1793, p. 193) there is a shorter but in some respects a more detailed and better account, which I also transcribe. " Rubbon Seal. With very short bristly hair, of an uniform glossy color, almost black : the whole back and sides comprehended within a narrow regular stripe of pale yellow. "It is to Dr. Pallas I owe the knowledge of this species. He received only part of the skin, which seemed to have been the back and sides. The length was four feet, the breadth two feet three; so it must have belonged to a large species. It was taken off the Kuril islands." The markings as represented in Pennant's figure correspond well with those of the animal figured bj^ von Schrenck (pres- ently to be noticed), except that the posterior transverse por- tion of the band is relatively narrower than in von Schrenck's specimen. In 1783 Pennant's Rubbon Seal was named Phoca fasciata by Zimmermann.t Shaw, without referring to Zimmermann, and i:>robably without knowing that he had named the species, bestowed upon it the same name seventeen years later, | and to him the name has been almost nniversally attributed. The accounts of both these authors were based entirely upon the description given by Pennant, as above quoted, and no further * Here qnotecl from the third ed. of Hist. Quad., vol. ii, 1793, p. 277. t Geograph. Geschict., iii, 277. tGen. Zool., vol. i, 1800, p. 257. 680 HISTRIOPHOCA FASCIATA RIBBON SEAL. iuformation respecting the species appeared till Pallas in 1831* redescribed the species from the original fragment mentioned by Pennant, and renamed it Phoca equestris. In the meantime the species had been uniformly relegated by authors to the list of doubtful or inadequately described species. Pallas cites Pennant's Eubbon Seal as a synonym of his Plioca equestris, and also refers in his description of ic to Pennant's figure, but to neither Zimmermann nor Shaw. He says it is rare in the Ochots Sea, but is reported to be of frequent occurrence around the Kurile Islands. His description f adds little of imijortance to the information given by Pennant, and apparently relates to the same specimen. According to von Schrenck, Hrn. Wosnessenski obtained, during his residence in Kamtschatka, the first perfect speci- mens, embracing the old and young of both sexes, thereby es- tablishing beyond doubt the validity of the species; but this valnable material remained undescribed until the appearance of von Schrenck's work on the Mammals of Amoor Land, in 1859.| Von Schrenck himself was so fortunate as to also ob- tain skins of this animal during his journey in Amoor Land, and to him we are indebted for the first detailed description of the species, accompanied by excellent colored figures of both sexes.§ He, however, adopted Pallas's name Phoca equestris in preference to the verj^ appropriate name given half a century before by Zimmermann, and somewhat later also by Shaw, for wholly arbitrary reasons. || *Zoogr. Eosso-Asiat., vol. i, 1831, p. 111. t His description iu full is as follows : ' ' Magniiudine praecedentes aeqiiasse vel excessisse videbatur [hence about five feet four inches loiig from the nose to the tail, or rather more], i>ellis enini portio e solo dorso exsecta quatuor fere dodrantum latitudinem et sex ad septem dodrantum longitudi- nem habebat. Color totius brunneus, sen fuscus, cum brnnuci tinctura, uniformis. Pili breves, laevigati, rigidi ut in Ph. canina (=:Phoca vituUna). Insula lata alba, ut amiciss. Pennant delineavit, antice angulo versus cervicem coeuns, per latera introrsum arcuata, postice transversa trabe connexa, totum dorsi discum includit. — Optanduui, ut haec singularis species perfectius innotescat." t Von Schrenck alludes to a very brief and unimportant reference to the species by Siemaschko, in a work published iu the Russian language in 1851. $ Reisen uud Forschungen in Amur-Laude, i, 1859, i^p. 182-188, pi. ix. II He appears not to have known of Zimmermann's reference to the spe- cies, but speaks of Shaw's name as "eine Bezeichnung, die jedoch gegeu- wiirtig gegen den uhrspriinglichen, vom Entdecker selbst stammenden und nur (lurch das verzogerte Erscheiuen der Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica spiiter bekannt gewordenen Namen Ph. equestris zuriicktreten muss." — L. c, p. 18.2. GEOGEAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 681 As von Sclirenck figured only the external characters, we have still to regret the absence of illustrations of the skull and dentition. Gray, in 18GG,* referred, without question, Shaw's PJiocafas- ciata to Fhoca fcetida, and also, doubtfully, the Phoca equestris of both Pallas and von Schrenck — a rather strange proceed- ing, in view of von Schrenck's excellent description of the species and striking figure. In 1871,t however, he raised it to the rank of a species, under the name '■'' PagopMlusl equestris^^, referring to it, however, Eadde's Phoca annellata, an entirely different animal. The next reference to the species I am able to find is Dr. Gill's account,! already cited, in which he mentions two skins in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, collected by Mr. Dall at Cape Eomanzoff, cites von Schrenck's account of its dental and other characters, and proposes for it the generic name HistriopJioca. Captain Scammon's account of the species,§ published in 1874, completes, so far as known to me, the written history of the species. Captain Scammon gives a figure of the animal, apiiarently copied from von Schrenck's. Geographical Distribution. — According to Pallas, the present species occurs around the Kurile Islands and in the Ochots Sea. Von Schrenck states that Hr. Wosnessenski ob- tained specimens that were killed on the eastern coast of Kamtschatka, and that he himself saw skins of examples killed on the southern coast of the Ochots Sea, where, however, the species seems to be of rare occurrence. He further states that it occurs also in the Gulf of Tartary, between the island of Saghalien and the mainland, but apparently not to the south- ward of that island, the southern point of which (in latitude 46° ^.) he believes to be the southern limit of its distribution. Mr. Dall secured specimens taken at Cape Eomanzoff. Captain Scammon states, "It is found upon the coast of Alaska, bor- dering on Behring Sea, and the natives of Ounalaska recog- nize it as an occasional visitor to the Aleutian Islands The Eussian traders, who formerly visited Cape Eomanzoff, *Cat. Seals and Wliales, p. 23. tSuppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, p. 2. tAmer. Nat., vol. vii, 1873, pp. 178, 179. § Marine Mam., 1874, p. 140, pi. xxi. 682 GENUS HALICHCEKUS. from St. Michael's, Norton Sound, frequently brought back the skins of the male Histriophoca, which were used for covering trunks and for other ornamental purposes." This writer also states that he "observed a herd of Seals upon tlie beaches at Point Eeyes, California," in April, 1852, which, "without close examination, answered to the description given by Gill " of the present si^ecies. Probably, however, a "close examination" would have shown them to be different, as no examples are yet known from the Californian coast, and the locality is far beyond the probable limits of its habitat. Its known range may, therefore, be given as Behring's Sea southward — on the Amer- ican coast to the Aleutian Islands, and on the Asiatic coast to the island of Saghalien. Habits. — Almost nothing appears to have been as yet recorded respecting the habits of the Ribbon Seal. Von Schrenck gives us no information of importance, and we search equally in vain for information elsewhere. All of the four specimens obtained by Wosnessenski were taken on the eastern coast of Kamtschatka, at the mouth of the Kamt- schatka River, about the end of March. According to the re- ports of hunters, it very rarely appears at this locality so early in the season, being not often met with there before the early part of May. The natives use its skins, in common with those of other species, for covering their snow-shoes. Genus HALICHCERUS, Mlsson. Ralichocrus, Nilsson, "Faun. Skaud., i, 1820, 377." Type, Jlalichocrtis grisetis, Nilsson = P/toca grypus, Fabricius. Pusa, Gill (ex "Scopoli, 1777"), Johnson's New Univ. Cycl., iii, 1877, 1226 (not Pusa, Scopoli, which was based on Phoca fcetida). Dental formula as in Phoca. Molars conical, as broad as long, with very small accessory cusps when young, all single-rooted, except the last lower and two last uj^per ones. Facial i^ortion of the skull greatly developed, forming nearly half the length of the skull, and very broad — broader at the base of the zygo- matic process of the maxillary than the brain-case. Interorbital bridge thick, high; orbital fossse large ; brain-case very small, forming less than one-third of the length of the skull, instead of nearly oiie-half, as in Phoca, Erignathus, Cystophora, etc. Strongly developed sagittal and occipital crests in old age in the males. * THE "genus PUSA" OF SCOPOLI. 683 Haliclicerus forms (except possibly Monachus) the most strongly marked generic type among the Phocince, and in view of the striking peculiarities of the skull it is not surprising that Dr. J. E, Gray should have allotted it a subfamily (or "tribal") rank,* but why he should have associated it with the Walrusses seems hard to conceive. While the dental formula is the same as in the other genera of Phocince, the teeth depart widely in their simple conical cylindrical form from what is met with in the other genera, as well as in being mostly single-rooted. The proportions of the skull are almost the reverse of what is met with in the other genera. The preorbital portion forms nearly half the length of the skull, and has a i^roportionally remarkable breadth, the width of the skull at the base of the zygomatic process of the maxillary considerably exceeding the greatest width of the brain-case, instead of being only about half as wide, as is the case in Phoca. The brain-case is disproportionately small, be- ing scarcely longer than in Phoca groenlaiidica or P. vituJina, although the total length of the skull is one-third greater, while the breadth of the brain-case is actually less ! The opening of the anterior nares is simply immense, in comparison with any other representative of the subfamily Phocinw, being even larger than in Cystophora. The interorbital region, correlatively with the nasal passages, is also greatly thickened. In old age, at least in the males, the sagittal crest is greatly developed (15 mm. high in a specimen before me), as are also the occipital ridges. The postorbital region thus strikingly recalls the highly devel- oped crests of the Otaries. In respect to the general skeleton I am unable to speak, my material being limited to two skulls and a few skins. General History and Discussion of the "Genus PusA" OF ScoPOLi. — The genus Halichoems, distinguished by jSTilssou in 1820, has been until recently without a synonym. In 1877, however, Dr. Gill revived the name PusaA of Scopoli, *Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, p. 3. t Concerning the etymology, signification, and early nse of this singular word the following may be of interest. According to Honttuyu (Natnur- lyke Historie, etc., Deel i, Stuk ii, 1761, ii. 15) and Miiller (Natursystem, Theil i, 1773, p. 199) Pma is simply the Greenlandic word for Seal. The first use of the word by European authors seems to have been by Anderson (174G), and soon after by Cranz, who, however, spelled it I'ua, and gave it as the Greenlandic equivalent of the Latin Phoca (Historie von Grceul., 684 GENUS HALICHCERUS. 1777,* supposing it to have been based on the Plioca (jrypus of Fabricius. Dr. Gill does not appear to have anywhere given reasons for this interpretation. In Johnson's " Cyclopedia," as above cited, he simply calls the Gray Seal '■'■ Pusa {Halichoerus) grypus^\ which is doubtless to be interpreted as Pusa { = Hali- ehoerns) grypus. Dr. Coues, however, has had occasion to con- sider Pusa in relation to its use by Oken, in 181G, as a generic designation for the Sea Otter. In referring to this point Dr. Coues observes: '■'-Pusa had, however, already been used by another writer in connection with a genus of Seals now commonly known as JlaUchcerus, but in such a peculiar way as to raise one of those technical questions of synonymy which authors interpret differently, in absence of fixed rule. Scopoli based his Pnsa upon a figure of Salomon [lege Philipp Ludwig Statins] Miiller's, recognizable with certainty as Halichcenis, and gave characters utterly irreconcilable with those of this animal. This is the whole case, o^ow it may be argued that there being no such animal whatever as Scopoli says his Pusa was, his name drops out of the system, and Pusa of Oken, virtually an en- tirelj' new term, is tenable for something else, namely, for the Sea Otter. On the other hand, Scopoli's quotations show ex- 1765, p. 1(51). The same form of the word is used by Schreber (Silngth., Thcil iii, j*. 285). Erxlebeu (Syst. Eeg. Auim., 1777, p. 586) gives Fiirse and Kassigiak as the Greenlandiq names of Phoca rituUna. Fabricius, in 1790 (Skrivter af Naturhistorie-Selskabet, Bd. i, Heftc 1, 1790, p. 90 aud foot- note oO), gives Pidrse in his text as one of the Greenlandic names of the Harp Seal, and in a footnote gives a further account of the word. He says : Pua, as written by Cranz, and after him by Schreber, is erroneous, this word meaning a lung. But Pilse, or Puese, as Professor Glahn (Anmier- kninger til Cranzes Hist., ji. 150) corrected it, is not wholly right. Like- wise incorrect is Anderson's Pusa in his " Efterr. om Strat-Davis, ^ LV ". It is from here that Scopoli learned the name Pusa as he has used it for his supposed new genus of animals, which, however, is nothing more than a species of Seal (see Beschiift. Berl. Ges. Naturs., IV, B., p. 464). It thus ax»pears that the name Pusa, with its various orthographic forms, was originally simply a generic term for Seals in general, the Greenlandic equivalent of the Latin Phoca, the English Seal, etc. In view of this is it improbable that the pigeon-term "Pmss^," said to be commonly employed by the northern sailors and sealers of various nationalities for young Seals in the white coat, may not be a corruption of the Greenlandic Pusaf " See Johnson's New Universal Cycloiiedia, vol. iii, 1877, p. 1226. He also employed the name in the same sense in 1876 in his anonymous "List of the Principal Useful or Injurious Mammals" of North America. For an account of the last-named publication see aiiieu, p. 22. THE "genus PUSA OF SCOPOLI. 685 actly wbat lie meant, in spite of his inept diagnosis ; his name Fusa therefore holds, and cannot be snbsequently used by Oken in a different connection."* An examination of the case, however, shows that Miiller's l^late is not "recognizable with certainty" as that of any par- ticular species of Seal. Scopoli's diagnosis is sirai)ly an ab- surdity, as the subjoined transcript t sufficiently shows, his reference to Miiller's description and plate affording the only real basis for his genus Pusa. As already stated, the figure cannot be x)OSitively referred to any x>articular species of Seal. The description given by Miiller | records few characters that are not applicable to any species of Earless Seal. Those w4iich are not thus apx^licable appear to relate to Phoca grypus, Fa- bricius, and I so at first interpreted the description, but later I found it necessary to go further back in the history of the sub- ject. The plates of Miiller's work, so far as the mammals are concerned, pro\e on collation to be very close copies of those given by Houttuyn (with the exception of three that apj)ear to be here for the first time published) twelve years earlier, if, in- deed, some of them were not actually printed from the same etchings. Miiller says (1. c, j). 201), " Der Professor Albinusin Leiden zergliederte den 24. Februar, 1748. in Gegenwart des Herrn Houttuyns einen Seehund, w^elcher Tab. XI. fig. G. ab- * Fur-bearing Auimals, 1877, j). 337. t " PVSA. Scoj). Pedes antici unguiculati, postici connati iu piniiam sex- lobam, ad quorum origiiiem superne exit pinna lanceolata, liorizontalis. Dentes incisores quatuor, canini supra sex, infra quatuor. Auriculje uul- IjB. Pili breves. " Descriptionem & iconem dedit CI. Mullervs S. N. Tovi. I. Tab. XI. fg. 6." — Inirodvctio ad Historiam Natvralem sistens Genera Lajndnn, Plantarvm, ct AnimaUvm hacfenvs detecta," etc., 1777, p. 490, genus 433. For this tran- script I am indebted to Dr. Edward J. Nolan, secretary of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the library of this Academy containing the only copy of the work known to me as existing in this country. (Since the above was written a copy of Scopoli's above-named work has been re- ceived at the library of Harvard College.) tDes Ritters Carl vou Liune Koniglich Schwedischen Leibarztes, &c., &c., vollstiindiges Natursysteui nach der zwiilften lateinischen Ausgabe uud nach Auleitung des holliindischen Houttuynischen Werks mit einer ausfiihrlicheu Erklaruug ausgefertiget von Philipp Ludwig Statins Miiller Prof, der Naturgeschichte zu Erlang und Mitglied der Rom. Kais. Akademie der Naturforscher, &c. Erster Theil. Von den siiugenden Thieren. Mit 32 Kupfern. Niirnburg, bey Gabriel Nicolaus Raspe, 1773. Eiue andero Art eines Seehundes, pp. 201, 202, pi. xi, fig. 6. 686 GENUS HALICHCERUS. gebildert ist." . . . Eeferring now to Hoiittiiyn,* we find this statement : ^^Fig. G, [pi. xi] is die van een Zee-Hond, welken de Hooggeleerde Heer Albinus, in 't Jaar 174S, den 24 February, te Leiden, op de Vertoonplaats der Ontleedkunde, in myn by- zyn heeft laaten openen" (I. c, p. IG). Later (1. c, pp. 28,29) he gives a description of the specimen here referred to as dis- sected in his presence by Professor Albinus, where he says, "De Heer Albinus heeft in den ZeeHond, hier voor in Fig. 6 ["pi. xi, fig. G," in the margin] afgebeeld, onder anderen, het volgende opgemeckt," citing at this point, in a footnote, ^^An- not. Acad. Libr. Ill, Cap. XY." Before turning to Albinus's account it may be well to state that Miiller's and Honttuj'n's plates here cited are identical, even to the notation, and that Miiller's description is merely a slightly abridged translation of Houttuyn's account.! On referring to Albinus, we find not only a very full and lucid account of the external and some other characters of the specunen Houttuyn saw him dissect, but also the original of both Houttuyn's and Miiller's figures ! Albinus's figure differs from the otliers only in being much more finely executed. But besides the figure copied by Houttuyn, Albinus gives several detail figures, which demonstrate that the specimen could not have been Halichcerus grypus. Albinus's description shows him to have been not only one of the most accomplished anatomists * Natuarlyke Historic of uitvoerige Bescliryving der Dieren, Planten, en Mineraaleu, Volgens het Samenstel vau den Heer Linna;us. Met naauwkeu- rige Ai'beeldingen. Eerste Deels, Tweede Stuk. Vervolg der Zoogende Die- ren. Te Amsterdam. By F. Honttuyn, M D CC LXI. t Since writing the above I have met with a reference to Scopoli's Pusa by Hermann, in his elaborate account of the Monk Seal of the Mediter- ranean, in which he criticises severely Scopoli's absurd diagnosis, and sug- gests explanations of some of Scopoli's erroneous characters. As Hermann (Beschiiftigungen der Berlinischen Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde, 4 Band, 1779, x>. 464, footnote) intimates, his " Pedes .... postici connati in pinnam sexlobam" is based on a very stupid misunderstanding of Miiller's figure, in which only the upper edge of the left hind flipper is seen above the right one. Although the shading renders the figure jier- fectly intelligible, Scoj^oli evidently counted this upper edge of the left hind flipper as the sixth lobe of a single appendage, the whole forming his six-lobed " pinna ". If we may suppose the transposition of two words ("iucisores" and '' canini") by typographical error in Scopoli's dental for- mula, the rendering would be correct, namely, Dentes canini quatuor, inci- sores supra sex, infra quatuor. But this we fear is lenient judgment, al- though it would seem that Scopoli must have knowi^, better than to delib- erately ascribe ten canines to any mammal. THE ''genus PUSA" OF SCOPOLI. 687 of his time, but a well-trained observer ; liis description alone would show beyond doubt that the species was not Halichcerus. Houttuj'n's acconnt seems to have been in i^art based on that of Albinus, but includes statements that lead one to suppose it may have been in part based on his own original notes. To show that the species was not Halichcerus grypus, but beyond doubt Fhoca fcetida, I quote portions of the description given by Albinus: * "Delecta ad me est phoca, capta in vicino mari, [Xorth Sea] longa pedes sex «& dimidium, ab ore ad extremos pedes postiores usque: ex quo reliquae dimensiones in flgura subjecta {a) inveuientnr ; in quo forma bestiae cum cura expressa. Venter autem pleuior, eo quod gravida erat, embryonem con- tinenslougitudinispedalis. . . . Labium superius ab utraque parte nasi in magnum giobum modice protuberaus ; in quibus pilorum species, similitudine felis, quadrupedumque aliarum multarum, . . . Latiores quam crassiores, ab utraque parte plani, marginibus rotundis. Per marginum longitudinem veluti serrati, emiuentiis ovatis per sinus lunatos distinctis. Eespond- ent margines sibi invicem, sinus sinibus eminentiae emiuentiis : itaque tanquam per intervalla constricti, quadam nodorum inter- mediis locis specie. A i^rincipio margines recti. . . . Dentes in maxilla superiore sex continui in parte priore, quorum medii quatuor minores. Inde, sed modico interjecto inter vallo, quod canini inferiores subeant, canini, adunci, maximi omnium. Post hos in lateribus maxillares ab utraque parte quiftque, parvi, veluti tricuspides, mucrone medio majore. Infra maxil- lares totidem, & canini, sed primores tantummodo quatuor, ostendentibus praesepiolis, e quibus excussi fuerant. . . . In ventre post umbilicum mammarum notae geminae, foramina referentes, extremi digiti auricularis capacia. . . . Pili, quibus corium tectum, breves, tenues, laeves, a capite direct! ad caudam, pedesque extremos. . . . Color lis ad fulvum vergens, maculis fuscis toto corpore crebris. In ventre & pec- tore color pallidior. Cauda & pedes postici toti fusci, sine maculis, praeterquam ad digitorum exortum, ubi in exteriore parte maculae fulvae, parvae, i)aucaeque. Fusci quoque pedes antici, sed tamen extriusecus aliquantum maculosiores. Omnes ex interiore parte sine maculis fusci, pills moUioribus. * B. S. Albini Academicariun Annotationmn Liber Tertius. Continet ana- tomica, pliysiolosica, patliologica, zoograpliica. Leitlae. Apiid J. & H. Verbeek, Biljliopolas. cioiocCLVi [1756]. Caput XV. Be i)hoca. Liber iii, pp. 64-71, 688 GENUS HALICHCERUS. "Embryo masculus, pilosus quidem, sed tarn subtiliter, ut facile existimaretur depilis. Color pallidior, nee nisi in dorso maculosus. Jam spectabilis mystax, & superciliis resi)oudentey sylvulae. Digiti pedum distinct!. Ungues visendi ..." (1. c., pp. 64-71). The plate (pi. vi, Libr. iii) accompanying Albinus's memoir gives (flg. 1) a side view of the animal; a half iront view (fig. 2) of the head, with the mouth wide-open, displaying the den- tition ; a view (flg. 3) of the posterior end of the body from below, showing the genital opening, the tail, and hind tiippers ; a diagram (flg. 4) of the genito-anal oriflce ; a claw (flg. 5) of one of the anterior digits, and (flg. G) one of the mystacial bristles of natural size. Even in the large flgure the tricuspid character of the molar teeth is seen, while in the enlarged view of the head this is still more distinctly shown. In this the flve molars, both above and below, of the right side, are repre- sented as small, distinctly three-pointed, the middle point the longest, while the teeth are separated by slight inter^•als, the dentition thus in every respect agreeing unmistakably with that of Phoca foetida. The large flgure shows also the flrst claw of the fore limb to be the largest, another distinctive char- acter of Phoca foetida. It consequently" follows that if Pusa is tenable in a generic sense it must be held for Phoca fatida, in place of Pagomys of nuicli later date, by those who would, gen- erically, separate Phoca fwHda. from the other Seals. The con- dition of the fffitus also points to Phoca fcetida, which has its young early in March. Houttuyn's description, and consequently Miiller's, to which Scojjoli refers, is merely a loose abridged version of that given by Albinus, in which they omit to state that the length given includes the outstretched hind flipjiers. They also describe the molar teeth simjily as being pretty sharp ("de Kiezen zelfs eenigermaate scherp," Houttuyn ; "die Backenzahue ziemlich scharf," MiiUer), and speak of the foetus as being nearly naked ("en was nog hyna ]i.aal,-^ Hoiittuyn ; " fast kahl," ilfH7?fr), but in no other point is there any noteworthy discrepancy. Albi- nus's account of the fcetus shows it to have been nearly mature, and the date of the dissection being given by Houttuyn as the 24th of February, is, as already noted, further proof that the si^ecies was not Halichoerus grypus. It is barely possible that the specimen flgured and described may have been Phoca groenlandica ; the large size alone favors HALICIICERUS GRYPUS GRAY SEAL. 689 this view, but if the animal were ineasuied along the curvature of the body instead of in a straight line between the two extrem- ities, the dimensions given would not be too large for a full- grown female P. fcetida. The figures show it could not have been Phoca vitulina, while Halichcerus gryptis is entirely out of the question; for the phrase "parvi, veluti tricuspides, mu- crone medio majore " cannot be applied to the large, conical, single-pointed molars of llalichcerus, even if we had not the figures to show the small size and tricuspid character of the teeth. HALICHCEEUS GEYPUS {Fabricius) misson. Gray Seal. ? Grd Sial, Linne, Fauna Suecica, 1746, 4. — Cneiff, '-'Svenska Vid. Acad. Haudl., xis, 1757, 171." Ut-Selur, Wetrar-Selur, Olafsen, Reise durch Island, i, 1774, 260, 281. Der Graue Seehalb, Kneiff, Abhandl. Kongl. Schwed. Akad. Wissen., xix, 1759, 171. Phoca grijpus, Fabricius, Skriv. af Naturh.-Selsk., i, 2, 1791, 167, pi. xiii, fig. 4 (skull). — Hallgrimsson, Kr^yer's Naturh.-Tidsskrift, ii, 1836-'39, 91 (Iceland). Halichcerus grypus, Nilsson, "Kongl. Vet. Akad. Handl. Stockholm. 1837, "; Arch. fiirNaturg., 1841, 318; "Ilium. Fig, till Skaud. Faun., ii, 1837, pi. xxxiv; text, 1840, i, 20"; Skand. Fauna, Daggdjuren, 1847, 299.— Wagner, Schreber's Sliugth., vii, 1846, 12.— ScHiNZ, Synop. Mam., i, 1844, 483.— Gray, Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, 30, fig. 10; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 34, fig. —; Zoologist, 1872, 3333, 3335; Hand-List of Seals, 1874, 9, fig. 4, pi. vii (skull, juv.). — HoRNSCHUCH and Schilling, Arch, fur Naturg., 1851, 21. — Giebel, Siiugeth., 1855, 133. — Blasius, Naturg. Siiugeth. Deutschl., 1857, 256, figg. 142-144.— Nordmann, Vid. Medd. f. d.natur. Foren., 1860 (1861), 307.— Malmgren, Ofv. af Kongl. Vet. Akad. Stockh., 1863, 135; Arch, fiir Naturg., 1864, 74. — " Holmgren, Skand. Daggdjuren, 1865, 220, fig."— Gill, Froc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, 12.— Brown, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, 340, 426; Man. Nat. Hist., Geol., etc., Green- land, Mam., 1875, 54. — Turner, Jouru. Anat. and Phys., iv, 1870, 270 (coast of Scotland) ; ibid., vii, 1873, 273 (abnormal dentition); Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb., xxvii, 275. — Lilljeborg, Fauna ofver Sveriges och Norges Ryggradsjur, 1874, 709. — Van Beneden, Ann. du Mus. d'Hist. Nat. du Belgiqxae, i, 1877, 18 (geogr. distr.). Pwsa (Haliehcerus) (jrypus, Gill, Johnson's New Univ. Cycl, iii, 1877, 1226. Phoca gryphus, Lichtenstein, Abhand. d. Berlin Akad., 1822-23 (1825), Phys. Kl., 1. — Fischer, Syn. Mam., 1829, 239. — Macgillivray, Brit. Quad., 1838, 214.— Blainville, Osteogr., Phoca, 1840-1851, pi. ix (dentition). Misc. Pub. 1^0. 12 44 690 HALICH(ERUS GRYPUS GEAY SEAL. Halichoerus gryphus, Ball, Trans. Roy. Irish Acad., xviii, 1838, 89, pi. i (auiinal, female and two young), pi. ii (skull, female), pi. iii (lower jaw and teeth). — Bell, Brit. Quad., 1837, 278 (figg. skull and ani- mal); ibid., 1874, 262. — Reinhardt, Kryiyer's Naturhist.-Tidsskr.,. iv, 1843, 313; Isis, 1845, 702.— Reeks, Zoologist, 1871, 2549 (New- foundland).— Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., ix, 1872,. 322 (occurrence in Brit. Isl.); ibid., xiv, 1874, 96 (Cornwall). — Malm, Goteborgs och Bohusliins Fauna Ryggradsjuren, 1877, 145. Salichoerus griseiis, Nilsson, Skand. Faun., i, 1820, 377. — Hornschuch, Isis,. 1824, 810.— Lesson, Man. de Mam., 1827, 205. — Hamilton, Amphib. Carniv., 1839, 174, pi. x.— Selby, Ann. Nat. Hist., vi, 1841, 462. (Farn Islands). Phoca haUchcerns, Thienemann, ''Eeise in Norden Europa's, i, 1824, 142." Fhoca scopulicola, Thienemann, "Reise in Norden Europa's, i, 1824, 59, pi. V (adult male)." (Iceland.)— Fischer, Syn. Mam., 1829, 237 (from Thienemann and Lesson). Callocephalus scopuUcolus, Lesson, Man. de Mam., 1820, 199 (=Phoea scopu- licola, Thienemann). Fhoca thienemanni, Lesson, Diet, class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 414 (:=P]ioca scopuUcola, Thienemann). Halichoerus macrorhynclius, Hornschuch and Schilling, Arch, fiir Natur- gesch., 1851, 22. Halichoerus pachyrhynchus, Hornschuch and Schilling, Arch, fiir Natur- gesch., 1851, 22. Fhoca iarbata, Edmonstone, View of the Zetland Islands, ii, 1809, 294. — Selby, Zoolog. Journ., ii, 1826, 465. — Fleming, Hist. Brit. Anim., 1828, 18.— Jenyns, Brit. Vert., 1835, 16.— Macgillivray, Brit. j Quad., 1838, 212 (in part). — Hamilton, Amphib. Carnivora, 1839, 145, pi. "3", iv (in part only — the biographical matter relating to British localities).— Bell, Hist. Brit. Quad., 1837, 274 (the British references only). Seal from the South Seas, Home, Phil. Trans., 1822, pi. xxvii (skull). Gray Seal, English ; Graiie Seehtind, German ; Grd Sidl, Grd SJcal, Swedish ; Krumsnude de Swl, Danish; Tapvaist, Hebridian; Haaf-fish, Orca- dian ; Ut-Selur, Wetrar-Sehir, Icelandic. External Characters. — Color of the adults silver-gray, ash-gray, or dusky-gray, with obscurely defined spots of dusky or blackish, the general color varying in different individuals from nearly uniform silvery, or yellowish-white, to dusky or even black, the lighter examples with or without blackish spots. The young are at first white or yellowish-white, but soon be- come dingy-yellow, blotched irregularly with blackish-gray,, and later acquire still darker tints. The i)elage in the young is soft and woolly, in the adults short and rigid and rather sparse, the hairs flattened, adpressed, often recurved at the tips. The mystacial bristles are abundant, large, stiff", flat- tened, and waved or crenulated on both margins. Fore feet EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 691 with the first and second toes longest and subequal ', hind feet deeply emarginate, the outer toes forming long lapjjets; nails of all the digits well developed, but those of the fore feet much larger than those of the hind feet. Length of the adult male about 8 feet, rarely 9 feet ; of the adult female, about 6| to 7 feet. Females smaller and lighter colored than the males. A specimen in the National Museum, probably an adult male, from Sable Island, is silvery-gray, with spots of black and white, the latter confined mainly to the sides of the body and 692 HALTCHCEKUS GRYPUS GRAY SEAL. , neck. A female from Sealand is whitish-gray, with large ob- scure spots of darker and touches of dusky. Mr. Ball says that the color varies greatly in different individuals, and that of the many specimens he had seen he did not remember " that any two were precisely similar". He describes an adult female as appearing of a uniform silvery-gray when seen from the front, but when viewed from the rear seemed of a sooty-brown color, while the sjiots or blotches were only distinctly visible from a side view. He says, "The very young females are gen- erally of a dull yellowish white, with rather long hair, which falls off in about six weeks after birth, and gives place, to a shorter and more shining coat of a warm, dingy yellow, va- riously blotched with blackish gray; the whole becoming grad- ually more dull, the blotching more indistinct, and a general dark shade spreading on the back as the animals advance in age." He describes a young male which "has long yellowish hair slightly tinged with brownish black on the back ; is black on the nose, chin, and cheeks, and on the i>alms of the fore- feet."* He gives the length of a skeleton of "a very aged female" as "seven feet two inches ".t Selby, who observed the species at the Farn Islands, gives the length of the full- grown male as eight feet and the color as dark gray, or nearly black, and says the female is smaller and greenish-white, sparsely spotted with darker; the young as yellowish- white, changing to gray at the first moult. | Hallgrimsson makes the same observations in relation to the Utselur of Iceland, which he identifies with the PJioca grypus of Fabricius, stating that the males are not oidy larger than the females, but are black- ish-gray, or sometimes wholly black, while the females are lighter colored; and adds that the new-born young are covered with a white woolly coat.§ Xilsson describes a young female, about four feet long, taken in August, as silver-gray marbled or irregularly spotted above, on the sides and on the limbs with black, most numerously on the sides and limbs ; below white, with scattered spots of black. Another young female, about three and a half feet long, killed in July, as pale ash- gray above, varied with blackish or dusky spots; the sides, limbs, and under parts white. Another young female, about * Trans. Roy. Irish Acad., vol. xviii, 1837, p. 90. t Bell's Hist. Brit. Quad., 1837, p. 283. i:Auu. Nat. Hist., vol. vi, 1841, p. — . ^^ Isis, 1841, p. 291. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 693 four and a half feet long, killed July 20, was dark-gray above, along the back still darker or blackish-gray, and paler on the sides; back- and sides with irregular spots of black of various sizes ; nose and limbs brownish-gray, unspotted.* Ednionstonet gives the weight of this seal as "45 stone of 14 i)ounds each" (= 630 pounds), and its length as "10 to 12 feet." Skull. — The two skulls before me indicate great variations resulting from age, especially in the thickening of the bones and the development of heavy sagittal and occipital crests. The old skull (No. 4717, Kat. Mus., Sable Is!., N. S.), is pre- sumablj" that of a very old male, and differs from any which I have seen figured in its large size and greatly produced crests. The teeth in the young, especially in the lower jaw,| have slight but distinct accessory cusps, which become wholly ob- literated later in life. In the old skull already mentioned the crowns are much worn, and the roots are very thick and strong. The strongly marked distinctive features of the skull have already been noticed {antea, p. 683). In all probability the sex- ual differences are strongly marked, especially in weaker struc- ture and slighter crests in the female. § To judge by Ball's fig- ure (1. c, pi. ii) of the skull said to be that of a very aged female, they may be wholly lacking. I subjoin the following measure- ments of the two above-mentiofced skulls : *Apud Wagner, Schreber's Stiugtliiere, Band vii, 1846, pp. 15, 16. tA view of the ancient and present state of the Zetland Islands, etc., vol. ii, 180-0, p. 294. t See Ball, Trans. Roy. Irish Acad., xviii, pi. iii. § I regret especially in this connection my inability to consult Homschuch and Schilling's " Knrze Notizen Uber die in der Ostsee Vorkommenden Arten der Gattung Halichcerus, Nilsson." Greifswald, 1850. 694 HALICHCERUS GRYPUS GRAY SEAL. I re s O 00 Yoxmg. Very old. •M^et J9jvot JO Ti;§n8i CO rH •98B0-mBiq JO q^ptAi ^83^13919 (M O Oi O •98Bo-mBjq JO q^Snai § § •aetxnq ^jo:jipnB i^b irn3[8 jo ^^qSpq !^e9:jB9jf) OO OS •^psjaAsn-Bj^ 'sajBH aoiJ9:jnB jo q().pB9aa •XlXB0i:H9A '89j'Bn J0U9^nB JO q^jpBoag; •^X^sjgAsnBai; 's9iBa JOiJ[9:>8od jo q;pB9Ja: § eo •jfn'B0H-i9A 's9JBn jotJ9^8od JO q^pBgjg; rH 00 •^n^^iqjo.iefjni nn-^s jo q:(pB9iq jeB9i . OS lO 1-H CO ■egtnaBO %v nn5i8 jo q;pB9Ja: o o •9jn'^n8 i£jBnixBni-05.uojj 'Jb q'jp'B9jq 'sgaoq ^bsb^ •jiX.ioijgjn'B qjp'B9jq 'S9noq X'^sb^ •qjSnox 's9noq xb8bjsi; t^ ■* •aexn^^ni JO png jou9!)sod <\v uoiSaj xB^B^Bd jo q^pi^ la t- -sexxixBcn jo j9pjoq aBi09AXB jo q^Snoi 00 (M rH •rxnniBq pTo3ia9!jd JO pu9 0% 9in^Ti9 i^jBxxixBta-oi'BXBd mojj oon'Bjei(j rH 00 in t- •S89oojd pionaxS 0% esxitx'BnLiaijni jo oSpo jofeojn'B mojj 9onB^8iQ; o t- Tjl CO rH (M ■sniio:j!pnB snc^Bgni 0% 93ixixBnLi9^nt JO 9gp9 joiJ9:jnB mo^ oonB^jeio; 05 O 3 S •JB[oni !J8BI JO 9Sp9 jgpaiq 0% ia3i[y^'eTni9%m jo 9Sp9 joli9xub rao.Tj oouB^eiQ; CO •jXTiraBq pto3^8^d jo pn9 0'^ tt!i[txBnii9(^in jo oSpg jou9:ja'B laojj. 9om3%si(j^ O 00 Si o> rH T-l •B9qoj'B ot^BraoSilz :^b q^x>^9aq :je9:jB9jQ O 00 rH y-< •89S8900jd pTo:>BBui !jB q^p'Beig; rH T-i •qqSnoi 00 O •X9S Locality. J £ 1 ■ •jaqninn onSoxw^'BO CO t- GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 695 Geographical Distribution. — The Gray Seal appears to be not only one of tlie least abundant of the northern Phocids, but also to be restricted to a rather narrow range. It is wholly coulined to the ll^orth Atlantic, and even here is found only within comparatively narrow limits. On the American coast it occurs as far southward as Sable Island, Nova Scotia, where its presence is attested by specimens in the National Museum, collected there by Mr. P. S. Dodd. This, however, is the south- ernmost point at which it is known to occur. Mr. Eeeks says, ^'It is comparatively rare in the Straits of Labrador and Belle Isle, although very few seasons pass without a few being cap- tured either on the ice or in the ' seal frames.' " * Beyond this point to the northward it has been recorded by Mr. Brown as probably occurring on the coast of Greenland. He says, " In 1861, a little south of Disco Island, we killed a Seal the skull of which proved it to be of this species ; and again this sum- mer [1867J I saw a number of skins in Egedesminde and other settlements about Disco Bay, which appeared to be of this spe- cies. Though the natives do not seem to have any name for it, the Danish traders with whom I talked were of opinion that the GrasTcdl, with which they were acquainted as an inhabitant of the Cattegat, occasionally visited south and the more south- erly northern portions of Greenland with the herds of Atalc (P. grcenlandicus). The skull to which I refer, though carefully examined at the time, was afterwards accidentally destroyed by a young Polar Bear which formed one of our ship's com- pany on that northern voyage; therefore, though perfectly con- vinced of its being entitled to be classed as a member of the Greenland fauna, I am not in a position to assert this with, more confidence than as being a very strong probability. It should be carefully looked for among the herds of P. grcen- landicus when they arrive on the coast." t It is not, however, given by Dr. Eink as an inhabitant of Greenland, nor was it obtained by Mr. Kumlien during his recent sojourn in Cum- berland Sound. I find, in short, no evidence of its occurrence on the North American or Greenland coasts other than that already given. Its occurrence in Iceland, however, is abun- dantly substantiated, and it is also rather common along the shores of Northern Europe. Nilsson states that it has been * Zoologist, 2d ser., vol. vi, 1871, p. 2549, tProc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 427; Man. Nat. Hist. Greenland, etc., 1875, Mammals, p. 55. 696 HALICHffiRUS GRYPUS GRAY SEAL. loug known to inhabit all the seas that border Scandinavia, in the East Sea as well as in the Sonud, in the Cattegat, and in the North Sea ; the same statement being also made by Blasius and other later anthorities. Collett gives it as found spar- ingly along the whole coast of Norway, from latitude 58° to 70°. It is not mentioned by von Heuglin as an inhabitant of Spitzbergen, Jan Mayen, and Nova Zembla, while Malmgren distinctly states that it does not reach Spitzbergen. He says there is some reason to believe it occurs in small numbers on the coast of Finmark, where it was observed by Lilljeborg (at Tromso) in 1848. Mr. Ball and others are authority for its common occurrence on the southern coast of Ireland, and it has for a long time been known as an inhabitant of the Orkneys, the northern coast of Scotland, the Hebrides, and the Farn Islands. Gray states- that it has been found in various parts of the Irish Sea and St. George's Channel ; that he has heard of it in tbe Isle of Man, and believes that it occurs as far south as Laud's End and the Scilly Isles.* He also states that there is little doubt of its^ presence on the north coast of Cornwall, and that he had been informed tbat many Seals of very large size haunt the caverns^ on the coast of Plymouth.t Bell | refers to its capture in the Isle of Wight, and says living specimens have been received by the Zoological Society from the coast of Wales. To summarize the foregoing, it may be stated that the Gray Seal ranges from Nova Scotia and the British Islands north- ward to Greenland and Finmark, but is absent from the islands^ of the Arctic Ocean. General History and Nomenclature. — The earliest notice of the Gray Seal that requires attention in the jjresent connection, if not the earliest that can be with certainty identi- fied, was given by Cneiff in his account of the Seal fishery of the Gulf of Bothnia, published about the middle of the last century.§ On this account is based "Der graue Seehund" of Schreber. *Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 4th ser., vol. ix, 1872, p. 322. tibid., vol. xiv, 1874, p. 96. t Hist. Brit. Qu.rweiss, ins Griinlichblaugraue schiessend, glan- zend, mit kleinen und miissig grossen, langlichen, schwarzbraunen, unregel- massigen Flecken. Schadel ziemlich kurz, viel weniger gestreckt als bei H. macrorhynchus, sein oberer Umriss bildet eine beinahe gerade, bis zum Anfange der Nasenbeine sich etwas erhebende, dann sich stark senkende Linie; die Ziihue starker als bei H. macrorhynchus." — Troschel's Arch, fur Naturg., 1851, ii, p. 29. t Mr. Selby admits that much of this confusion, at least so far as regards the " Great Seal of the Farn Islands," is due to his erroneously referring it, in 1826, to the Phoca barbata, but to Mr. Selby is also due the credit of later (in 1841) making known the affinities of the "Great Seal" of the Farn Islands. After alluding to the fact that the large Seal of the Northumberland coast vras referred to Phoca barbata by both Jenyns and Bell on his authority, and stating the reasons that led to his erroneous determination, he says : " . . . having requested the person who at present rents these [Farn] islands to Bend me the heads of any Seals he might be fortunate enough to kill, at the usual time of his visiting the island to which they retire to calve, (which they do about the 10th or 15th of November,) I have had an opportunity of examining three heads, which I received in a fresh state about six weeks ago, one being that of an adult female, the other two belonging to younger animals, all of which upon examination proved to belong to Halichoerus griseus, agreeing in every essential character with Mr. Bell's description of that animal, and with the drawings given me by Mr. Ball ; and as no other HABITS. 699 Habits.— Eespecting the Gray Seal as an American animal little or nothing seems to have been written. As an inhabitant of Ireland, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, the North and Baltic Seas, and Iceland, its history is better known. As will be noticed later, however, there are discrepant accounts respecting im- portant points. Hallgrimsson has given a very interesting notice of these animals as observed in Iceland by A. Thorlacius, a trustworthy merchant and experienced hunter, of Stikkjis- holm, Iceland, whose letter about them, as given by Hallgrims- son, may be rendered as follows : "The Utsel is here very common in the Bredebugt, and ©specially on the coast of Westland. When full-grown it is four or five ells [8 to 10 feet] long ; the male is probably still larger, and is always larger than the female. Its food consists partly of various kinds of fishes, as haddock, flounders, catfish (Cottus), etc., and partly of crustaceans and other lower animals, as starfishes, etc., especially in winter, when the fishes mostly seek the deep water. The animals here named I have myself seen them eat, as they chance to bring them to the surface of the water. Although this species of Seal occurs here in large numbers, only a few fully grown ones are taken, because they are not so easily killed here as the younger ones are, their strong skulls being not easily penetrated by bullets, and there are also very few expert marksmen here. Besides, they are very shy and watchful. Three weeks before the beginning of winter * [about October 1], the full-grown Utselur begin to come about the rocks and islets near the land, where they bring forth their young. They choose especially such rocks as are not covered by the spring-tides, and also the lower islands that have not too precipitous shores. Here the females have their young about fourteen days before the commencement of winter [about the second week of October]. The young are thickly covered species of Seal has hitherto been recognized or met with by those who for a long series of years have been in the habit of seeing and taking these animals iu this particular locality, I have now scarcely a doubt but that the whole of the colony that has so long inhabited the Farn Islands belongs to this spe- cies."— Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. vi, 1841, p. 463. A little earlier than this (in 1837) Mr. Ball determined the large Seal of the Irish coast, till then also supposed to be Phoca barbata, to be Halichoerus grypus {Trans. Eoy. Irish Acad., vol. xviii, 1837, pp. 89-98), since which time Phoca barbata, auct., has generally been excluded from the British Fauna. * Hallgrimsson says in a note of exijlanation, "According to the Icelandic division of the year this falls between the 19th and 26th of October." 700 HALICHCERUS GRYPUS GRAY SEAL. with soft, whitish-yellow woolly hair ; this it gradually loseSy aad does not enter the water till the moult is wholly completed, at which time it is four or five weeks old. During the time the young are lying upon the dry land they do not leave their places, but every tide their mothers crawl up to them to suckle them. Sometimes the females leave their young so near the sea that the waves reach them, and by the sx) ring-tides they are swept along and carried helpless from one rock to another, for while the milk-hair is worn the young Seal is able to swim but little and is still less able to dive. In this condition it is. called by the Icelanders Sjovelkjingur (Sea-rover); sucli un- fortunates are weak and emaciated, while those that have remained undisturbed are fat and well conditioned. These ar& called Volselr. The young is fattest when it is 'half ready', that is to say when it has lost the milk-hair from the head and feet; but later it becomes poorer, because the mother then allows it to get hungry, in order to induce it to leave its resting place and go into the sea. This happens about the end of the third week of winter (middle of November) or a little later ; consequently the young are found to be best for killing when three weeks old. The Utsel is blackish-gray ; some are entirely pure black, especially the males; the females are somewhat lighter. It has a long nose and a big head, which in the old males aiDpears as if it were angular. These have a fierce aspect and are very irritable and quarrelsome. They often fight with each other on the shore, and bite so powerfully that they retire from the conflict bleeding and mangled. They are also danger- ous to the men who hunt them on the shore if they approach carelessly, which they therefore must always do from the side. " Respecting the age to which this species of Seal attains I can say nothing that can be positively relied upon ; yet they apparently live to be very old. But I know with certainty that the period of pregnancy continues for nine months."* Mr. Selby has given a very interesting account of his obser- vations on the Gray Seal as observed at the Farn Islands,! based on his own fi-equent Adsits to these islands, and also oh "the long exj)erience of a respectable individual, now upwards * Isis, 1841, pp. 2i)l, 292, originally published in Krt^yer's Naturhist.- Tidsskrift, Band ii, Heft i, 1^37, pp. 97, 98. t " Observatioiis on the Great Seal of the Farn Islands, showing it to be the Haliclicerus griseua, Nilss., and not the Phoca iariata." By P. J. Selby, Esq., F. L. S., (fee, &c. f Mr. Archibald M'Neill, "The largest of these .... is known by the na- tive name of Tapvaist, and although it associates occasionally with the other kinds, yet it diflers in many respects in its hab- its. I presume it to be the species usually designated by our British writers as the Great Seal, or Phoca harhataJ' Although it "is observed occasionally," he continues, "on shore with indi- viduals of other kinds, .... it may be characterized as being of solitary habits, and as frequenting the most remote and undisturbed situations. It is neither so lively nor so watchful as the common seal, nor is it so easily alarmed. . , . One of the most characteristic and distinctive traits in its his- tory is derived from its period of production, viz. the end of September or commencement of October, — while that of the common seal is usually the beginning of June. . . . The HABITS. 703 young" of the Tapvaist or great seal .... is invariably whelped above water-mark, and, it is said, during spring tides. They remain in a helpless condition on the rocks, for several weeks, before they can swim, and during this time they cast most of their long hair." * A much earlier account, relating to this locality and species, has been given by Martin in his "Description of the Western Islands of Scotland," ijublished in 1716. "On the western coast of this island [Harris] lies the rock Eousmil, about a quarter of a mile in circumference, and is still famous for the yearly fishing of seals there, in the end of October. This rock belongs to the farmers of the next adjacent lands These farmers man their boats with a competent number fit for the business, and they always embark with a contrary wind, for their security against being driven away by the ocean, and likewise to prevent them from being discovered by the seals, who are apt to smell the scent of them, and presently run to sea. When this crew is quietly landed, they surround the passes, and then the signal for the general attack is given from the boat, and so they beat them down with big staves. The seals at this onset make towards the sea with all speed, and often force their passage over the necks of the stoutest assail- ants, who aim always at the forehead of the seals, giving many blows before they are killed; and if they are not hit exactly on the front, they contract a lump on their forehead, which makes them look very fiercest and if they get hold of the stall" with their teeth, they carry it along to sea with them. Those that are in the boat shoot at them as they run to sea, but few are catched that way. The natives told me that sev- eral of the biggest seals lose their lives by endeavouring to save their young ones, whom they tumble before them towards the sea. I was told, also, that three hundred and twenty seals, young and old, have been killed at one time in this place. The reason for attacking them in October is, because in the begin- ning of this month the seals bring forth their young on the ocean side ; but these on the east side, who are of lesser stature [Phoca vitulina, probablj"], bring forth their young in the mid- dle of June." I * Mag. Zool. and Botany, vol. i, 1&37, pp. 540, 541. tThis seems to point to the Hooded Seal as being possibly involved in the account here quoted, although it evidently relates mainly to the Gray Seal. tPinkerton's Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. iii, pp. 594, 595. 704 HALICHOERUS GRYPUS GRAY SEAL. The same writer alludes as follows to the uses and supposed mediclual qualities of the flesh of these Seals : "The natives [of the Island of Harris] salt the seals with the ashes of burnt sea- ware, and say they are good food : the vulgar eat them commonly in the spring-time, with a long pointed stick instead of a fork, to prevent the strong smell which their hands would otherwise have for several hours after. The flesh and broth of fr.esh young seals is by experience known to be jjectoral; the meat is astringent, and used as an eflectual remedy against diarrhea and dysenteria: the liver of a seal being dried and pulverised, and afterwards a little of it drunk with milk, aquavitae, or red wine, is also good against fluxes. . . . The seal, though esteemed fit only for the vulgar, is also eaten by persons of distinction, though under a diflerent name, to wit, ham: this I have been assured of by good hands, and thus we see that the generality of men are as much led by fancy as judgment in their i^alates, as well as in other things. The popish vulgar, in the islands to the southward from this, eat these seals in Lent instead of tish."* Edmonstone, in his account of the Zetland Isles (vol. ii, 1809, p. 294), also refers at some length to this species under the names Phoca harbata and "Haaf Fish," stating, among other things, that the "young are brought forth in the months of September, October, and November." The habits of the Gray Seal in the Gulf of Bothnia, where it was formerly very abundant, appear to be very different from what they are described to be at other localities, especially in respect to the season of reproduction. Although I have met no recent account of its habits as observed there, Lilljeborg and other Scandinavian writers quote Cneiff's account of the Gray Seal of the Baltic as referring without question to Hali- cJicerus grypus. The Gray Seal, according to Cneiff, was so numerous about the middle of the last century as to occur in herds of several hundreds, and was regularly hunted for its fat and skins.t He describes it as somewhat migratory, leaving the Baltic at the approach of winter for the more northerly *Pinkerton'8 Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. lii, pp. 595, 59(i. tFor a full abstract of Cneiff 's account of the Bothuiau Seal-fishery see antea, pp. 530-534. As already stated {antea, p. 664), there is reason to doubt whether this account does not relate to Ei-ic/natlms harbatus rather than to Halichccrus grypus, in respect to the season of giving birth to the young and breeding habits, it agreeing with the former and not with the latter. HABITS. 705 parts of the Botlinian Gnlf. He says the female has its young about the end of February on the ice, but also says that they breed on the rocks when there is opj)ortunity. The young does not at first enter the water, unless forced into it by the break- ing up of the ice, the female suckling it upon the ice. During the first eight days after its birth it is wholly white, but after this the hair begins to fall, first on the head and fore feet, which at the end of fourteen days are blackish gray. As the Gray Seal cannot continue under the ice in winter without frequently coming to the surface for air, it has therein various small breathing-holes, which are so small at the top that it can only thrust its head througli or even merely the nose, but they are wider below and perfectly round, being easily made so by the fore feet. They also have larger openings through which they ascend to the surface to repose, or, during the breeding sea- son, to suckle the young. When the ice breaks up, before the young are strong enough to go south, as sometimes hai)pens, and while they are still congregated in large herds at the breed- ing-places, they seek out the largest and soundest pieces of ice, on which they and their young can remain in greatest safety. At such times they all wish to get on the same piece, where perchance there may not be room for all; they therefore begin to fight with each other, biting and bullying, so that after the strife one may see large wounds on their bodies. It is worthy of remark that the Gray Seals and the Wikare or Harbor Seals do not associate together. The Gray Seals, he continues, begin to lose their old hair about the 25th of March, which they rub off against the ice. At about this time the old Gray Seals with their young, which are no longer suckled, return to the East Sea. The Gray Seals stay in winter in the Gulf of Bothnia, x)robably because they find there thick ice which is not so liable- to be broken up by strong winds as in other seas ; consequently they can there bring their young into the world with greater safety. The only migration noticeable appears to support this opinion, for it takes place as soon as the young are large enough to obtain their own food. It is also noteworthy that the young of the Gray Seal know how to take a straight line for the East Sea, going so directly as to cross stony ground or a point of land, if it lies in their way ; consequently the return often costs them their life. * *Koiiigl. Scliwed. Akad. der Wissen., xix Band, 1759, pp. 172-174. Misc. Pub. No. 12 45 706 HALICHGERUS GRYPUS GRAY SEAL. Ill many respects Cueiff's above-cited account recalls the habits of the Einged ^eal, but his description of it indicates its weight to be about twice that of the Wikare or Harbor Seal, which seems to preclude the supposition of its being the Einged Seal, Besides this, the Gray Seal is well known to be an abundant species in the Baltic, where the Bearded Seal, with which Cueiff's account seems in most x^articulars to agree, is not reported to occur. The breeding season is here distinctly affirmed to occur about the end of February, * while in Iceland and in the Western Islands of Scotland it occurs in October and November. At the last-named localities the species resorts to outlying rocks for its breeding-sites, while in the BothnianGulf the young are brought forth on the ice. The large herds here met with, in contrast with the small parties seen elsewhere, is also a noteworthy discrepancy not easily explained. With one exception, this is the only Seal that is known to briiig forth its young in the autumn. Collett states that the Bearded Seal breeds in October on the coast of Norway, and this again is the only instance known to me of the Bearded Seal having been reported as breeding at any other time than very early in spring. Although both the Gray and the Bearded Seals have about the same range on the Norwegian coast, it may seem rash to question the report of so trustworthy a naturalist as Mr. Collett, yet, if I rightly understand his remarks, his in- formation touching this point is given at second hand, and it therefore seems possible that his correspondent may have mis- taken the Gray Seal for the Bearded Seal. If such be the case, the breeding of the Gray Seal in the Bothnian Gulf in spring may be regarded as exceptional in the history of the species, while the reported breeding of the Bearded Seal iu autumn would be the result of a malidentification of the species, t * Licliteustein has described a young example, still in the -wliite coat, taken on the Pommeranian coast, March 28, 1821, which seems to couhrm Cueiff's account of the breeding of this species early iu spring. — Abhandl. der Berlin Akad., 1822-23 (1825), p. 1. tin order not to do Mr. Collett injustice I quote the following: After re- ferring to what he believes to be the southernmost breeding station of the Bearded Seal on the coast of Norway, namely, on some rocky islets off Troudhjem Fjord, he says: "Af de udf^rlige Meddelelser, som jeg efter- haanden har modtaget af disse 0ers Eier, Hr. Borthen, fremgaar det, at Phoca barbata i sit LevesiBt og Yugleforholde i flere vigtige Henseender skiller 8ig fra de af vore (ivrige uordiske Sailer, hvorom vi have nogen Kuudskab. GENUS MONACHUS. 707 Genus MO^N^AOHUS, Fleming. Monaclms, Fleming, Phil. Zool., ii, 1822, 187. Pelage [Pelagius^, F. CuviER, M6m. du Mus., xi, 1824, 193, 196, pi. xiii. Type, riioca monaclms, Hermann. Pclafjius, F. CuviKR, Diet. Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 550. Heliophoca, Gray, Ann. ami Mag. Nat. Hist., xiii, 1854, pi. xiii (young). "Muzzle rather elougate, broad, liairy, witli a slight groove between the nostrils ; whiskers small, quite smooth, flat, taper- ing. Fore feet short ; fingers gradually shorter to the inner one ; claws 5, flat, truncate. Hind feet hairy between the toes ; claws very small ; hair short, adj)ressed, with very little or no under-fur. Skull depressed ; nose rather depressed, rather elon- gate, longer than the length of the zj^gomatic arch ; j)alate an- gularly notched behind. Cutting-teeth |^, large, notched within, the middle upper much smaller, placed behind the intermediate ones. Canines large, conical, sharp-edged. Grinders ~l, large, crowded, placed obliquely with regard to the central palatine line ; crown large, conical, with several small conic rhombic tubercles. Lower jaw angulated in front below, with diverg- ing branches, the lower edge of the branches rounded, simple. The grinders, except the two first in both jaws, are implanted by two roots ; their crown is short, compressed, conical, with a cingillum [sic] strongly developed on their inner side, and de- veloping a small anterior and i)osterior accessory cusp ; the up- per jaw is much less deej) than in Haliclioerus ; the canines are relatively large, and the nasal bones are much shorter." — Gray. The genus Monaclms was placed by Gray, as late as 1866 and previously, in the subfamily StenorhyncMnce. In 1871 he raised, it to the rank of a distinct " tribe" {MonacJmia) or subfamily. The single species usually referred to it — the Mediterranean Seal, Phoca monaclms, Hermann — has even been placed by Wag- ner, Giebel, and other German writers in the genus Leptonyx, En af de mserkeligste af disse Afvigelser er Tidspnnktet for dens Yngletid. Denne indtrseffer nemlig i Norge om Hasten, efterat Individerue i Midteu af September have samlet sig paa de bestemte Ynglepladse ; umiddelbart deref- ter foregaar Ungens Kastning, i Regelen i den sidste Uge af Sej)tember." — Bemwrkninger til Norges Pattedyrfanna, 1876, p. 59. See also Lilljeborg's "Fauna ofver Sveriges och Norges Ryggradsdjur," 1874, p. 702, where the same is given in substance, and also Lilljeborg's note (note 2, p. 702) in ref- erence to Fabriciua's and Malmgren's observations on the breeding season of Phoca barhata, 708 MONACHUSi TEOPICALIS WEST INDIAN SEAL. nearly equivalent to the subfamily Stenorhynchince of Gray and other recent writers. Gill, in 1866, transferred it to the Pho- cince. Its introduction into the ]SI"orth American fauna rests on the provisional assignment of the Seal of the West Indian waters to this genus. MONACHUS? TEOPICALIS, Gray. West Indian Seal. Seal, Dampier, Yoy. round the World, ii, 2, 3d ed., 1705, 23. Cystophora antlllarum, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1849, 93 (in part only). Phoca tropicalis, Gray, Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, 28. Monaclms tropicalis, Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 20 ; Hand List of Seals, 1874, 11. wilkianus, GosSE, Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica, 1851, 307. Pedro Seal, GosSE, 1. c. ; Jamaica Seal, Gray, 1. c. Characters.*— Incisors |5|; canines ]^; molars ~, flve- lobed, conical, rugose at base. Soles and palms naked. Ante- rior digits with well-developed nails ; posterior digits with the nails rudimentary. Mystacial bristles long, flexible, smooth. Color intense uniform black, or black varied with gray. Pelage very short, stiff, closely appressed. Length of adult male, about ten feet. Although the existence of Seals in the West Indian waters has been known for two centuries, a most tantalizing uncer- tainty stUl prevails in respect to their characters and affinities. I had hoped to be able in the present connection to clear up some of these doubts, but as my efforts to obtain specimens have thus far proved fruitless, I have to content myself with giving a transcript of what has already been written about them, with such critical remarks as the case suggests. So far as known to me, Dampier was the first to record the existence of Seals in the Caribbean Sea, but he gives no de- scription of them, his reference consisting of an account of a sealing voyage made to the Alacrane Eeef in 1675, and inci- dents relating thereto. His account, however, shows that at that time they were so abundant at that locality as to be sought there for their oil, and where, in fact, for some years previously, the sealing business had been an industry of considerable com- mercial importance. Dasipier's Account, 1675. — In describing the "Alacrane" * Compiled from Hill and Gosse. dampier's account. 709 Islaucls,* under the margiual date ^^An. 1G75," he says, "Here are many Seals : they come up to sun themselves only on two or three of the Islands, I don't know whether exactly of the same kind with those in colder Climates, as I have noted in my former Book, they always live where there is plenty of Fish. "To the North of these Islands lyes a long ledge of Eocks, bending like a Bow; it seems to be 10 or 12 Yards wide, and about 4 Leagues long, and 3 Leagues distant from the Island. They are above Water, all joyning very close to one another, except at one or two Places, where are small Passages about nine or ten Yards wide ; 't was through one of these that Providence directed us in the Xight ; for the next Morning we saw the Riff about half a Mile to the ]S"orth of us, and right against us was a small Gap by which we had come in hither, but coming to view it more nearly with our Boat, we did not care to venture out that way again. . . . There we Anchored and lay three or four days, and visited most of them, and found plenty of such Creatures, as I have already described. "Though here was great store of such good Food and we like to want, yet we did neither salt any, nor spend of it fresh to save our Stock. I found them all but one Man averse to it, but I did heartily wish them of another mind, because I dreaded wanting before the end of the Voyage; a hazard which we needed not to run, there being such plenty of Fowls and Seals (especially of the latter), that the Spaniards do often come hither to make Oyl of their Fat ; upon which account it has been visited by English-men from Jamaica, iiarticularly by Capt. Lonfi : who, having the Command of a small Bark, came hither purposely to make Seal Oyl, and anchored on the North side of one of the sandy Islands, the most convenient Place, for his design : Having got ashore his Cask to put his Oyl in, and set up a Tent for lodging himself and his Goods, he began to kill the Seal, and had not wrought above three or four days before a fierce North-wind blew his Bark ashore. By good fortune she was not damnified : but his Company being but small, and so despairing of setting her afloat again, they * "The Alacranes are 5 or 6 low sandy Islands, lying in the Lat. of about 23 d. North, and distant from the Coast of Jucatan about 25 Leagues; the biggest is not above a Mile or two in Circuit. They are distant from one another 2 or 3 ]Miles, not lying in a Line, but scattering here and there, with good Cbannels of 20 or 30 Fathom Water, for a Shij) to pass between." — Dampier, Two Voyages to Campeacliey, etc., in his Voyage round the World, vol. Ji, part 2, 3d ed., 1705, j). 23. 710 MONACHUSi TROPICALIS WEST INDIAN SEAL. fell to contriving how to get away; a very difficult task to accomplish, for it was 24 or 25 Leagues to the nearest Place of the Main, and above 100 Leagues to Trist, which was the next English Settlement. But contrary to their expectation, in- stead of that, Capt. Long bid them follow their Work of Seal- killing and making Oyl ; assuring them that he would under- take at his own peril to carry them safe to Trist. This though it went much against the grain, yet at last he so far prevailled by fair Words, that they were contented to go on with their Seal-killing, till they had filled all their Cask." The narrative continues that by a to them lucky accident "two New-England Ketches going down to Triat., ran on the backside of the Eiff, where they struck on the Rocks, and were bnlged". Captain Long and his crew assisted them to unlade their goods and bring them ashore, in requital for which they helped him to launch his own vessel, "and lading his Oyl, and so they went merrily away for TristJ^ Captain Dampier adds, " The whole of this Relation I had from Captain Long himself." * How loug the capture of Seals for commercial purposes con- tinued after this date, or whether it was ever carried on at other points in these waters, I have no means of determining, t Owing to the limited area to which they were restricted, and consequently their necessarily small numbers, it is evident that they could not long have survived in force under such vigorous persecution. Hill's and Gosse's Accounts, 1843, 1851. — A description of this Seal (and the first one, so far as I can learn) was pub- lished, according to Mr. Gosse, by Mr. Richard Hill, in the" "Jamaica Almanack for 1843." Mr. Gosse, in 1851, in his work entitled "A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica," repub- lished Mr. Hill's account, and added thereto further remarks on the species, based largely on information communicated by Mr. Hill. As Mr. Hill's description is nearly inaccessible, while Mr. Gosse's book is by no means easy of access, I here tran- scribe the whole account as given at length by Mr. Gosse, under the heading "The Pedro Seal": "In the Jamaica Al- manack for 1843, Mr. Hill i^ubUshed a Memoir on a Seal inhab- * Ibid., pp. 25-28. t Olafsen, iu liis " Reise durcli Island," p. 284, refers to the Great Seal of the Antilles, and cites '' Joh. Sam. Halleu's Natur-Geschichte der Thiere, p. 593 vind 581," as contaiuiug a further account. Hallen's work being inac- cessible to me, I am unable to state what information may be there found. HILLS AND aOSSES ACCOUNTS. 711 iting tlie Pedro Kays, a reef of rocks, lying oft' the south coast of Jamaica. As it appears to be a species uukiiowii to natur- alists, and as the publication in which it was described had only a transient and local interest, 1 transcribe the Memoir at length, adding to it such particulars of the natural history of th.e animal as have since been communicated to me by my frieud. " 'The differences which exist in the crania of the Phocidce, and other discrepancies of structure which have been remarked as distinguishing the several genera into which the family is divided, would appear to make the Seal from the Pedro Shoal more allied to the Ph. vltuUna of Linn. {Calocephalus, Fr. Cuv.) than to any of which we have detailed accounts, although very different from all.* The shoulders, legs, and thighs are con- cealed within the body, and the hand is extremely flattened and fln-like. The cranium is large, high, and convex : — there are ten molar teeth, and two canines in the upi^er jaw, and the same number in the lower; these, with /owr incisors, above and below, make in all thirty-two teeth. They are five-lohed and conical, and they terminate in a base of extremely rough enamel. The teeth are so disposed that when the mouth is closed there is no interspace above or below them, the points of the upper teeth filling the depressed intervals of the lower ones. Having no external auricle, and ears with foramina so small as to be hardly percei)tible, the species belongs to the Inauriculata of Peron, or the earless division of Seals. The nostrils are narrow fissures, which appear like two slits in the nose, and are frequently and rai)idly closed. The small orifices of the ears are in a similar manner rapidly opened and shut. The lips are full and fleshy, and covered with numerous strong bristles, very flexible, of a black hue with transverse bars of grey. The colour of the body is an intense and uniform black. The hair is short and stiff", and extremely and curiously close. The close bristly covering prevails everywhere except on the palms of the flippers, which are bare. The fore paw has much more the form of a foot than of a hand, the first finger answer- ing to the thumb being the longest. There are nails only on * "From Mr. Hill's descriptiou it aiipears to have tlie incisors and nail- less laind feet of Stenorlujnvhus, with the molars of Caloccpluilus. The data are perhaps not sufficient to warrant the formation of a new genus, but I may be permitted to propose the trivial name of Wilkiunus for the species, in honour of George Wilkie, Esq., to whose courtesy I am indebted for the skin of an adult specimen, probably of the same kind, shot by himself." 712 MONACHUS? TROPIC ALIS— WEST INDIAN SEAL. tbe fore paws, those of the hinder being rudimentary. The eyes are large, bkick, and full, and the irides crimson. "^ When the specimen from which these notes were made first arrived it was very lively, and so sensible to the slightest touch, that however lightly the hand might be placed on the fur, it felt the contact, and moved rapidly away, jerking the whole body forwards. When left unmolested it was playful. It ploughed the water with the nose, and snorted as it drew the head out. It grunted like a pig, and barked, growled, and snarled, like a dog. It was fond of turning uj^ou the back and lying dozing. In this posture it slejtt and basked in the sun. It refused all food, and lived four months without eating. Symi^toms of dulness only appeared in the last month, when it was found to be labouring under some disease of the head; and when it died it was discovered to have become totally blind, the dark pupil of the eye having disappeared, together with the crimson colour of the iris. It was sur^jrisingiy fat, not- withstanding its long fast. The fat was four inches thick, and yielded four gallons of oil. It was a male, but the organs of generation were not externally perceptible. This organization is accordant with the peculiarities of the Seal tribe : in the fe- male the teats are concealed in the skin, and the lacteal fulness swells with the rotundity of the body, so that the animal does not suffer pain or inconvenience when crawling on land; and the biiid termination of the tongue, another j)eculiarity, is an adaptation which enables the young of the Fhocidce to seize the nipple uuder comparatively difficult circumstances, attend- ant on lactation. The occipital aperture, which remains for a long time unossifled in this tribe of animals, being still open, though reduced to a very small orifice, — this Seal may be con- sidered to have been onlj' just full grown. The unworn sharp- ness of the teeth indicated the same fact. " ' The measurements of this specimen were as follows : Feet. Inches. Total length along the back from snout to tip of tail 4 2 From snout to insertion of fore paw 1 6 From insertion of fore paw to hind paw 2 10 Circumference of body near fore paws 3 2 Circumference at hind paws 1 6 Breadth of back at fore paws 1 0 From one fore x)aw to the other, extended 2 G Length of fore paw 0 10 Length of hind ijaw 0 11 hill's and gosses accounts. 713 Feet. Inches. Breadth of head across ears, measured horizoutally 0 7 Length of head 0 9 Breadth of nose 0 4^ Length of tail 0 3 " ' The Kays frequented by tbese Seals are situated at about a degree south from this Ishind, and form portions of an exten- sive and dangerous line of rocks on a shoal about 100 miles long, the two extremities of soundings touching nearly the 77th and 79th meridians of W. longitude. These banks rise pre- cipitously from the deep ocean, with reefs formed, like the usual rocks in these seas, of coral, with an accumulation of shells and calcareous sand. The depth of water varies from 7 to 17 fathoms. A scanty vegetation covers the principal group of islands, which are what are iiroperly called the Pedro Kays. The detached islets about 90 miles apart, known as the Port- land and Eattlesnake Eocks, are nearly the eastern and west- ern extremities of the bank. This shoal has always been vis- ited as an excellent and inexhaustible fishing ground; and, probably from the variety and abundance of its aquatic ani- mals and marine productions, it received from the Spaniards the name of Vivero, a word equally designating a warren or fish-pond. The principal supply of turtles for the Kingston Market is derived from these shoals, and the rocks are numer- ously tenanted by sea-birds.' "In the spring of 181C George Wilkie, Esq., paid a visit to these Kays and succeeded in obtaining a larger specimen of the Seal. Some notes with which he kindly furnished me, through the medium of Mr. Hill, of the peculiarities of the different islets, depict natural difficulties in the access to Seal Kay, suffi- cient to account for the meagreness of the information about Seals, possessed by the host of egg-gatherers, who annuallj^ resort to those rocks and shoals. Seal Kay lies about three miles to leeward of the principal group. It is about two acres in extent, and rises to twenty feet in height, but is entirely destitute of all terrestrial vegetation. Address, in landing, requires to be combined with strength, hardihood, and perse- verance; and frequently before a footing can be obtained, tlie Seals, the objects of attraction, have escaped to the waters, and continue to avoid the shore as long as intruders remain upon the island. ' When Mr. Wilkie's party first landed in their late visit, they surprised some five Seals on shore. They immedi- ately succeeded in heading a "Bull," or Male Seal, both big 714 MONACHUS? TROPICALIS WEST INDIAN SEAL. and burly, and killed him. He proved to be an aged iiatriarch, with teeth nearly worn to the stumps, and a hide gashed and seamed with scars, got in many a fierce fight; — and about ten feet in length. "'In the scramble which the Seal makes to regain the water, nothing is to be remarked but the violence and imi^atience with which he jerks his body forward ; but when he j)lunges from the shore into the sea, it is no small treat to see the sud- denness with which the uncouth animal, so unwieldy and help- less on laud, becomes gracefully alert in the ocean. The com- mand with which he strikes through the water, the velocity w ith which he cleaves the flood, the ease with which he winds the mazes of the rocks, and dashes forward into the hidden recesses of the deep, are beautifully interesting in a creature looking so essentially a quadruped. Wlfen the boat is afloat again, the Seals come trooping out to reconnoitre. At a depth of about three feet they i)addle about, gazing up through the clear liquid with an expression of countenance beaming with curiosity and intelligence. They dodge around the boat, occa- sionally ascending to the surface, to renew their inspirations of air, and to look upon their island home, to ascertain whether they may return thither and be at rest. " 'A grown-up cub about four feet long had been taken by the people. One Seal was observed more persevering iu her watchfulness and assiduity to regain the shore, than the rest. This was conjectured to be the dam of the slaughtered young one. The maternal instinct did not exhibit any stronger emotion than this anxious vigilance. The young one was suffi- ciently grown to be no longer dependent on the mother. Had it been still sucking, there was enough to show that the parental passion would have merged fearlessness into fury, and inquie- tude for the safety of its young, into unsparing vengeance for its fate, " 'Without doing more than referring to Weddell's observa- tion, that the jaw of the Seals he describes was so powerful in the agonies of death as to grind stones into po^Yder, it seemed, from the condition of the teeth of some eight that were taken during the time Mr. Wilkie's party were on the Pedros, that their strength is exercised in more laborious work than crush- ing the bones of fishes. The opinion that the more experienced fishermen expressed was, that they fed as generally on mollus- cous animals as on fish, and that their teeth suffered much wear gray's accounts. 715 and tear in the work of breaking shells. Yet it is remarkable that the contents of the stomachs of those killed gave them no insight into the nature of their food: — they were invariably emi)ty. " ' I must not omit to mention that our friends had one oppor- tunity of closely observing the progression of the Seal when ascending the beach. The advance was by zigzag movements. It was evident that the ground was first grij)ped by one fore flipper, then by the other, that the body advanced first to the right, then to the left, as one or the other flipijer took its hold of the e.arth, and helped the body onward. They seemed to delight in basking in the sun, and to huddle together, and grunt out their pleasure in each others' company.' "The skin of one of the si^ecimens obtained in this expedi- tion Mr. Wilkie kindly presented to me ; a courtesy the value of which was enhanced by the fact of its being one of the chief of the ophna spoUa, a sort of trophy of his own exj^loits. It is now in the British Museum. As the skull was not preserved, the actual identity of the species with the smaller specimen, described by Mr. Hill, cannot with certainity be established ; and there seems a little discrepancy in the i^roportions, as will be seen by comijaring the admeasurements of Mr. Hill's, already given, with the following, which were taken from Mr. Wilkie's specimen : — Feet. Inches. Lengtli from nose to tip of tail 6 6 Circumference at fore paws 3 4 Length of fore paw 0 11^ Length of hind paw 0 lOf Length of tail 0 2 "The fur is of a nearly uniform dirty ash-gray, black at the base, and gray at the tips of the han\s ; it is slightly mottled on the belly ; it is very close and stiff, and not more than one- fourth of an inch long. The vibrissce or whiskers are from an inch to an inch and three-quarters long ; white, with one on each side brown." * • Gray's Accounts, 1849-1874. — Mr. Gosse, as appears from the foregoing, transmitted a specimen to the British Museum, — * A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica. By Philip Henry Gosse, A. L. S., «fec. Assisted by Richard Hill, Esq., Cor. M. Z. S. Lond., Mem. Counc. Roy. Soc. Agric. of Jamaica. Loudon: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, IciSl, pji. 107-114. 716 MONACIIUS? TROPICALIS WEST INDIAN SEAL. the skin last described iu the above transcript, and, so far as Mr. Gosse's narrative goes to show, the only one he ever saw. Dr. Gray, however, in 1849, described another "skin and skull" from ''the West Indies", which he later stated were sent home direct by Mr. Gosse from Jamaica. Dr. Gray's description of these specimens is as follows : "We have lately received from the West Indies the skin and skull of a seal which evidently belongs to the same genus as the crested seal of the northern hemisphere. The skull, or rather the teeth, when compared with those of the Greenland specimens, induce me to believe that it is distinct from them. It chiefly differs in the form of the outer upper cutting teeth and canines. In all the speci- mens, both old and young, from the i^orth Sea, the outer upper cutting teeth and the canines are narrow and compressed, In the West Indian skull, which is that of a very young specimen, the outer upper cutting teeth and the canines are broad, strongly keeled on each side and longitudinally plaited within. In this skull the 4th grinder has only a single root, and the 5th grinder has two ; the crowns of the teeth are j)laited and tuber- cular like those of the North Sea specimens. The face is rather broader than in a skull of the northern kind of nearly the same size. This species may be called Cystopliora antillarum. " We have received an imperfect skin of a seal from Jamaica, ■which was brought home by Mr. Gosse. It is unfortunately without any bones. The whiskers are short, thick, white, cylindrical, regularly tapering, and without any appearance of a wave or twist. In this character it most agrees with Fhoca harhataP * The following year he redescribed these specimens, claiming Jamaica as the habitat of his CystopJiora antillarum, and stat- ing that the specimens on which it was based were from " Mr. Gosse's collection", as follows: "2. Phoca tkopicalis. Jamaica Seax. "Grey-browu; liair very short, strap-shaped, closely adpressed, black with a slight grey tip ; whiskers short, thick, cylindrical, regularly tapering, without any appearance of wave or twist ; fingers gradually shorter. "luhab. Jamaica. "a. Skin imperfect, without skull. "Skin referred to in description of Cystophora antillarum, Ch'ay, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1849, 93."t * Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1849, p. 93. t Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, p. 28. gray's accounts. 717 "2. Cystophora antillarum. West Indian Hooded Seal. ''Skull, face broad. The outer upper cutting teeth and the canines broad, strongly keeled on each side and longitudinally plaited within. Fur grey brown, lips and beneath yellow. ''Cystophora antillarum, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1849, 93. " Inhab. West Indies. "rt. Stnfted specimen. West Indies, Jamaica. Mr. Gosse's collection. "&. Skull of a very young specimen. The face is broader than the skull of C. cristata of the same size. The crowns (*f the teeth are plaited and tubercular. The 4th grinder has only a single root, the 5th has two. West Indies, Jamaica. Mr. Gosse's collection. "Specimen described. Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1849, 9.3."* These descrii)tions were repeated, verhatim, by Gray in 1866, in his " Catalogue of Seals and Whales in the British Museum" (pp. 20, 43), without additional remark, but in his account of the genus Monachus (ibid., p. 18) he says : "As the other sub- tropical Seal, Phoca tropicalis (Gray, Cat. Seals B. M. 28), from Jamaica, described from an imperfect skin without a skull, has similar small smooth whiskers [as Monachus albiventer], it may very i)robably, when its skull has been examined, be found to belong to this genus, which will then prove to be a subtropical form of the family."! It appears, however, that in the mean- time a figure of the Cystophora antillarum had appeared in an "inedited" plate in the "Zoology of the Erebus and Terror," | at least such is here so cited by Gray, but whether the skull or the external characters are represented is not stated. It will be noticed that in the above descrijitions no measure- ments are given, nor any indication of size, nor is the structure of the hind feet referred to, not so much as to state whether they are or are not provided with nails. The only further infor- mation Dr. Gray has vouchsafed to us, based on his own obser- vations, is contained in his " Hand List of Seals," etc., pub- lished in 1874, where he says under Cystophora antillarum (p. 18): "Animal, stuffed, young male? 1005 a. Skull, young, * Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, p. 38. t These remarks appeared originally twelve yeafs l)efore in his description of his genus Helioplwca (Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1854, j). 44), and hence the comparison of the whiskers was hrst made with his Heliophoca allantica, which he later (1866) referred to Monachus albiventer. Heliophoca was charac- terized as having the " cutting teeth f ," but this seems to have been a typo- graphical error for }, as with this correction the whole description of the genus Heliophoca was in 1866 introduced under Monachus. X On this, as on many other occasions, I have to lament the absence from all the libraries of this vicinity of the part of this work treating of the mam- mals. 718 MONACHUS? TROPICALIS WEST INDIAN SEAL. brokeu. Muzzle rather dilated . . . This skull is exceed- ingly like that of the young C. cristataP In 18GG, under "Addi- tions and Corrections" in his " Catalogue of Seals and Whales " (p. 3G7), lie cites for the first time " Hill's Jamaica Almanack, 1843", and adds as a synonym "The Pedro Seal (Phoca Wilki- anus), Gosse, Nat Sojourn in Jamaiea, 307, 308", and quotes the descrip^ons of specimens there given. Gill on the West Indian Seals, 1866. — Dr. Gill in 1866 (but before he had seen Gray's "Catalogue of Seals and Whales" of that date) thus referred to the West Indian Seals: " The relations of the Jamaican Seal, rejoicing In the two names, Phoca tropicalis, Gray, and ?! WilManus, Gosse (1851), are very uncertain. Mr, Gosse obtained a single skin. The exact origin of the Cystophora antiUarum was not mentioned in the original description, and its West Indian habitat requires con- firmation."* Dr. Gray,t a little later, in referring to Dr. Gill's above-quoted remarks, reaffirmed that the specimens of both his species were obtained in Jamaica by Mr. Gosse. Analysis and Discussion of the foeegoing. — From the foregoing, — the only information at present accessible on the subject, — what conclusions may be drawn respecting the num- ber of species and affinities of the West Indian Seals'? Are there two species or one, and what is their relationship ? In the first j)lace, it may be noted that Gray's Phoca tropicalis and Gosse's Pedro Seal ( wilManus), the latter named specific- ally, but referred to no particular genus, are one and the same thing, the former being based on Mr. Gosse's specimen. That such a species exists is beyond question, while, as will be no- ticed fully later, its generic affinities seem to be with MonachuSy to which genus Dr. Gray finally referred it. Secondly, it is to be noted that the specimens made known by Hill and Gosse, and all their observations respecting the Jamaican Seals, re- late to this type, and in no way suggest the genus Cystophora. In the third i^lace, no one can doubt but that the specimens on which Gray based his Cystophora antiUarum were correctly referred to Cystophora. Every point of the description ren- ders this evident, while Dr. Gray himself says, in his last ref- erence to the species, twenty-five years after it was first de- scribed, "This skull is exceedingly Like that of the young G. * Proc. Essex Institute, vol. v, No. 1, Aiiril, 1866, p. 4, footnote, t Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., xvii, 1866, p. 445. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION. 719 cristafa."* Finally, did the specimens on which Cystophora anfiUarum was based come from the West Indies ? Dr. Gray says, in his first reference to them in 1849, they were "lately received from the West Indies." In the next paragraph he says, "We have received an imperfect skin of a Seal from Ja- maica, which was brought home by Mr. Gosse," certainly im- plying that the specimens mentioned just before were not from Mr. Gosse, and probably not from Jamaica. On the other hand, Mr. Gosse's account of the Pedro Seal indicates that Mr. Gosse himself never even saw other specimens of this Seal than the skin he sent to the British Museum, his whole account of the species, aside from a description of this skin, being avowedly given at second hand. Yet Dr. Gray the next year, in redescribing these specimens, made the skin received from Mr. Gosse the basis of his Phoca tropicalis, while the "skin and skull" on which Cystophora antillarum became now exclusively based received a definite locality and history, namely, " West Indies, Jamaica, Mr. Gosse's Collection." t It was a year later when Mr. Gosse published his account of the Pedro Seal, and if these specimens, alleged to have been received from Jamaica through him, had related to the Pedro Seal, or to any other Ja- maican Seal, it is probable that he would not have failed to refer to them in treating of the Seals of Jamaica. Dr. Gray, how- ever, doubtless firmly believed in their Jamaican origin, for he not only gives for them the habitat and history above quoted in all his subsequent notices of Cystophora antillarum, but in 1866, in replying to Dr. Gill's remark that its West Indian hab- itat required confirmation, says he (Gill) overlooked " the fact that they were both [Phoca tropicalis and Cystophora antilla- rum] collected in Jamaica and sent home direct from the island by Mr. Gosse." | In regard to the occurrence of the genus Cystophora in Ja- maican waters, there are, in the present state of our knowledge of the subject, only two alternatives, one of which implies the acceptance of Gray's alleged origin of his specimens of C. an- tillarum as valid, while the other assumes an accidental error of locality ; since its presence or absence there, so far as we now know, turns upon this point. In favor of the latter alter- native is the pretty strong inference, derivable from the gen- *Hand List of Seals, etc., 1874, p. 18. t Cat. Seals, i^. 38. t Ann. and. Mag. Nat. Hist., xvii, 1866, p. 145. 720 MONACHUS? TROPICALIS WEST INDIAN SEAL. eral history of the case, that Mr. Gosse obtained or saw only a single specimen of Seal in Jamaica, — namely, the skin forming the basis of Gray's Fhoca tropicaUs.* Furthermore, the genus Cystopliora^ as now known, is a subarctic type, the occurrence of which within the tropics seems at least very improbable. Agreeing, therefore, with Dr. Gill that the West Indian habitat of Cystophora antillarum even still "requires confirmation," I can recognize in the x)resent connection only a single species of West Indian Seal, — namely Phoca tropicaUs, Gray, 1850,= Monachus tropicaUs, Gray, 1874. Affinities of the Jamaican ob Pedro Seal. — In respect to the characters and affinities of the Jamaican Seal, we have nothing of importance beyond the information furnished by Messrs. Hill and Gosse. The incisive formula of Iff shows that it is neither Cystopliora nor MacrorJiinus, nor even a typical member of the subfamily Phocince. In this respect it agrees with Monachus and with the Stenorhyncine Seals, with which types it also agrees in the rudimentary condition of the nails on the hind feet. It agrees with Monachus in the structure of * After transmitting this article to tlie printer it seemed to me desirable to settle, if j)ossible, the question of the West Indian origin of the specimens on which Dr. Gray based his Cystophora antilJantm, and I accordingly ad- dressed a letter of inquiry on the subject to Mr. P. H. Gosse. He not only promptly replied, but in a subsequent letter kindly gave me permission to- publish his letter, the greater part of which I here transcribe : ''Sandhurst, Torquay, Jan. 18, 1880. "My Dear Sir : In reply to your inquiry about West Indian Seals, I may say, with certainty, (notwithstanding the length of time that has elapsed,) that Dr. J. E. Gray was in error, in supposing that more than one sjjecies was actually delivered to the Brit. Museum, from Jamaica, by me. This wa& the skin mentioned in my 'Nat. Soj. Jam.', p. 314 "The Seal of the Pedro Kays is certainly not a Cystopliora. I know noth- ing of this ; nor of any other Seal from the Antilles than the species I have described in ' N. S. J.' ' ' Believe me, my dear sir, very truly yours, "P. H. GOSSE." This makes it evident that Dr. Gray was mistaken in his statement that the specimens of his Cystophora antillarum were "collected in Jamaica and sent home direct from the island by Mr. Gosse." I will now add that I be- lieve it safe to refer Cystophora antillarum to the well-known Cystophora anstata, even Gray himself having stated that the young skull on which it was mainly based "is exceedingly like that of the young C. eristata" and to assume that the supposition of its West Indian origin was wholly a mis- take. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 721 the mystacial bristles, and in the palms being bare, in which characters it differs from any of the StenorhyncJmice. It ap- pears to differ from Monaclms in no essential character, except in the structure of the teeth, which seem to agree better with those of Lohodon. Mr. Hill describes the molars as "five- lobed and conical," and as " terminating in a base of extremely rough enamel." In Monachus the molars are very thick, broad, and conical, with a small accessory cusp before and behind the i^rincipal one, and a roughened cingulum. As in all other characters the agreement is closer with Monaclms than with any of the Antarctic genera, I accept j)rovisionally Gray's refer- ence of the species to Monachus^ especially as Mr. Hill's descrip- tion of the dentition is, on the whole, rather vague. Besides this, Monachus is the only subtropical genus of the family, unless the Jamaican Seal prove to be a distinct generic type. Geographical Distribution. — Eespectingthe present geo- graphical distribution of the West Indian Seal, I am indebted for valuable information to Mr. E. W. Kemp, who, under date of "Key West, Fla., April 29, 1878," wrote me as follows : ''Some two or three years ago there were two seen near Cape Florida. It was supposed that they had strayed from some of the Bahama Islands, as there are some few to be found in that vicinity. I am informed by reliable parties that Seals are to be found in great numbers at the Anina Islands, situated between the Isle of Pines and Yucatan. One of my informants says that as he was sailing about the islands fishing and wrecking, he and his party discovered a number of Seals on one of them, and went on shore to kill some, merely 'for fun'. On nearing the shore the Seals all got into the water. They then hid themselves in the shrubbery along the beach, and in about ten or fifteen min- utes the Seals came on the beach again. The men, armed with axes, sprang upon them, the Seals trying to get into the water again. Two of them were killed, and anpther one, as one of the men came up to him, turned around and barked furiously at him, which frightened the poor man so badly (he having never seen one before, and knowing nothing of their habits) that he almost fainted. The Seals are said to be very easily kiUed or captured alive. They yield a great deal of oil. The skins are very large, but not easy to cure, on account of their fatty substance." In a later letter he refers to their great rar- Misc. Pub. No. 12 46 722 MONACHUS ? TROPIC ALIS WEST INDIAN SEAL. ity ou tbe Florida coast, where lie says they occur " only once or twice in a life-time", but alludes to their comparative abun- dance on the coast of Yucatan, and their occasional occurrence at the Bahama Islands. Mr. L. F. de Pourtales also informs me that there is a rock on Salt Key Bank, near the Bahamas, called "Dog Eock", pre- sumably from its having been formerly frequented by the Seals. Also, that his pilot, in 1868-09, told him he had himself killed Seals among the rocky islets of Salt Key Bank. I learn from Mr. S. W. Garman, who accompanied Mr. Agas- siz during his dredging expedition in the Caribbean Sea, in the United States Coast Survey steamer " Blake," during the winter of 1877-78, that the Seal of those waters is well known to the wreckers and turtle-hunters of that region, and that they often kill them for their oil. He also informs me that these animals had also been frequently seen and killed by one of the ofiicers of the " Blake," especially about the Isle of Pines, south of Cuba, and at the Alacranes, where, as already noted, they occurred in such abundance at the time of Dam- pier's visit in 1076 as to be extensively hunted for their oil. They are also known to the whalers who visit these waters. The si^ecimens described by Messrs. Hill and Gosse were taken at the Pedro Kays, off the southern coast of Jamaica, where thirty years ago they appear to have occurred in consid- erable numbers. On a " Chart of the Environs of Jamaica," published in 1774,* as well as on later maps of this region, are indicated some islets off the Mosquito Coast, in about latitude 12° 40', which bear the name " Seal Kays," doubtless in reference to the presence there of these animals. It therefore appears that the habitat of the West Indian Seal extends from the northern coast of Yucatan northward to the southern point of Florida, eastward to the Bahamas and Jamaica, and southward along the Central American coast to about latitude 12°. Although known to have been once abun- dant at some of these localities, it appears to have now well- nigh reached extinction, and is doubtless to be found at only a few of the least frequented islets in various portions of the area above indicated. Being still well known to many of the wreckers and turtle-hunters, it seems strange that it should ' History of Jamaica, vol. i, facino- title-page. The work is anonymous, but the authorship is attributed to Edward Loug. GENUS CYSTOPHORA. 723 have so long remained almost uukuown to naturalists. The only specimen extant in any museum seems to be the imi)erfect skin transmitted by Mr. Gosse to the British Museum thirty years ago. Consequently respecting none of the Pinnipeds, at least of the northern hemisphere, is information still so desir- able. Subfamily CYSTOPHORIN^, Gray. Genus CYSTOPHORA, Nilsson. Cystophora, Nillson, "Skand. Fauna, i, 1820, 382." Type, Cystophora bore- alls, Nilsson = P/i oca cristata, Erxleben. Stemmatope [Sfemmafojyus^, F. Cuvier, M^m. du Mns., xi, 1824, 196. Type, Phoca cristata, Erxleben. Stemmatopus, F. Cuvier, Diet. Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 551; ibid., lix, 1829, 464. Mirounga, Gray, Griffitli's An. King., v, 1827, 463 (in part). Incisors \^, Molar teeth with small, plaited crowns, a dis- tinct neck, and very thick, swollen roots, all simple-rooted except the fifth upper, which is double-rooted, as is also some- times the fourth upper. Nasal bones rather short, small ; palatal surface broad, flat ; hind border of palatines concave. Nasal passages deep, broad, nearly divided ^posteriorly by a long septum ; interorbital region broad ; muzzle narrow, rather produced. Auditory bullpB greatly swollen, the anterior border nearly straight (convex in youth). Brain-case short, broad; prominent occipital crests and well-developed anteorbital pro- cesses in the adult males ; also, with a large inflatable sac on the nose, which is absent in the females and in the young males. Digits of both fore and hind limbs armed with large powerful claws. Outer digits of pes but little longer than the middle ones. Cystophora agrees closely with MacrorJiinus in the form and general character of the teeth; also in neither do the inter- maxillaries rise in front to meet the nasals, as is the case throughout the Phocinw. Gystopliora differs from Macrorliinus in the form of the basisphenoid and basioccipital bones, which in Cystophora constitute a broad flat interbullar space, this region in Macrorhimis being narrow and deeply hollowed. Also in the form of the hind feet, which in Cystophora are only slightly emarginate on the distal border, whereas in Macro- rhinus the hind feet are deeply forked, in consequence of the 724 CYSTOPHORA CRISTATA HOODED SEAL. outer digits far exceeding in length the middle ones. The nails are also rudimentary in the last-named genus, while in Cysto- jphora they form strong, well-developed claws. A further differ- ence in external characters consists in the form of the nasal appendage of the adult males, the large inflatable sac met with in Gystophora being represented in Macrorhimis by a long flexible proboscis, resulting in a widely different i^hysiognomi- cal expression. In respect to general form, Macrorhinus is heavily developed anteriorly, all the bones of the fore limbs being especially mas- sive, while those of the hind limbs are rather weak, and the feet small. The scapula is very large and broad, the width at the widest part being equal to the length. The acromion pro- cess is strongly developed, and the crest placed very near the posterior border, two-thirds of the width of the scapula being in front of the crest. While the length of the skeleton (adult males being comijared in each case) in Macrorhinus leomnus is twice that of Gystophora cristata, and the bulk of the whole animal must be many times greater, the hind limb is only a little larger than in the latter (for detailed measurements see infra, pp. 733 and 750). While the humerus and radius are each twice as long in Macrorhinus as the corresponding parts in. Gystophora, the tibia is scarcely a third longer, while the rela- tive length of the pelvis in the two is as 5 to 4 ! Gystophora, so far as is certainly known, is represented by only a single species, which is restricted to the colder j^arts of the North Atlantic. A second species has been attributed to the Caribbean Sea, but, as already shown {antea, p. 720), there seems to be reason for believing the locality to have been wrongly assigned. CYSTOPHOEA OEISTATA [Urxl), Miss. Hooded Seal, Phoca ifcowtwa, Linn:6, Syst. Nat., 1766 (in part, — only the reference to Ellis'a "Seal with a Cawl"; not Phoca leonina, Linn6, 1758). — Fabricius, Mailer's Zool Dan. Prod., 1776, viii ; Faun. Groenl., 1780, 7 (exclud- ing part of the references; not Phoca leonina, Linn6, 1758). — WaLt LACE, Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edinb., 1862, 393. KlamiitSy Egede, Det gamle Gronlands Nye Perls., etc., 1741, pi. facing p. 46. Seal with a Cawl, Ellis, Voyage to Hudson's Bay, etc., 1748, pi. facing p. 134. Ndtsersoak, Cranz, Historie von Gronland, 1765. Hooded Seal, Pennant, Synop. Quad., 1771, 342 (based on Egede and Cranz). Klappmuze, Schreber, Saugt., iii, 312 (based on the foregoing). \ BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SYNONYMY. 725 Phoca cristata Erxleben, Syst. Eeg. Anim., 1777, 590 (based exclusively on Egede, Ellis, Cranz, Pennant, and Sckreber, as above). — Gmelin, Syst. Nat., i, 1778, 64. — Fabricius, Skrivter af Naturb.-Selskabet, i, Hefte 2, 1791, 120 (in part only).— Kerr, Anim. King., 1792, 126.— Desmarest, Nouv. Diet, des Sci. Nat., xxv, 1817, 580; Mam., 1820, 241, 371.— DeKay, Ann. New York Lye. Nat. Hist.,i, 1824, 94, pi. vii.— Ludlow and King, ibid., 99 (anatomy). — Harlan, Faun. Amer., 1825, 106.— GODMAN, Am. Nat. Hist., i, 1826, 336.— Lesson, Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., xiii, 1828, 412.— Fischer, Syn. Mam., 1829, 241.— Von Baer, Bull. Acad. Imp. des Sci. de St. P6ter8b., iii, 1838, 350. — Hamilton, Amphib. Carniv., 1839, 197, pi. xiv (from DeKay). — Blainville, Ost^ogr., Phoca, 1840-1851, pi. v (skull). — Schinz, Synop. Mam., i, 1844, 485. — Gervais, Zool. et Pal. Frangais, 1848- 1852, 139, pi. xlii (animal, skull, and dentition. Coast of France, accidental) ; ibid., 1859, 270. Cystoplxora cristata, Nilsson, "K. Vet. Akad. Handl. Stockholm, 1837, — "; Wiegmann's Arch, fiir Naturg., 1841,326; "Ilium. Fig. till Skand. Fauna, 20:de hiiftet, 1840"; Skand. Faun. Daggdj., 1847, 312.— Wagner, Schreber's Saugt., vii, 1842, 48. — Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1849, 91 (variation in dentition) ; Cat. Seals Brit. Miis., 1850, 36, fig. 13; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 41, fig. 14; Zoologist, 1872, • 3334, 3338 (distribution) ; Hand List Seals, 1874, 17, fig. 11, pi. xiii (skull, juv.). — GiEBEL, Siiugeth., 1855, 142. — Blasius, Naturg. Wir- bel. Deutschl., i, 1857, 258, figg. 145-147.— Malmgren, Ofv, af Kongl. Vet.-Akad. Forh. Stockholm, 1863, 134; Arch, fiir Naturg., 1864, 72.— Reinhardt, Vidensk. Meddel. Natur. Foren., 1864 (1865), 248, 277 (milk-dentition). — Gunther, Zool. Rec, ii, 1865, 38 (ab- stract of Reinhardt's paj)er on milk-dentition). — Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., V, 1866, 13.— Packard, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., x, 1866, 271 (Labrador). — Quennerstedt, K. Svens. Veten.-Akad. Handl., Bd. vii, 1868, No. 3, 25.— Brown, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, 435 ; Man. Nat. Hist., etc., Greenland, 1875, Mam., 64.— Allen, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., i, 1869, 193 (Massachusetts). — Reeks, Zoologist, 1871, 2548 (Newfoundland).— Walker, Scottish Nat., ii, 1873 (St. An- drews, Scotland). — Moore, Proc. Liverpool Soc, xxvii, 1873, xiii (England). — Cobbold, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1873, 741 (same). — Von Heuglin, Reisen nach demNordpolarmeer, iii, 1874, 66. — Lill- jeborg. Fauna ofv. Sveriges och Norges Ryggradsdjur, 1874, 721. — Van Beneden, Ann. du Mus. roy. d'Hist. Nat. du Belgique, iit. i, 1877, 17 (geogr. distr., with chart). — Rink, Danish Greenland, its People and its Products, 1877, 126, 430. — Schultz. Rep. U. S. Comm. Fish and Fisheries, pt. iii, 1873-74 and 1874-75, 53. Stemmatopus cristatus, F. Cuvier, M^m. du Mus., xi, 1824, 196, pi. xiii; Diet. des Sci. Nat., xxxi, 1826, 551. — Lesson, Man. de Mam., 1827,201. — DeKay, Zool. N. Y., i, 1842, 55, pi. xv, fig. 1. — Jukes, Excuts. in Newfoundland, i, 1842, 319. Mirounga cristata, Gray, Griffith's An. King., v, 1827, 463. Phoca cucuUata, Boddaert, ''Elen. Anim., 1785, 107." Phoca mitrata, "Milbert MS.", G. Cuvier, Oss. foss., 3"'^ ed., v, 1825, 210, pi. xviii, fig. 3. — F. Cuvier, Dents de Mam., 1825, 122, pll. xxxviii B, xxxix, — Fischer, Syn. Mam., 1829, 241.— Hamilton, Amphib. Carniv., 1839, 204, pi. xv ("from Diet, des Sci. Nat."). 726 CYSTOPHOKA CRISTATA HOODED SEAL. Stemmatopxis mitratus, Gray, "Brooke's Cat. Mus., 1826, 36." Cystophora iorealis, Nilsson, ''Skaud. Fauu., 1820, 383." Phoca leucopla, Thienemann, ''Reise im Nordeu vou Europa, etc., 1824, 102, pi. xiii (young); Bull. Sci. Nat., 1825, v, 261." — Fischer, Syn. Mam., 1829, 337. Plioca isidorei, Lesson, Rev. Zool., 1843, 256 (Isle d'Oleron, France, acci- dental). ^Cystophora antillarum, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1849, 93 (excluding the skin from Jamaica received from Mr. Gosse) ; " Zool. Erebus and Terror, t. ined.," opwd Gray ; Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 1850, 58 ; Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, 38; Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, 43; Hand List Seals, etc., 1874, 18. "A Seal 7ieiv to the British Shores, Ci.\RKE, 1847, 4to. fig. of animal & skull." Hood Seal, Carroll, Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, 1873, 13. Klapmydsen, Relnhardt, Vidensk. Meddel. fra den Naturh. Foren., i, Kjo- benhavu, 1864 (1865), 248 (milk-dentition). Neitsersoak ( ^ ), Nesaursalik ( $ ), Kakoriak (young), Greenlandic. Blassjdlen, Blass-Skal, Klapmyts, Klappmysta, Swedish. Tevyak, Russian. Klapmyds, Danish. Klappmiitze, Blasei'oMe, German. Phoque a capuchon, French. • Hooded Seal, Crested Seal, Bladdernose, English. External Characters. — Color above bluisli-black, lighter on the sides and ventrally, thickly varied with small irregular spots of whitish ; head and limbs nearly uniform black. Some- times the light grayish- white tint prevails, varied with spots of dark-brown or blackish. Length of full-grown male about 7^ to 8 feet ; of full-grown female about 7 feet. The young are born white, with a soft woolly pelage, but this is soon changed for the harsh, stiff covering of the adults, and the color changes to a uniform brownish, or more or less silvery-gray, lighter on the sides, and whitish below. DeKay describes the male as ha^^ug the " Head small in pro- portion to the body, with a moveable muscular bag on its sum- mit, extending from the muzzle to about live inches behind the eyes, and in certain positions nearly covering the internal canthi. This sac is twelve inches long, and, when fully distended, nine inches high, covered with short hairs, and with sHght trans- verse wrinkles. The nostrils are round, each two inches in di- ameter, and pierced in the anterior part of this hood. When the hood or nasal sac is not inflated, the septum nasi can be distinctly felt, elevated into a ridge about six inches high. . . . Xasal sac bright brown or rufous." * * New York Zoology, i)t. i, pp. 55, 56. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 727 Nearly all writers, from Fabricius to the present time, speak of the hood as a sexual character. Mr. Carroll, whose famili- arity with the species should render him an authority on this «liliiiilillllllllillli point, says distinctly ; " The female of this species has no hood on the head."* Mr. Brown, however, observes: "It is asserted by the sealers that this bladder is a sexual mark, and is not found on the female". But he adds: "I do not think there is any just ground for this belief"; yet he presents no reasons for * Seal aud Herriug Fisheries of Newfoundland, p. 14. 728 CYSTOPIIORA CRISTATA HOODED SEAL. this statement.* The testimony on this point is too explicit, however, to be set aside on the mere ground of of>inion. Eespecting the size of this species, DeKay gives the total length of the male specimen deseribed by him as 90.5 inches, of which the tail formed 6.5 inches. He says its weight was 500 to 600 pounds {loc. cit, p. 56). Carroll says the length of the Hooded Seal, ''from nose to tail", is 6 to 8 feet, and that the weight of the male, " when in full flesh ", varies from 800 to 900 pounds, of which the skin and fat form 350 to 450 pounds, while the skin and fat of the female, " when prime", will weigh only 150 to 200 pounds. This indicates that the female is much smaller than the male {loc. cit., p. 14). Quennerstedt gives the *Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 186S, p. 436, footnote ; Manual Nat. Hist., Geol., etc., Greenland, Mam., 1875, p. (54, footnote. EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 729 following measurements : Male, from the point of the nose to the end of the tail, 2190 mm. (7 feetSinches, Swedish measure) ; from the point of the nose to the end of the hind extremities 2400 mm. Fig. 54. — Cystophora cristata. No. 6576, Nat. Mus ; i nat. size. (8 Swedish feet); length of the fore limb 480 mm.; of the hind limb 420 mm.; of the tail 105 mm. Female, from the point of the nose to the end of the tail, 1980 mm. (6i Swedish feet.*) He gives the length of two young ones a few days old as respect- ively 3 feet 4 inches and 3 feet 9 inches. I find the length of a skeleton of an adult male, from the point of the nose to the end of the tail, to be 1970 mm. * K. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Handl., Band vii, No. 3, 1868, pp. 25, 26. 730 CYSTOPHORA CRISTATA HOODED SEAL. Skeleton and Skull.— The skull of the Crested Seal (Figg. 53-56, from a rather young example) is nearly quadrate in gen- eral form, with the anteorbital i)ortiou abruptly and greatly narrowed. The orbits are very large, the palatal region very broad and flat, the auditory bullae large and regularly swollen, the brain-case very short and very broad. The interorbital Fig. 55.— Cystophora cristata. No. 6576, Nat. Mus.; i nat. size. region is broad, regularly narrowing anteriorly. The teeth are remarkable for their small plaited (not lobed) crowns and the very large size of the roots, which are not only long but greatly swollen. Usually only the last (5th) upper molar is 2-rooted, and in this the double character of the root is only indicated by SKELETON AND SKULL. 731 the deep longitudinal grooves on each side. Not unfrequently, however, the fourth upper molar is either distinctly double- rooted, or incipiently so, the two fangs being connate and more or less completely united. It sometimes happens that the 4th upper molar is double-rooted on one side and single-rooted on the other. In old age the bones of the skull become greatly Fig. 56. — Cystophora cristata. No. 6576, Nat. Mus.; i nat. size. thickened, the surface assumes a more or less rugose charac- ter, with incipient sagittal and well-developed occipital crests. The sutures, even in old age, remain open nearly throughout the skull. The usual sexual variations are observable in the smaller size, weaker structure, and smoother surface of the bones in the females. An adult female skull gives a length of 220 mm. against a length of 275 mm. in an old male. Detailed measure- ments are given in the subjoined table. 732 CYSTOPHORA CRISTATA — HOODED SEAL. .a t a' 00 OS OS rH 1 00 o C^ f^J rH iH •asBO-mBjq jo q^Snai 5 5c 00 00 CO X 08 OOt 06 1 OSI •9Biinq AJO^tpUB !^'B XIM^ JO ^m^PI '\BB%'e^IQ 1 • •Ai<3Bi9ABrcei% 'eajcBo aoije^uB jo q^p-eajg oc o •>* !? IM 00 in 05 •^n^oi^sA 'ggjBU JOTja'jTi'B JO q^pBejg; g cr (M s ^ • •j£X9SJ9AsaBJ!>'8aj'Bnjou9^sodjoq;pB8Ja •4 00 t- in -^ •.i£xl^oi^j9A '89JBa joij9!^sod JO q^pBgjg; cc o o o •^XTB^tqjojg^at 'iini[8 jo q^pB9iq :jsb9i C -* (N O CO c Tj in !M •89mnB0 %^ ui5[s JO q^jpBgig; 4 5 S jo qjSn9i s I— g§ •ilTiniBq pioSAaa:^d jo pna o% 9xapis Xicj[iXBUi-o:jB[cd luojcj ooaBieiQ; § g 00 CO cq in c- in •88900jd pioaa^S oj aenixBia -a9:;m jo 9Sp9 .ibug^aB raojj ooub^jstq; 1 in oc oc CO o o in rH T-t •8niJo:jtpnB 8n^B9ni oj oenixBui -J9:^ai jb 9gp9 joii9^nB tnojj gouB^gid g IT IT c c in in •jBioin ^SBi JO aSpa J9pniq o'^ gsntxeoi -J9:^TIt JO 9gp9 joixa^UB ^lo.^ aonBifsid £ S to CO § rH -t^ 05 t- ■rpiniBq pjoS.^iaijd oj aBHiXBca -J9:nn JO 9Sp9 louajaB uiojj aanB^giQ ?3 I— 1 1 in t-t IT cc O « 00 CO iH rH •B9qojB OT^^BraoSiSz %v q'}pB9aq ;s9:>B9j£) I— 1 1 o CO c ^ o in (M CO IM rH •S988900jd ptOISBOl %V q?pB9Ja g tj cr cc CO c- r~i r- •q!>Su9i ^ CT 2 in o c^ bS o rH :0 o S] o > C3 P< a o O Cm O 3 a o ^ 3 ^ a o •M GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 733 In respect to the general skeleton, it may be noted that the bones are very thick in proportion to their length, and of a rather light open structure. The vertebrse are short and broad, especially their centra, the apophysial elements being also thick and short. The scapula is very large, with the crest medial and the acromian process well developed. In general outline and proportions it bears a close resemblance to that of Phoca groenlandica, and is consequently entirely unlike the long, nar- row, lunate scapula of Erignatlius barhatus. *T]ie femur is short and stout, being one-third shorter but much thicker than in the last-named species. The same stoutness of form characterizes the humerus and the other limb-bones. While the humerus is of the same length as in the Bearded Seal, it is much thicker, besides differing much in other features. There is thus a strongly marked difference in the relative length of the upper segments of the fore and hind limbs in the two species. The pelvis has the same general form as in the species of the re- stricted genus Phoca. The following measurements are from a disarticulated skeleton of an adult male of apparently medium size : Measurements of the principal parts of the sTceleton in Cystophora cristata {$ ad.). MM. Length of the skull 265 Length of the cervical vertebrae 275 Length of the dorsal vertebrae 630 Length of the lumbar vertebrae 320 Length of the sacral vertebrae 190 Length of the caudal vertebrae 290 Length of the scapula 213 Length of the humerus 160 Length of the radius 155 Length of the manus 215 Length of the pelvis 318 Length of the femur 127 Length of the tibia 315 Length of the pes , 410 Length of the whole skeleton 1,970 Length of the fore limb (excluding scapula) 530 Length of the hind limb 852 Geographical Distribution ant) Migrations. — The Hooded or Crested Seal is restricted to the colder parts of the North Atlantic and to portions of the Arctic Sea. It ranges from Greenland eastward to Spitzbergen and along the Arctic coast of Europe, but is rarely found south of Southern Norway 734 CYSTOPHORA CRISTATA HOODED SEAL. and Newfoundland. As is the case with other pelagic species, stragglers are sometimes met with far to the southward of the usual range of the species. On the North American coast it appears to be of uncommon occurrence south of the point already mentioned, as it is said by Gilpin * to be "a rare vis- itor to the shores of Nova Scotia." Like the Harp Seal, it ap- pears also to be regularly migratory, but owing to its much smaller numbers and less commercial importance, its move- ments are not so well known. Carroll states that it visits the coast of Newfoundland at the same time as the Harp Seal, or about the 25th of February, the time, however, varying with the state of the weather. He further states that Hooded Seals always keep to the eastward of the Harp Seals, amongst the heavy ice; also that they are quite numerous in spring in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where '^ many of them are killed by persons who reside on St. Paul's Island."! Dr. Packard states that it " is not uncommonly, during the spring, killed in con- siderable numbers by the sealers" along the coast of Labra- dor.J Eink says, " It is only occasionally found along the greater part of the coast [of Greenland], but visits the very limited tract between 60° and 61° N. lat., in great numbers, most probably in coming from and returning to the east side of Greenland. The first time it visits ns is from about May 20 till the end of June, during which it yields a very lucrative catch."§ Eobert Brown observes, " With regard to the favour- ite localities of this species of Seal Cranz and the much more accurate Fabricius disagree — the former affirming that they are found mostly on great ice islands where they sleep in an un- guarded manner, while the latter states that they delight in the high seas, visiting the land in April, May, and June. This appears contradictory and confusing 5 but in reality both au- thors are right, though not in an exclusive sense." Again he says : " This Seal is not common anywhere. On the shores of Greenland it is chiefly found beside large fields of ice, and comes to the coast, as was remarked by Fabricius long ago, at certain times of the year. They are chiefly found in South Greenland, though it is erroneous to say that they are exclu- sively confined to that section. I have seen them not uncom- monly about Disco Bay, and have killed them in Melville Bay, * Proc. and Trans. Nova Scotia Inst. Nat. Sci., vol. iii, pt. 4, p. 884. t Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, pp. 13, 14. t Proc. Boat. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. x, p. 271. $ Danish Greenland, etc., 1877, p. 126. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 735 in the most northerly portion of Baffin's Bay. They are prin- cipally killed in the district of Julianshaab, and then almost solely in the most southern part, on the outtermost islands, from about the 20th of May to the last of June ; but in this short time they supply a great portion of the food of the natives and form a third of the colony's yearly production. In the begin- ning- of July the Klapmyds leaves, but returns in August, when it is much emaciated. Then begins what the Danes in Greenland call the maigre Klapmydse fangst, or the ^ lean- Klapmyds-catching', which lasts from three to four weeks. Very seldom is a Klapmyds to be got at other places, and espe- cially at other times. The natives call a Klapmyds found single up a fjord by the name of JSferimartonf, the meaning of which is ' gone after food'. They regularly frequent some small islands not far from Julianshaab, where a good number are caught. After this they go fiu-ther north, but are lost sight of, and it is not known where they go to (Rink, /. c). Those seen in North Greenland are mere stragglers, wandering from the herd, and are not a continuation of the migrating flocks. Johannes (a very knowing man of Jakobshavn) informed me that generally about the 12th of July a few are killed in Ja- kobshavn Bay (lat. 69° 13' IST.). It is more pelagic in its habits than the other Seals, with the exception of the Saddleback."* I conclude the account of the geographical distribution of the Hooded Seal in Baftin's Bay with the following from Mr. Kumlien's account : "The bladder-nose appears to be very rare in the upper Cumberland waters. One specimen was procured at Annanac- took in autumn, the only one I saw. The Eskimo had no name for it, and said they had not seen it before. I afterward learned that they are occasionally taken about the Kikkerton Islands in spring and autumn. I found their remains in the old kitchenmiddens at Kingwah. A. good many individuals were noticed among the pack-ice in Davis's Straits in July." t On the European coast this species is said to be of not very common occurrence on the northern coast of Norway, but more to the southward only stragglers appear to have been met with.| In March and April, according to Malmgren, th^y are * Proc. ZoOl. Soc. Loud., 1868, pp. 436, 437 ; Man. Nat. Hist., etc., Green- laud, Mam., pp. 65, 66. tBuU, U. S. Nat. Mus.,No. 15, 1879, p. 64. t Says Blasius, writing in 1857, ''An den siidlichen Kiistenlandern der Nordsee hat man sie bis jetzt noclinicht gesehen." — Naturgesch. der Saugeth. Deutschlands, p. 260. 736 CYSTOPHOEA CRISTATA HOODED SEAL. seen about Jan May en, and tliey are said to occur on the coast of Finmark, and at the mouth of the White Sea. Yon Baer* and Schultz also state that it is rarely found not only in the White Sea, but along the Timanschen and Mourman coasts. Von Heuglin says it appears to be found in the Spitzbergen waters only on the western coast of these islands,! and states that they are not known to occur at ISTova Zembla. He gives its principal range as lying more to the westward, around Ice- land and Grreenland. It thus appears that the range of the Crested Seal is restricted mainly to the Arctic waters of the Korth Atlantic, from Spitz- bergen westward to Greenland and Baffin's Bay, and thence southward to Newfoundland. Stragglers have been captured, however, far to the southward of these limits, on both sides of the Atlantic. Thus Gray observes : "A young specimen has been taken in the Eiver Orwell: at the mouth of the Thames ; and at the Island of Oleron, west coast of France, but I greatly doubt if it had not escaped from some ship coming from Korth America ; there is no doubt of the determination of the species. The one caught on the Eiver Orwell, 29th June, 1847, is in the Museum of Ipswich, and was described by Mr. W. B. Clarke, on the 14th August, 1847, in 4to, with a figure of the Seal and skull. The one taken on the Isle d'Oleron is in the Paris Museum, and is figured, with the skull, in Gervais, Zool. and Paleont. Franc, t. 42, and is called Phoca Isidorei, by Lesson, in the Eev. Zool., 1843, 256. The young is very like that of FagopMlus groenlandicus, but is im- mediately known from it by being hairy between the nostrils, and by the grinders being only plated and not lobed on the surface." J Its capture has occurred a few times on the coast of the United States, as far from its usual range even as on the Euro- pean coast. A large Seal is occasionally seen on the coast of *Bnll. Acad. Imp. des Sci. de St. P^tersb., iii, 1838, p. 3.50. t Malmgren, writiug some years earlier, says that in recent times it has not been observed with certainty at Spitzbergen, thongh reported as occur- ring there by Martens and Scoresby. Possibly, he says, during its summer wanderings it may extend to the latitude of Spitzbergen. During Torell's first journey to Spitzbergen a young individual was killed in the vicinity of Bear Island. He says it is only exceptionally taken by the Seal hunters abovit Jan Mayen, only a comparatively small number being captured. — Arch, fur Naturgesch., 1864, p. 72. t J. E. Gray, Zoologist, 2d ser., vol. vii, 1872, p. 3338. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 737 Massachusetts, which has been supposed to be the Crested Seal, but just what this large Seal is remains still to be determined.* DeKay, in 1824, recorded t the capture of a male example of this species in a small creek that empties into Long Island Sound at East Chester, about fifteen miles from New York City. Twenty years | later lie refers to this as the first and only known instance of its occurrence within the limits of the State of New York, where, he says, "it can only be regarded as a rare and accidental visitor." Professor Cope, however, has recorded its capture in the Chesapeake Bay, where he says it has twice occurred. § The first specimen was recorded in 1865 ^ as " some species of Cystophora^\ taken near Cambridge, Maryland, on an arm of the Chesapeake Bay, eighteen miles from salt water, by Mr. Daniel M. Henry". The specimen, it is said, "measured 6^ feet, and weighed, when living, about 330 lbs.". Although Professor Cope adds, " Whether this species is the C. cristata or antillarum, can not be determined, owing to the imperfection of extant descriptions", there is no reason for doubting that it was really the Crested Seal, a conclusion to which Professor Cope seems to have later arrived. Although Gray's sugges- tion anent the English specimen naturally arises, namely, transportation from the north in some ship, it seems more probable that they were really wanderers from the usual home of the species. * In my " Catalogue of the Mammals of Massachusetts," I refer to this large Seal as follows, supposing it to be the Hooded Seal : ' ' F^om accounts I have received from residents along the coast of a seal of very large size observed by them, and occasionally captured, I am led to think this species is not of unfrequent occurrence on the Massachusetts coast. Mr. C. W. Bennett informs me of one taken some years since in the Providei^ce River, a few miles below Providence, which he saw shortly after. From his very particular account of it I cannot doubt that it was of this species. Mr. C. J. Maynard also informs me that a number of specimens have been taken at Ipswich within the past few years, that have weighed from seven hundred to nine hundred j)ounds. It seems to be most frequent in winter, when it apparently migrates from the north," — Bull. Mua. 'Comp. Zobl., vol. i, No. 8, 1869, pp. 193, 194. This identification was made almost solely on the ground of size, taken in connection with the fact that the species had been taken in Long Island Sound near New York City. The question, however, may fairly be raised whether the large Seals more or less frequently seen on the coast of New England are not really the Gray Seal {Ralichcerus grypus). t Ann. New York Lyceum Nat. Sci., vol. i, 1824, p. 94. X New York Zool., pt. i, p. 56. $ New Topog. Atlas of Maryland, 1873, p. IG. IfProc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 18G5, p. ^73. Misc. Pub. No. 12 47 738 CYSTOPHORA CRISTATA HOODED SEAL. General History and Noihenclature. — The first refer- ences to the Hooded Seal, or at least the earliest that have any importance in relation to the technical history of the species, are the brief allusions to it made by Egede in 1741, by Ellis in 1748, and by Cranz in 1765, the first two of whom gave each, in addition to their textual notices, a grotesquely rude figure of the animal, although they show clearly that no other species than the present could have been intended. On these refer- ences and figures are based Pennant's " Hooded Seal," and Schreber's "IDai)pmiize". Primarily they are the basis also of Erxleben's Fhoca cristata (1777), the first tenable specific designation of the species. Eleven years earlier (1760), how- ever, Fabricius had called the species Phoca leonina, apparently confounding it with the Phoca leonina of Linne, 1758, which has reference entirely to the Sea Elephant of the southern seas. In 1766 Linne also partly confounded the two species by cit- ing as synonyms of his Phoca leonina the Klapmiits of Egede, Ellis's " Seal with a Cawl," etc. Although Fabricius retained for this species the name Phoca leonina, in his "Fauna Groen- landica," published in 1780, he abandoned it in 1791 for Phoca cristata, but at the same time kept up the confusion of this spe- cies with the southern Sea Elephant by citing the references to that species as synonyms. With slight exceptions, the name cristata has since prevailed as the designation of the species, although Boddaert renamed it cucullata in 1785, and Mlsson in 1820 applied to it the name borealis. Milbert labelled a si)eci- men he sent from New York to the Paris Museum Phoca mi- trataj which name was published by G. Cuvier in 1825, and sub- sequently came into some prominence, through the labors of compilers, as that of a supposed second species of Crested Seal. Thieuemann, in 1824, described the young under the name leucoiila, and Lesson, in 1843, added isidorei, based, as already noticed, on a si^ecimen captured on the coast of France. The chief stumbling-block in the technical history of this species has been Cuvier's Phoca mitrata. To show how im- perfectly the Hooded or Crested Seal was known by a promi- nent writer on the Pinnipeds as late as 1889, and also to indi- cate the confusion that arose from the Phoca mitrata, I quote a few passages from Dr. Robert Hamilton's "Amphibious Car- nivora" (pp. 197, 204-206). He begins by saying that "It is with considerable hesitation we place the Crested Seal in the same genus with the Mitrata ". He correctly gives for a " Plate GENERAL HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE. 739 of the Cristata" a copy of that published by DeKay in the "Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History," of the New York specimen, but has to regret that DeKay's descrip- tion was inaccessible to him, and so falls back upon "the ac- curate Fabricius " for the chief part of his account of the spe- cies, adding thereto a few anatomical details from Drs. Ludlow and King, based, like DeKay's figure, on the sj)eciraen taken near New York. Of the Phoca mitrata he says: "The desig- nation of Mitred Seal appears to have been first applied by Camper, and a cranium with this label was found in his mu- seum, in 1811, by Baron Cuvier. This specimen was supposed [doubtless correctly] to have been i^rocured in the Northern Ocean. Soon after making this observation Cuvier received from Mr. Milbert, of New York, a young animal of this genus, from which a skeleton was prepared, and which was found j)er- fectly to correspond with Camper's specimen. The locality of its capture was not indicated. It has probably been from these materials that the plate in the PI. de Diet, des Scien. Nat., of which ours is a copy, has been prepared, though this is not ex- pressly stated. The learned author of the work [F. Cuvier] here referred to has certainly been unfortunate in making this auimal identical with the Crested Seal." After quoting from Cuvier's and Blainville's accounts of this specimen he concludes by stating: "The dimensions, the habits, and even the locality of this singular species seems to be nearly unknown," and quotes " as the only gleanings we have detected " a part of Cranz's account of his " Neitsersoak," which he (Cranz) says is also called "Clapmutz," and hence is merely Cranz's account of the Crested Seal! All the names, both vernacular and technical, that have been applied to this species relate to the peculiar inflatable hood of the male. Eespecting the vernacular designations, Mr. Brown gives the following : " Popular names. — ' Bladdernose ' or, shortly 'Bladder' (of northern sealers, Spitzbergen sea [also of New- foundland]) 5 Klappmysta (Swedish); KlakkeJcal, Kahhutskohhe (Northern Norse) ; Kiknehh (Finnish) ; Avjor, Fatte-Nuorjo, and Oaado (Lapp); Klapmyds (Danish; hence Egede, Greenl., p. 46 : the word Klapmyssen^ used by him on page 62 of the same work, Engl, trans., and supposed by some commentators to be another name, means only the Klapmyds, according to the Danish orthography): Klapmiltze (German, hence Cranz, Greenl., i, p. 125: I have also occasionally heard the English 740 CYSTOPHORA CRISTATA HOODED SEAL. sealers call it by this name, apparently learnt from the Dutch and German sailors). All of these words mean the ' Seal with a cap on,' and are derived from the Dutch, who style the frontal appendage of this species a mutz or caj), hence the Scotch mutch. This prominent characteristic of the Seal is also com- memorated in various popular names certain writers have ap- plied to it, such as Blas-SJcdl (Bladder- Seal) by Nilsson (Skand. Faun., i, p. 312), [hence Blase-Bobhe by various German writ- ers,] Hooded Seal by Pennant (Synopsis, p. 342), Seal with a caul by Ellis (Hudson Bay, p. 134), in the French vernacular Phoque a capuchon, and in the sealers' name of Bladdernose^ ^ N'eitersoaJc, 9 Nesaursalik (Greenland), and Kalcortak (when two years old)." * Habits. — As already noted in the account of the geograph- ical distribution of this species, it is, like the Harp Seal, pelagic and migratory, preferring the drift ice of the "high seas" to the vicinity of land, and seems rarely if ever to resort to rocky islands or shores. It brings forth its young on the ice, remote from the land, in March, a week or ten days later than the Harp Seal, with which it appears only rarely to associate, although the two species are often found on neighboring ice- floes.t It is commonly described as the most courageous and combative of the Phocids, often turning fiercely upon its pur- suers. Dr. Rink states that its pursuit is hazardous to a man in a trail kayak, and that its destruction is facilitated by the use of the rifle, the hunter first shooting it from the ice-floes and afterward dispatching it with the harpoon from the kayak. Although it will pursue a man and bite him, Brown states that "as long as the memory of the oldest inhabitant of South Greenland extends, only one man in the district of Julianshaab (where they are chiefly captured) has been killed by the bite of the Klapmyds, though not unfrequently the harpoon and line have been broken." Various writers speak of the difficulty of killing it with the seal-club, and state that it is hard to kill with the sealing-gun unless hit on the back of the neck behind *Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1868, pp. 435-436; Man. Nat. Hist. Greenland, etc., Mam., p. 64. t Says Brown, "It is affirmed, curiously enough, that the Bladdernose and the Saddleback are rarely or ever \_m,c'\ found together ; they are said to dis- agree. At all events the latter is generally found on the inside of the pack, while the former is on the outside." — Proc. Zodl. Soc. Lond., 1868, p. 437; Man. Nat. Hist. Greenland, etc.. Mam., p. 65. Jukes and Carroll, from entirely independent observations, make substantially the same statement. FOOD HUNTING AND PRODUCTS. 741 the hood, the inflatable "hood" of the male affording no small degree of protection from the effects of the club, or even the ordinary heavy seal-shot. Mr. Carroll says that no matter how large the gun, or how heavy the shot you fire at him, you will not kill him, even if within the length of the gun, unless he rises in the water so that j^ou shoot him in the throat, or he turns the side of his head toward you. The Hooded Seal is described as very active when in the water. It swims very low, with only the top of the head above the surface. During the rutting season the males wage fierce battles for the possession of the females, the noise of which may be heard miles away. At times the sexes are said to live apart, but associate in families during the breeding season. Their affection for each other, and especially for their young, is represented as very strong, both parents remaining by them with such persistency that the whole family are easily killed. It often happens, says Carroll, that if the female or young one be killed the male will mount the ice and take the dead one in his mouth and bring it into the water, in which act he is very often himself killed. The female is reported to be far less fierce than the male, but even she will allow herself to be killed before she will abandon her young one. Jukes represents the young of this species which he had on shipboard as tamer and more gentle than the young of the Harp Seal, and that when teased it did not offer to scratch and bite so much as did the young Harps. Food. — The food of this species doubtless consists chiefly of fishes of different species. Malmgren supposed it to subsist mainly on those of large size. That it also feeds upon squids, and probably on other mollusks, is evinced by their remains having been found in their stomachs, as well as " the beaks of large cuttle fish."* Hunting and Products. — This species, owing to its scar- city, is of relatively small commercial importance, yet many are taken every year by the Newfoundland and Jan Mayen sealers ; generally no separate estimates, however, are given of the number taken. Dr. Eink states that the average annual catch in Greenland is 3,000. The flesh is greatlj^ esteemed by the Greenlanders. The Hooded Seal is usually taken on the ice, but Mr. Eeeks states that many are also shot in the spring of the year by the * Jukes, Excurs. in Newfoundland, vol. i, p. 312. 742 GENUS MACRORHINUS. settlers along the coast of Newfoundland. As already stated, the hood of the male affords such a i^rotection to its owner as to render the animal so pro\ided very hard to kill with the ordinary seal-club, or even with a heavy load of shot ; and they are, furthermore, "at times very savage, and it requires great dexterity on the part of the seal-hunters to keep from being bitten". Genus MACRORHINUS, F. Cuvier. Macrorhine lMacrorhinus'\, F. Cuvier, M6m. du Mus., xi, 1824, 200, pi. xiii. Type and sole species, Phoca prohoscidea, P^ron. Macrorhinus, F. Cuvier, Diet. Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 552; ibid, lix, 1829, 464. Macrorhyna, Gray, Griffitli's An. King., i, 1827, 180 ("misprint'', Gray). Mirounga, Gray, Griffith's An. King., v, 1827, 179 (in part). Ehinophora, Wagler, Nat. Syst. Amph., 1830, 27. Cystoplwra, Nilsson (in part), 1837, and of various later authors. Morunga, Gray, List Ost. Spec. Brit. If us., 1847, 33. Dental characters as in Cystophora. Basi sphenoid and basi- occii^ital bones deeply arched and the interbullar space narrow. Hind feet deeply bilobed, with the claws rudimentary. Males ■with an elongated tubular proboscis. The genus Macrorhinus was founded by F. Cuvier in 1824 on the Proboscis Seal {Phoca prohoscidea, Peron) or the Elephant Seal of the Southern Seas, which, until within the last fifteen years, was supi^osed to be sole representative of the genus. In 1866 a second species was described by Dr. Gill from the coast of California, thus adding this remarkable genus to the I^Jorth American fauna. As already shown {anted, p. 723), Macro- rhinus agrees closely with Cystophora in dental and cranial characters, the skull being an exaggerated form of that of Cystophora, while it differs from the latter in the form of the nasal appendage of the males, in the form of the hind limbs, and in the relative size of the fore and hind limbs. A prominent synonym of Macrorhinus is Gray's barbarous term Mirounga, proposed in 1827 for both this species and Cys- tophora cristata, but changed in 1847 to Morunga and restricted to the Elephant Seal of the Southern Seas. Although uniformly adopted by Gray, and by those who follow Gray as authority, it is clearly antedated, even in its first form, by three years by Macrorhinus of F. Cuvier, although Gray's incorrect citation of F. Cuvier at 1827 makes them apparently synchronous.* * It may be here noted that Gray persistently gives the date of the eleventh volume of the "Memoirs du Museum" containing F. Cuvier's paper, "De quelqne esp^ces de Phoques et des groupes g6n6riques entre lesquels ils se M. ANGUSTIROSTKIS — CALIFORNIAN SEA ELEPHANT. 743 MACRORniNUS ANGUSTIROSTEIS, Gill. Califoriiian Sea Elephant. Maerorhinus angustirostris, Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1S6G, 13 ; Proc, Chicago Acad. Sci., i, 1886, 33.— Scammon, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1869, 63; Marine Mam., 1874, 115, pi. xx, ligg. 1, 2, Morunga angustirostris, Gray, Sniipl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, 5. Sea Elephant, Scammon, J. Ross Browne's Resources of the Pacific Slope [App.], 129; Overland Monthly, iii, 112-117, Nov. 1870. Elefante marino, of Mexicans and old Californians. Elephant Seal ; Sea Elejyhanl, BiigWfOi. External Characters. — Color light dull yellowish-brown, varied with gray, rather darker on the back, more yellowish below. Hair very harsh and stiff. The new coat is said to have a slightly bluish cast. Mystacial bristles black, in four to six rows ; the longest five to seven inches long ; flattened, with waved or beaded edges. A group of bristles over each eye, the largest nearly as thick and as long as any of the mystacial bristles, and two or three on each side of the face, midway be- tween the nose and eye. Extremity of hind flippers deeply emarginate, hairy, without nails. Fore flippers armed with strong nails ; web deeply notched between the fourth and fifth digits, slightly so between the third and fourth, and a slight in- dentation between the second and third. (Description based on three examples from Santa Barbara Island.) " The sexes vary much in size, the male being frequently tri])le .the bulk of the female; the oldest of the former will average fourteen to sixteen feet ; the largest we have ever seen measured twenty-two feet from tip to tip." " The adult females average ten feet in length between extremities." Scammon. " Round the under side of the neck, in the oldest males, the animal ap- pears to undergo a change with age ; the hair falls off, the skin thickens and becomes wrinkled — the furrows crossing each other, producing a checkered surface — and sometimes the throat is more or less marked with white spots. Its proboscis extends partagent", as 1827, instead of 1324, the correct date. He also cites F. Cu- vier's article on "LesPhoques" in the " Dictionnaire des Sciences Natu- relles" as published in tome lix, 1829, although it appeared originally in tome xxix, 1826. The result is a postdating by three years of F. Cuvier's generic and specific names, favoring, as it happens (accidentally or other- wise), several of Gray's names published in ''Griffith's Animal Kingdom " in 1827. 744 M. ANGUSTIROSTKIS CALIFORNIAN SEA ELEPHANT. from opposite tlie angle of the inouth forward (in ihe larger males) about fifteen inches, when the creature is in a state of quietude, and the upper surface appears ridgy ; but wheu the animal makes an excited respiration, the triink becomes elon- gated, and the ridges nearly disappear." The females "are destitute of the proboscis, the nose being like that of the com- mon seal, but projecting more over the inouth." Scammon. Captain Scammou gives the following measurements, in feet and inches, of two large females taken on the coast of Lower California : "No. 1. No. 2. " Length from tip to tip 9 0 10 0 Round the body Ixluiul the fore flippers 5 10 5 9 Length of tail 0 2 0 2^ EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 745 Breadth of tail at root 0 Length of posterior flippers Expansion of posterior flippers Length of fore flixij)ers Width of fore flippers Round extremity of body at root oi tail No. 1. Ko. 2, 0 2 0 2i 1 7 1 7 1 8 1 8 1 f) 1 2 0 6 0 6 1 6 1 7 EiG. 58. — Macrorhinus angustirostris. No. 4704, Nat. Miis. ; } nat. size. Xo. 1. No. 2. From tij) of nose to corner of ruouth 0 7 0 8 Opening of month 0 4^ 0 4^ From tip of nose to eye 0 8 0 9 From tip of nose to fore flippers 2 7 3 0 Length of Assure bet%Yeen the eyelids 0 0 0 If" 74(3 M. ANGUSTIROSTRIS CALIFORNIAN SEA ELEPHANT. Two salted skins, male and female, obtained from Santa Bar- bara, by Professor O. C. Marsh, which I had an o])i)ortunity of examining as thej^ were nni^acked at Professor Ward's estab- lishment, measured respectively from tip of nose to end of tail 5 feet and 4 feet 10 inches. One of these specimens nowmeas- FlG. 59. — Macroi'liiuus augustiiostii.s. No. 4704, Nat. Mus. ; ^ nat. size. ures, mounted, G feet 4 inches. They were young- individuals, probably yearlings. In neither was the proboscis at all de- veloi^ed. Captain Scanunon gives the length of a "new-born pup " as 4 feet. Skull. — The skull differs from that of Cysfophora crisiata as already described, but its general contour is essentially the SKULL. 747 same, of which it may be considered as a magnified type. It is somewhat arched above, the region of greatest convexity being at the orbits. The facial i^ortion is abruptly narrowed and somewhat produced, the width of the skull at the base of the malar i)rocess of the maxillaries being nearly twice as great as Fig. 60. — Macrorhinus angustirostris. No. 4704, Nat. Mus. ; ^ nat. size. at the canines. The following measurements of two examples will serve to indicate its general proportions. One is marked as female, but whether either is full-grown is not known. For purposes of comparison the same table contains measurements of two old male skulls of the Sea Elephant of the Southern Seas. 748 M. ANGUSTIROSTRIS — CALIFORNIAN SEA ELEPHANT. O 00 S 00 o « V 00 O '^ S u s 00 1 : I S o •iBxoui !jSBi 0% enuiBj JO oSpa i^ioaj (M 00 O O 00 t- (MM •AiBp j9A\.ox JO qijSnai O O lf5 O ■* (M ->)< in CO CO CO CO •98uo-mBjq JO q^pm fj89;'B9J£) S § S S •98B0-UTBJ[q JO q^Snei CO C5 00 ■<* (M i-H (M (M r-t r-t iH iH •sei^Ipnoo XB(JldTDOO %V ITtl3[8 JO jqSl9q !;S9J'B9Jf) ■<* (M O O CO iH O 0> y~t i-t ^ y-t •^|9si9A8trBai '8aj'Bn jou9^irB jo q^peajg; 5 S •:fnB0i'ji9A 'eaj-Bn jou9!)nB jo qjpB9Ja; S g •^I9BJ9A8^reJ;^'8^J8^aou9}8odJoq:^P'B9Ja: <3S O t- •* o to •Xn«0T!H9A '89JBU JOU9:;8od JO q:^pB9ia: CQ m in in in to •^lin'^tqaoieijiii nTi3[8 jo q^^peaaq :j8B91 05' O -l iH CI CO •q!^Sa9i CO O O O Tjl (M 00 tH CO CO Tj< in •X9S Of «D ^D Locality. c: 1 o 1^ St. Bartholomew's Bay, Lower California Hurd's Island, Indian Ocean ^. •jaqtunn enSo^Bij'BO O ■f SEA ELEPHANT. extirpated. Captain Scammon, in writing (about 1852) of Ce- dros Island, off the coast of Lower California, says: "Seals and Sea Elephants once basked ui)on the shores of this isolated spot in vast numbers, and in years past its surrounding shores teemed with sealers, Sea Elephant and Sea Otter hunters; the remains of their rude stone-houses are still to be seen in many convenient places, which were once the habitations of these hardy men."* A few Sea Elephants are still found at Santa Barbara Island, where they are reported, however, to be nearly extinct. Whether or not they still occur elsewhere along the California coast I am without means of determining^ although it is probable that a small remnant still exists at other points, where scarcely more than a quarter of a century ago vessels were freighted with their oil. Neither is it possible to determine with certainty the limits of their former range. Cap- tain Scammon, who doubtless obtained his information from trustworthy sources, states that it extended from Cape Lazaro, latitude 24° 46' north, to Point Eeyes, in latitude 38°, or for a distance of about two hundred miles. As already stated {an- tea, p. 290), Dampier, in 1G86, met with Seals on the islands off the western coast of Mexico, as far south as latitude 21° to 23°, but of what species his record unfortunately fails to show. They were doubtless either Sea Elephants or Sea Lions {Zalo- plms californianus), and may have included both. This rather implies its former extension, two hundred years ago, consider- ably to the southward of the limit assigned by Captain Scam- mon, on probably traditional reports current among the resi- dents of this part of the coast at the time of his visit there in 1852. General History. — The CaUfornia Sea Elephant was first described by Dr. Gill, in 1866, from a skull of a female in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, received from Saint Bartholomew's Bay, Lower California. Its external characters were first made known by Captain C. M. Scammon in 1869, and the species was redescribed by him in 1 874, with detailed meas- urements of two adult females and a newly -born pup. This is all that has thus far appeared relating to its technical history. Captain Scammon, as early as 1854, gave some account of the habits of this species, under the name Sea Elephant, and ear- lier incidental references to it doubtless occur in the narratives * In J. Ross Browne's "Resources of the Pacific Sloi)e" [A^^.], p. 129. HABITS. 753 of travellers. Dr. Gill observes, in his paper already cited^ "For a long time, the fact that a species of the genus Macro- rhinus or Elephant-Seal inhabits the coast of Western North America has been well-known. But, on account of the want of opportunity for comparison of specimens, the relations of the species have not been understood". I fail to find, however, in any technical account of the Sea Elephant, any previous no- tice of their occurrence on the coast of North America. Dr. Gill comi)ares his specimen of the skull with the figure of the skull of Morunga elepliantina {=2IacrorMnus leonimis) pub- lished by Dr. Gray in the "Zoology of the Erebus and Terror ", and says if that "represents an equally old female, the present species must be very distinct". He adds, "I do not know the size of the original of that gentleman's figure. Some of the differences, however, cannot be the effect of age, and there can exist no doubt that the present form is at least distinct from those described by the Cuviers, Blainville, and Gray. In al- lusion to the peculiarly narrowed and produced snout of the female, the name Macrorhinus angustirostris is conferred upon it."* Habits. — We are indebted to Captain Scammon, who has fortunately had favorable opportunities for observation, for everything of importance that has thus far been recorded re- specting the habits of the Sea Elephant of California. "The habits of these huge beasts," he tells us,t "when on shore, or loitering about the foaming breakers, are in many respects like those of the Leopard Seals [Phoca mtulina]. Our observations on the Sea Elephants of California go to show that they have been found in much larger numbers from February to June than during, other months of the year; but more or less were at all times found on shore uj)on their favorite beaches, which were about the islands of Santa Barbara, Cerros, Guadalupe, San Bonitos, Natividad, San Eoque, and Asuncion, and some * " On a new species of the genus Macrorhinus. " Proc. Chicago Acad., i, 1866, pp. 33-34. t Marine Mammalia, 1874, pp. 117-119. See also Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1869, pj). 63-65, where the account here quoted was first published. See further J. Eoss Browne's Eesources of the Pacific Coast [Append.], p. 129, where the same author has also given a short account of its habits as observed at Cedros (or Cerros) Island in 1852. Also an article entitled "Sea-Elephant Hunting," in the "Overland Monthly" magazine, iii, pp. 112-117, Nov., 1870. Misc. Pub. No. 12 48 754 M. ANGUSTIROSTKIS CALIFOENIAN SEA ELEPHANT. of the most inaccessible points on the main-land between As- uncion and Cerros. When coming up out of the water, they were generally first seen near the line of surf ; then crawling up by degrees, frequently reclining as if to sleep ; again, moving up or along the shore, appearing not content with their last resting-place. In this manner they would ascend the ravines, or ' low-downs,' half a mile or more, congregating by hundreds. They are not so active on land as the seals ; but, when excited to inordinate exertion, their motions are quick — the whole body quivering with their crawling, semi- vaulting gait, and the ani- mal at such times manifesting great fatigue. Notwithstanding their unwieldiness, we have sometimes found them on broken and elevated ground, fifty or sixty feet above the sea. '^The principal seasons of their coming on shore, are, when they are about to shed their coats, when the females bring forth their young (which is one at a time, rarely two), and the mat- ing season. These seasons for 'hauling up' are more marked in southern latitudes. The diftereut periods are known among the hunters as the 'pupping cow,' ' brown cow,' ' bull and cow,' and ' March bull ' seasons ; * but on the California coast, either from the influence of climate or some other cause, we have no- ticed young pups with their mothers at quite the oi)posite months. The continual hunting of the animals may possibly have driven them to irregularities. The time of gestation is supposed to be about three-fourths of the year. The most marked season we could discover was that of the adult males, which shed their coats later than the younger ones and the fe- males. Still, among a herd of the largest of those fully ma- tured (at Santa Barbara Island, in June, 1852), we found sev- eral cows and their young, the latter apparently but a few days old. " When the Sea Elephants come on shore for the purpose of 'shedding', if not disturbed they remain out of water until the old hair falls oft". By the time this change comes about, the animal is supposed to lose half its fiit; indeed, it sometimes becomes very thin, and is then called a 'slim-skin'. " In the stomach of the Sea Elephant a few pebbles are found, which has given rise to the saying that 'they take in ballast before going down ' (returning to the sea). On warm * RefoiTing to the habits of the Southern Sea Elephaut (J/rttro/7u"»H.s leo- niniis), as he had " learned from ship masters who have takeu Seals about Kergueleu's Land, the Crozets, and Hurd's Island." See Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1869, p. 64. ( CHASE AND PRODUCTS. 755 and sunny days we have watched them come up smgly on smooth beaches, and burrow in the dry sand, throwing over their backs the lose particles that collect about their fore limbs, and nearly covering themselves from view; but when not disturbed, the animals follow their gregarious propensity, and collect in large herds." " The largest number I ever found in one herd," he states in another connection, " was one hundred and sixty-five, which lay promiscuously along the beach or up the ravine near by." Nothing further respecting the breeding habits or sexual re- lations of the species appears to have been as yet recorded, but they may be presumed to be similar to those of the Sea Ele- phant of the Antarctic Seas.* Chase and Products. — The mode of capturing Sea Ele- phants on the coast of California has been described by Cap- tain Scammon, who "in 1852, when the 'gold fever' raged", was compelled by force of circumstances "to take command of a brig bound on a 'sealing. Sea-elephant and whaling voyage' or abandon sea life — at least temporarily". He says: "The sailors get between the herd and the water ; then, raising all Ijossible noise by shouting, and at the same time flourishing clubs, guns, and lances, the party advance slowly toward the rookery, when the animals will retreat, appearing in a state of great alarm. Occasionally an overgrown male will give battle, or attempt to escape ; but a musket-ball through the brain dis- patches it; or some one checks its progress by thrusting a lance into the roof of its mouth, which causes it to settle on its haunches, when two men with heavy oaken clubs give the crea- ture repeated blows about the head, until it is stunned or killed. After securing those that are disposed to show resistance, the X)arty rush on the main body. The onslaught creates such a panic among these peculiar creatures, that, losing all control of their actions, they climb, roll, and tumble over each other, when pre- * The Sea Elephants appear to be exceptional ahiong the Pkocidce in the great disparity of size between the sexes, in which, as well as in their breeding habits, they closely resemble the Otaries. Although, unlike the latter, they have not the power of iising the hind limbs in locomotion on land, and are hence unable to walk, they manage to crawl to a considerable distance ftom the sea, — according to Scammon, a "half a mile or more". The habits of the Southern Sea Elephant {Macrorhinus leoninus) were long since described by Anson and Pernety, and later by P^ron, but their ac- counts seem in some respects to be tiaged with romance. According to these writers the males dght desperately for the possession of the females. 756 M. ANGUSTIEOSTRIS CALIFORNIAN SEA ELEPHANT. vented from farther retreat by the projecting cliffs. We recol- lect in one instance, where sixty-five were captured, that sev- eral were found showing no signs of having been either clubbed or lanced, but were smothered by numbers of their kind heai^ed upon them. The whole flock, when attacked, manifested alarm by their peculiar roar, the sound of which, among the largest males, is nearly as loud as the lowing of an ox, but more pro- longed in one strain, accompanied by a rattling noise in the throat. The quantity of blood in this species of the seal tribe is supposed to be double that contained in an ox, in proportion to its size. " After the cai)ture the flaying begins. First, with a large knife, the skin is ripped along the upper side of the body the whole length, and then cut down as far as is practicable, with- out rolling it over; then the coating of fat that lies between the skin and flesh — which may be from one to seven inches in thickness, according to the size and condition of the animal — is cut into 'horse-pieces', about eight inches wide, and twelve to fifteen long, and a puncture is made in each piece sufSciently large to pass a rope through. After flensing the upj)er portion of the body, it is rolled over, and cut all around as above de- scribed. Then the 'horse-pieces' are strung on a raft-rope (a rope three fathoms long, with an eye-splice in one end), and taken to the edge of the surf; a long line is made fast to it, the end of which is thrown to a boat lying just outside the break- ers ; they are then hauled through the rollers and towed to the vessel, where the oil is tried out by boiling the blubber, or fat, in large pots set in a brick furnace for the purpose. The oil produced is superior to whale oil for lubricating purposes. Owing to the continual pursuit of the animals, they have become nearly if not quite extinct on the California coast, or the few remaining have fled to some unknown point for secu- rity." * He also states that a fat bull, eighteen feet long,.taken by the brig "Mary Helen", in 1852, yielded two hundred and ten gallons of oil. * Marine Mammalia, pp. 118, 119. i^I>I>ElSn3IX. A.-MATERIAL EXAMIKEID.* Family ODOBiENID^. Odob^nus kosmarus. Li8t\ of specimens examined. CD O O ,Q c3 a 7156 4645 9570 1860 1720 1721 Locality. North Greenland Greenland , do ......do Sable Island Greenland do do do do Davis's Straits do do Greenland In, collection of— National Museum. ....do ....do ...do ....do Boston Soc.N.Hist. Mus. Comp. Zool . . ....do ....do ....do Prof. H. A. "Ward . . ....do ....do Amherst College . . Nature of speci- men. SkuU , ....do ....do Skin , Skull ....do ....do Skeleton SknU , .-...do Skin and skull ...do ....do Skin Age. Old. Very old. Young. Adult. Old. Toung. Old. Old. Old. Young. Adult. Adult. Young. Young. *Only that relating to North American species is recorded in the subjoined tables, t In part only ; quite a number of skulls hiive been examined in different museums that are not here recorded. 757 758 MATERIAL EXAMINED. Odob^nus obesus. List of specimens examined. 5)i 4) o ,a li H746 9475 14395 14396 14397 6780 7889 Locality. Walrus Island, Alaska do do do do North Pacific do "Walrus Island, Alaska — do North Pacific Walrus Island, Alaska — do do do do do , do North Pacific , do do In. collection of- National Museum. .-..do ....do .-..do .--.do .-..do ....do .-. do ..-.do Prof. H. A. Ward . . Boston Soc.N.Hist. Mu8. Comp. Zool - . ..-.do .do .do .do .do .do Boston Soc.N.Hist. ...do Nature of speci- men. Skull ....do .--.do .--.do .--.do ..-.do .--.do Skeleton Skin Skin and skuU Skeleton ....do Skin Skull , .--.do .do .do .do .do -do Age. Very old. Very old. Very old. Young. Very old. Very old. Very old. Very old. Very old. Young. Very old. Very old. Very old. Very old. Very old. Very old. Young. Very old. Young. Young. Family OTARIlDiE. EUMETOPIAS STELLERI. List of specimens examined. So ® 1 2920 d" 2921 d 11675 d d 8166 d 8162 ? 8163 ? 15359 d 4703 od 4702 d 6906 d 3631 d 4701 d 13217 d 1767 ^ Locality. St. Paul's Island, Alaska . -do -do -do St. George's Island, Alaska do do do Fnalashka do San Francisco, Cal do do do Monterey, Cal do do do ParaUone Island, Cal ' do do do In collection of— Museum of Com- parative Zoology. ....do National Museum. ....do ....do ...do ...do Mus. Coinp. Zool . , Collected by- Charles Bryant.. ....do ....do .--.do W.H.Dall ....do ....do ..-.do Dr. W. O. Ayres. .--.do Dr. C. S. Canfield A. S. Taylor Dr. W. O. Ayres. C. M. Scammon.. F. Bierstadt Nature of specimen. Skin and skeleton. Do. Skin. Do. Skull. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. ZALOPHUS CALIFORNIANUS. 759 ZaLOPHUS CALIFORNIANUS. List of specimens examined. 261 14506 14507 15254 15255 15660 15661 6159 6160 6158 6156 6153 6154 6155 6146 6150 6156 6152 6147 6148 6149 6161 0162 6163 6164 6165 6166 1132 .9 3 a o Ph o i| 5839 5876 5786 5787 5788 5677 5785 5789 5678 Locality. California . -do In collection of— Collected by- Santa Bar- bara Isl- and, Cal. ...do San Nico- las Island, Cal. ....do California . do Santa Bar- bara Isl- and, Cal. ...do ...do , ...do --.do ...do ...do ...do . . .do ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do . . -do ...do ...do ...do ...do San Diego, Cal. National Mu- seum. ....do ....do ...do . . .do ....do ....do ...do Museum of Comparative Zoology. .--.do ...do .do ■ do .do .do .do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do .do .do .do .do .do Capt. C. M. Scammon. .-..do P. Schuma. cher. ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do .do ... .do .do .do .do .do .do .do -do .do .do .do .do .do .do ..-.do -.-.do ....do HasslerEx pedition. Nature of specimen. Skull. ...do ...do ...do ...do ....do ... ....do... do Skeleton ....do ... Skull and skin. ....do ....do Skull ....do Skull and skin. .-..do ....do ...-do .-..do ....do ....do ....do ....do .do ....do ....do ....do Skull. Age. Very old. Very old. Eather young. Adult. Middle-aged. Middle-aged. Few days old. Few days old. Old. About four months. Foetal. A few months. A few months. A few months. A few months. Old. Old. Adult. Adult. Nearly adult. Eather young. Middle.aged. Eather young. Two or three years. Two or three year.s. Adult. Adult. Young. 760 MATERIAL EXAMINED. CaLLORHINUS URSINtJS. List of specimens examined. ^ "3 a ^ i o Q 11720 11695 11715 11701 11733 11698 11689 7109 14508 12737 12738 12739 8415 8825 11270 9080 9079 1839 6536 6537 6558 6911 M xn Locality. 2922 2923 2924 2925 2926 2927 1088 1086 1087 1149 1150 1787 1788 1789 1784 1785 1786 5325 d d d d d ■ ? ? ? ? 9 ? o ? ? ? d ? ? ? 9 d 9 9 o O I o d d 9 9 O O d d 9 9 O O d d d 9 9 d O Saint Paul's Island, Alaska do do do do do do do do do do do Aleutian Islands do do Straits of Juan de Fuca. In collection of— do do Puget Sound do do do Saint Paul's Island, Alaska do -do .do -do .do -do .do -do .do .do -do .do .do .do .do .do .do .do .do .do .do .do .do .do National Museum ....do ....do ...do ....do -...do , ....do ....do .-..do ...do -..-do ....do , ....do ....do , ....do — do ....do ...do ....do ...do ...do ...do ....do .-..do ...do ....do ...do ...do Mus. Comp. Zool . ....do ... .do .do .do .do do do .do .do .do .do .do do .do .do .do .do .do Collected by- Nature of specimen. Capt. C. Bryant . ....do ....do ...do ....do ....do ...-do Colonel Bulkley. ....do H.W.ElUott.... ....do ....do Dr. T. T. Minor . ....do ....do Capt. CM. Scam- mon. ....do ....do J.G. Swan ....do ..--do ....do H.W.EUiott.... ....do ...do ...do ...do ...do Capt. C. Bryant . ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ,. ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do Alaska Com. Co. ...do ...do ...do --.do ...do C. J. Mclntyre . . Skull. Skull. SkuU. Skull. Skull. Skull. Skull. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. Skull. SkuU. Skull. Skull. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skeleton. Skeleton. Skeleton. Skeleton. Skull. SkuU. Skeleton. Skeleton. Skeleton. Skeleton. Skeleton. Skeleton. Skin. PHOCA VITULINA. 761 Family PHOOID^. PHOCA VITULINA. List of specimeiis examined. 4> . to g o -a O 3506 3634 4716 4713 4714 3506 5285 1738 1143 1142 5144 6157 12284 11742 14337 9480 6783 6559 6485 6486 6535 9081 3931 3648 3741 7778 7779 7789 7781 9516 8201 12043 5852 5853 3742 7782 3320 5680 5783 5784 Locality. Greenland Sable Island, N. S do do do do England Penekese Island, Mass — Nahant, Mass Massachusetts Beverly, Mass Santa Barbara Island, Cal. Aleutian Islands St. Paul's Island, Alaska. do Kanai Island, Alaska Plover Bay, Behring's Sts Washington Territory . . . do do. , do Straits of Juan de Fuca. . In collection of- San Francisco, Cal "Deception Island" ... do Alaska do Washington Territory . do Kanai, Alaska Sealand, Denmark Sable Island, K. S do California Washington Territory . . . do Santa Barbara Island, Cal do do Orleans, Mass National Museum. ....do ....do ...do ....do ....do Mus. Comp. Zool . . ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do National Museum ....do .do . .do . -do .do .do .do .do do Collected by — P.S.Dodd. ....do ....do .-..do ....do L. Agassiz. Nature of specimen. ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do.. ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ..do Mus. Comp. Zool . . ...do ....do ....do . W.E.Cabot... P. Schumacher.. W. H. Dall .... Charles Bryant.. H.W. Elliott.... F. Bischoff Col. Buckley .... J. G. Swan Lt. G.W.White. ....do S. Jones Capt.C.M.Scam- mon. U. S. Ex. Ex.. ....do ...do W.H.Dall ....do Lt.G W.White. ....do W.H.Dall Copenhagen Mus. P.S Dodd. ....do Dr. J.S.Newberry P. Schumacher . . ...do ....do J. A. AUen SkuU. * Skull, t SkuD. SkuU.J Skull. Skull. Skeleton. Skeleton. Skeleton. Skeleton. Skeleton. SkuU. § Skull, t SkuU. SkuU. Skull. SkuU. SkuU, SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. Skull. SkuU. : SkuU. II Skin. II Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. • Skin. M't'd skin. M't'd skin. M't'd skin. M't'd skin. '^ Adult. tOld. : Young. § Very old. I The type of "Halichoerus antarcticus, Peale," and ''Lobodon carcinophaga, Cassin." 762 MATEEIAL EXAMINED. Phoca fcetlda. List of specimens examined. So I 6560 6567 6568 6565 3504 3503 8699 8700 8942 7105 6785 6297 6295 6296 6298 16106 16077 16061 16033 16034 16050 16098 16138 16139 16111 16023 16051 16058 16135 16137 16082 16101 16134 16068 16066 16136 16134 16055 Locality. Greenland do do do do do -. Disco Bay, Greenland do do TJnalakleet, Alaska Plover Bay, Bekring's Sts do Gnlf of Cumberland do do. do. do. do . do. do . do. do . do . do. do . do . do do . do . do do , do do do do do do do do In collection of— National Museum. ...do ...do .-..d» ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do Mus. Comp. Zool . . ....do ....do ...do National Museum. ...do .do . .do , .do . .do. .do. .do .do .do .do .do .do do .do do .do .do .do do do .do .do Collected by- Copenhagen Mus. .-..do ....do ....do S. Sternberg ....do Copenhagen Mus. ... do ....do W. H. Dall ....do ....do L. Kumlien ....do Nature of specimen. ...do ....do ....do ....do . . . .do ....do ...do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do ...do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do ....do SkuU. Skull. Skull. Skull. SkuU. Skull. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. Skeleton.* SkuU.* SkuU.* Skeleton.! Skeleton.* Skeleton, t Skeleton. § Skeleton.il Skeleton. II Skeleton.jl Skeleton. § SkuU.* SkuU.* SkuU.* SkuU.: SkuU.* SknU.t Skidl.t SkuU.t SknU.t SkuU.t SkuU.t SkuU.t SkuU.t SkuU.t SkuU. II SkuU. II *Adult. tToung in white coat. tToung. § Few days old. 1 Foetal. PH. GRCENLANDICA, ERIG. BARBATUS, HIST. FASCIATA, 763 PHOCA GRCENLANDICA. List of specimens examined. 3514 3515 3805 881 8762 4582 12039 12040 5791 5139 1146 Locality. Disco Bay, Greenland do , do (?) Disco Bay, Greenland Hudson's Bay? St. John's, Newfoundland do Nowfoundland ' ' Massachusetts " "Ifahant, Mass." In collection of— National Museum . ...do ...do ...do ...do ....do ....do ....do Mus. Comp. Zool. ...do ....do Collected by- Copenhagen Mus. ..-.do ....do (?) Copenhagen Mus, (?) J.M.Harvey ....do "L. Agassiz" ... Nature of specimen. Skull. Skull. SkuU. SkuU. Skin. Skin.* Skin.* Skin.* Skin.* Skeleton. Skeleton. * In tha- white coat. ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS. List of specimens examined. 6569 6570 6571 7103 7104 7106 7107 15685 5697 16116 16117 16112 6299 Locality. Greenland do , do Plover Bay, Behring's Straits. do do do Cumberland Gulf Disco Bay, Greenland Cumberland Gulf do do do In collection of— National Museum . ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ...do ....do ...do ...do ...do ...do Mus. Comp. Zool . Collected by- Copenhagen Mus. ....do ...do Col. Buckley . . . . .-..do ....do ....do W. A. Mintzer . . Copenhagen Mus. L. Kumlien ....do ...do ....do Nature of specimen. Skull. SkuU. Skull. Skull. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. SkuU. Skin. Skeleton. Skull. Skeleton.* Skull. *FcBtal. HiSTRIOPHOCA FASCIATA. List of specimens examined. -3 a 02 LocaUty. In coUection of— CoUected by — Nature of specimen. 9311 .... Cane Homanzoff National Museum . W.H.DaU Skin. 764 MATERIAL EXAMINED Halichcerus grypus. List of specimens examined. II 11 i Locality. In collection of— Collected by— Nature of specimen. . 4717 6593 14011 5857 8694 ? Sable Island, Nova Scotia Greenland National Museum. .do P.S.Dodd C openhagen Mus. J. M. Harvey . . . P.S.Dodd CopenhagenMus. Skull.* Skull.t SkuU.t Skin-t Skin. St. John's, Newfoundland . Sable Island, Nova Scotia . Sealand, Denmark ....do ...do do ^ Very old. t Young. Cystophora cristata. List of specimens examined. t Adult. 6577 6576 6574 14012 14013 1083 1084 1085 5790 8696 16022 Locality. Greenland do do Newfoundland do do do do do Disco Bay, Greenland . Gulf of Cumberland . . In collection of- CoUected by — Nature of specimen. National Museum . ....do ...do ...do ...do Mus. Comp. Zool . . ...do ...do ...do National Museum . ' CopenhagenMus. -...do ....do M. Harvey ....do Michael Carroll. ....do ....do ...do CopenhagenMus. .do I L. KumUen Skull. Skull. SkuH. ■ Skull.* Skull.* Skull. Skeleton. Skeleton. Mounted. Skin. Skull.t * Young. t " T wo years old. ' ' Macrorhinus angustirostris. List of specimens examined. P 4704 13526 Locality. In collection of— Collected by— Nature of specimen. San Bartholomew's Bay, Lower California. Coast of Lower California. do National Museum . ....do Dr. W.O.Ayres. C. M. Scammon . Skull. Skull. Skin. Skin. Skin. ....do do Prof. 0. C. Marsh . .. .. do do ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS. 765 B -ADDITIONS AND COEEECTIONS. Family ODOBiENID^. ODOB^NUS EOSMAEUS. To the bibliographical references to this species already given {anteci, pp. 23-26) add the following : Bostunger oder Bossmer, Olafsen, Reise durch Island, i, 1774, 189, § 525 (uses of the tusks) ; ii, 118, § 1861 (occurrence in Iceland). Tricheclms rosmarus, E. Sabine, Parry's First Voy., Suppl., 1824, cxci. — Richardson, Parry's Second Voy., Suppl., 1825, 337. — J. C. Ross, Parry's Third Voy., 1826, 192 (distribution— Spitzbergen, Walden Island, etc.).— SCHINZ, Syn. Mam., i, 1844, 487. — Lloyd, Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway, 1867, 444.— Feilden, Nares's Voy. to the Polar Sea, 1875-76, ii, 1878, 196.— Alston, Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasgow, 1879, 97 (Outer Hebrides); Fauna of Scotland, Mam., 1880, 15 (Western Scotland). Odoiainus rosmarus, Quennerstedt, Kongl. SvenskaVetenskaps-Akademiens Handlingar, vii. No. 3, 1868, 10. Size and External Appearance. — To the remarks al- ready given the following may be added : Dr. E. Sabine gives the length of a young male, from the point of the nose to the end of the hind flippers, as 10 feet 3 inches, and the weight as 1,384 pounds. — Parry^s First Voyage, Suppl., 1824, p. cxci. " One of the largest Walruses we saw was killed on the ice near Shannon, on the 27th of August, 1860, by Dr. Copeland. It measured 9 feet 11 inches. ... It [the Walrus] is from 9 feet 6 inches to 16 feet 6 inches long, weighs about 20 cwt., and its skin is 3^ inches thick (a sort of massive coat of mail), with a head of infinite ugliness, rather large eyes, and tusks sometimes 30 inches long (of a sort of ivory), which help the creature to obtain his food (chiefly mussels) from the bottom of the sea, and, together with the breast-fins, help him to climb on to the floating ice to a place of rest [compare antea, p. 137]. 766 ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. « Eound his jaws are long cat-like bristles, as thick as a large darning-needle. Demoniacal as his appearance is his voice is as bad — a jerking imitative scream, lowing and i)uffing, often repeated, and in which it seems to delight." — German Arctio Expedition, 1869-70, p. 479. Geographical Distribution. — To the remarks on this subject add the following : Nova Zembla and Northern Coast of Europe. — According to Alexander Schultz, Walruses are caught "on the coasts of Novaya Zemblya and the islands of Yaigatch and Kalonyen." He also states that " About a dozen sailing-vessels devote themselves habitually to hunting the Walrus from Cape Ka- nine to the mouth of the Kara ". — Rep. U. 8. Commis. Fish and Fisheries, Part iii, 1876, pp. 53, 56. Franz-Josef Land. — Payer reports Walruses as seen on two occasions near the coast of Franz -Josef Land. — New Lands within the Arctic Circle, p. 266. Abundance in Wolstenholme Sound. — "Two floe-pieces two or three feet thick, and each covering an area of about half a mile, were black with the large ungainly creatures", in Wolstenholme Sound, August, 1871. — Narrative of the '■'■ Polaris'''' North Polar Expedition, 1876, p. 72. Spitzbergen, etc. — Mr. J. C. Eoss, in Parry's "Third Voyage" (1824, p. 192), says that " Trichechus rosmarus^^ is "Very uncom- mon along the western coast of Spitzbergen and the Low Islands of Phipps ; but none seen to the northward of Walden Island." Iceland. — Respecting the former occurrence of the Walrus in Iceland Olafsen observes "Dahingegen hat man hier [Ost- Island] mehr Rostunge als an andern Orten, inbesondere kam 1708 eine ungewohnliche Menge davon nacli den Ost-fiorden." — Peise durch Island (German translation), Theil ii, p. 118, § 1861. Supposed Presence of Walruses in the Antarctic Seas. — In the last footnote to page 176 reference is made to Mr. E. Brown's belief that " It is not unlikely that it [the Wal- rus] may even be found in the Antarctic regions ", in relation to which I there observe : "This idea I have not seen elsewhere revived since the early part of the present century". I find, however, that Schinz, in his " Synopsis Mammalium " published ODOB^NUS ROSMARUS ATLANTIC WALRUS.' 767 as late as 1844 (vol. i, p. 487), says : "Es [Triclieclms rosmarus] bewobnt die Polarmeere heide Pole, man ist aber nocli im Zwei- fel, ob das Wallross des Slidpolarmeers dieselbe Art mit denen der arctischen Meere sein ". The Walrus a Formidable Antago»iist. — To the pre- vious remarks on this subject {antea, pj). 107-133, passim), add the following- : " In the summer of 1869 a boat excursion to Cape Wynn with difficulty escaped the destruction of their craft. Another time they were followed by a herd and succeeded in reaching the shore of an island, where, though only for a short time, they were blockaded in. The longer you live in Arctic regions the less can you persuade yourself to attack these creatures in their own element, unless forced by pressing cir- cumstances, i. e., want of either food or of oil, and then it is advisable, if in boats, to provide oneself with cartridges." — German Arctic Expedition, 1869-70, p. 481. Curiosity and Fearlessness of the Walrus. — "One peculiarity [of the Walrus], which under some circumstances may be very dangerous, is its curiosity. Should one of these monsters see a boat, it raises itself astonished above the sur- face, utters at once a cry of alarm, swimming towards it as quickly as possible. This call brings up others, awakens the sleepers which the boat had carefully avoided, and in a short time the small vessel is followed by a number of these monsters, blustering in a^jparent or real fmy in aU their hideousness. The creatures may possibly be only actuated by curiosity, but their manner of showing it is unfortunately so ill-chosen that one feels obliged to act on the defensive. The bellowing, jerk- ing, and diving herd is now but a short distance from the boat. The first shot strikes, and this inflames their wrath, and now begins a wild fight in which some of the black sphynxes are struck with axes on the flappers, with which they threaten to overturn the boat. Others of the men defend themselves with a spear or with the blade of an oar." — German Arctic Expedition^ 1869-70, p. 481. Locomotion ; IJse of the Tusks in Climbing. — Captain Sir Edward Belcher, in "The last of the Arctic Voyages" (vol. i, p. 93), thus describes the Walrus's manner of mounting an ice-floe : " But here, within a few feet, deliberately did I watch the progress of the animal in effecting its purpose. In the first 768 ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. place, the tail and fins, exerting their full power in the water, gave such an imi)etus, that it projected about one-third of the body of the animal on to the lioe. It then dug its tusks with such terrific force into the ice that I feared for its brain, and, leech-like, hauled itself forward by the enormous muscular power of the neck, repeating the operation until it was secure. The force with which the tusks were struck into the ice ap- peared not only sufficient to break them, but the concussion was so heavy that 1 was surprised that any brain could bear it. Can any one then be surprised, when they are informed, that they ' die hard,' even when shot through the brain "? " Figures of the Walrus. — In Lloyd's "Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway, together with an Account of the Seals and Salt- Water Fishes of those Countries" (London, 1867) — a work which was inaccessible to me till after the Mono- graiDh of the Wah-uses was put in type — occur two admirable plates, illustrative of the Walrus (facing pp. 444 and 457), the first in tint, the other plain. The colored plate (drawn by Korner) gives a full side view of one individual, and a side and front view respectively of the heads and front parts of two others. The other (drawn by Wolf) represents an encounter between a Walrus and a Polar Bear. In this illustration the Walrus is in the attitude of walking, with the hind feet turned forward and the fore feet bent backward. This is one of the most characteristic and truthful representations I have yet met with. In the "German Arctic Expedition, 1869-70", there is also a figure (wood-cut, p. 369) of a young Walrus, — a side view, with the hind flippers turned backward. ODOB^NUS OBESUS. Destruction of the Pacific Walrus. — Attention has already been called (see antea, i)p. 185-186) to the raijid diminu- tion of the Pacific Walrus, and to the alarm the natives have of late years felt respecting the disappearance of their cliief means of support. The following (here copied from the Boston Daily Adve>'tiser of October 4, 1879) shows how speedily their fears were realized : "A letter from E. F. ISTye, barque Mt. Wollaston, off Cape OTARIES AT THE GAiAPAGOS ISLANDS. 769 Lisbnrue, Arctic ocean, written to the New Bedford Standard, and dated August 2 [1879], says: — "'This season up to the present time has been a successful one. Fifty-one whales have been taken by the fleet, against thirty-two at the same time last year, and the whales have run large, averaging about 100 barrels of oil, and saj' 80,000 pounds of whalebone in all ; also about 11,000 walrus against 12,000 last year; the walrus making less oil than usual, as fewer females are killed and a larger proportion of male walrus than in years past. . . . The trading vessels have about 6000 pounds of whalebone and a small quantity of ivory compared with former years ; about half the fleet are in this vicinity, the other half are all over to Cape Seege and the western walrus- ing, destroying them by the thousands; about 11,000 have been taken and 30,000 or 40,000 destroyed this year. Another year or perhaj)S two years will finish them, — there will hardly be one left, and I advise all natural history societies and museums to get a specimen while they can. Fully one-third of the poj)ulation south of St. Lawrence bay perished the past winter for want of food, and half the natives of St. Lawrence Island died; one village of 200 inhabitants all died except- ing one man. Mothers took their starving children to the burying-grounds, stripped the clothing from their little emaci- ated bodies, and then strangled them or let the intense cold end their misery. It is heart-rending to hear them tell how they suffered. Captain Cogan has taken very few walrus ; he says that for every one hundred walrus taken a family is starved, and I concur in his opinion. I should like to see a stop put to this business of killing the walrus, and so would most of those engaged in it. Almost every one says that it is starving the natives, and if one of our whalers should be wrecked on the coast in the fall, the crew must perish.' " Eamil\ OTARIIDiE-. Otaries at the Galapagos Islands. — To the footnote to page 211, the following may be added : An early reference to the occurrence of the Southern Fur Seal at these islands is given by Pennant (Arct. ZooL, i, 1792, p. 199; see also Hist. Quad., third ed., ii, 1793, p. 282) on the authority of Woodes Eogers (Voy., p. 136, 265). On referring to Callander's account of Eogers's voyage, the only one to Misc. Pub. No. 12 49 770 ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. which I have access, I find the following, which seems to have been generally overlooked by later writers on these animals : "Seals haunt some of these islands [Galapagos], but not so numerous, nor their fur so good as at Juan Fernandez.'''' He refers to a very large one that repeatedly attacked him and adds, "This amphibious beast was as big as a large bear."* In the footnote to page 211 it is stated that the occurrence of Eared Seals at the Galapagos Islands seems not to be gener- ally known. While there is no reference to their occurrence at these islands by Gray and other leading writers on the grouj), I find tbat Mr. Sahin, in discussing the probable habitat of the Xema furcata (Ibis, 1875, j). 497), alludes to the fact incidentally, as follows : " Still even were its Arctic character established, it [Xema. furcata] may yet be an inhabitaut of the Galaj)agos Islands, where an Otaria belonging to a northern species exists and formerly abounded". "Northern", however, should read southern, for the Otaria is 0. juhata, and consequently is not a northern type. Fossil Otaeies. — Add at page 217 the following: Professor McCoy bas recently described and figured t fossil remains of Eared Seals from the Pliocene of Victoria, under the name Arctocephalus williamsi, si), nov. The skull figured, which he refers to as an "old male skull", bears a close resemblance to the skull of a female of Zalophus lohatns, from which, judging from his description and figures, it does not very materially differ. Capture of Sea Lions for Menageries. — The following interesting account of the cajiture of Sea Lions alive for me- nageries is from the " Illustrated Guide and Catalogue of Wood- ward's Gardens," of San Francisco, California (San Francisco, 1880, PI). 50-52), where it is credited to the " Santa Barbara Press": "Nearly all the live seal, sea lions and sea elei)hants that have been furnished Woodward's Gardens, in San Francisco, and that have been sent to the Old World and the Eastern States during the last fifteen years, have been captured from the Santa Barbara Islands, across the channel from this city. "Every year there are more or less of these animals captured * Callander's Voyages, vol, iii, 1768, p. 307. tPiod, Palieout. Victoria, decade v, p. 7, pll. xli and xliv. ZALOPHUS CALIFORNIANUS CALIFORNIA SEA LION. 771 on the islands, for the puriDose of supplying menageries in the Eastern States, and parties engaged in the business always come to Santa Barbara to secure men for the purpose, who have had years of experience in capturing them. " The mode of capturing these animals is simple, yet very exciting, and while it is not considered much of a trick to cage an ordinary sized seal, it is a big contract to capture a bull that weighs 1,500 pounds or more, without seriously injur- ing the animal. '^ Three or four expert vaqueros usually approach the animals that are out on the rocks near the beach, select, perhaps from a hundred or more, the big bull which usually starts for the water, and when the animal arrives at a convenient place on the sand, if possible three riatas are thrown simultaneously, one over the animal's neck, one over either of his front flip- pers, and one over his rear flippers, making a spread eagle of him instantly. The riata that holds the rear flippers takes away the motive power of the animal, and while his other front flip- per is ' lassoed ', the riatas are all fastened to the rocks or trees near by, or held by the engaged, while the large box — which has already been made — without the cover, is brought and care- fully stood on end close behind the animal, unobserved, and, with a man on top of it is dropped suddenly over the sea lion as he lies stretched at full length on the sand. Small ropes are worked under the box and the animal, and lashed to the top of the box, and at a given signal the riatas are loosened, and the animal is free to move around in his cage at will. The cages are made out of strong fence boards, firmly nailed to the scantling in the corners and on the sides. They are about four feet high, four and a half feet wide, and from eight to fourteen feet in length, and always made before the animal is captured. After the animals are caged, several strong ropes are made fast around the cage and blocks hitched into these ropes, and the cage, with the animal, is drawn through the water to the schooner, near by, and hoisted on board. Fish and water are given the captured, but they often go ten to twenty days without eating." ZALOPHUS CALIFOKNIANUS. Period of Gestation, etc. — Under date of June 2, 1880, Mr. Frank J. Thompson, superintendent of the Cincinnati Zoological Garden, wrote me that a second Californian Sea 772 ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. Liou had just been born at the Garden. In respect to the period of gestation, etc., Mr. Thompson later kindly gave me the following interesting particulars: ^'The mother arrived in the Garden on July 2, 1879, and was seen in coi)ulation with the male several times between July 10 and 15. The young one was born May 31, 1880, making the period of gestation about ten and a half months. It was evidently the first calf, and therefore, as is generally the case, the period of gestation was a little lengthened. The youngster is just fourteen days old this morning [June 14], but does not as yet show the least desire to go into the water. He will follow his mother to the edge of the water and there quietly remain while she takes her bath. We had the mother in our possession thirty days before she ate, and as she must have been captured twenty -five or thirty days x>revious, she was without food for some fifty or sixty days. She was shipped from San Francisco, California, by rail, in a simple wicker basket, and I do not believe she had a drop of water in transitu J^ CALLOEHINUS UESINUS. Breeding off the Coast of Washington Territory. — In a letter from Mr. James G. Swan, Field Assistant of the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, dated l^eah Bay, Washington Territory, July 17, 1880, kindly communi- cated by Dr. Coues, contains the following respecting the breed- ing of the Fur Seal off the coast of Washington Territory : ^'Several new facts and theories have been developed by my investigations about Fur Seals this season. The fact that they do have pups in the open ocean off" the entrance to Fuca Strait, is well established by evidence of every one of the sealing cap- tains, the Indians, and my own personal observations. Doctor Power says the fact does not admit of dispute. The theory of the captains is, first, that this fact proves conclusively that these Seals do not go to Behring's Sea to have their young, and hence they argue that they do not go there at all, but 'haul out' for purposes of reproduction on some undiscovered islands in the Korth Pacific, or go at once to the coast of Japan or Siberia where they are known to abound. It seems as preposterous to my mind to suppose that all the Fur Seals of the North Pacific go to the Pribylov Islands as to suppose that all the salmon go to the Columbia and Frazer's Eiver or to the Yakon. CALLORHINUS URSINUS CALIFOENIA SEA LION. 773 " The question is one of interest, and I have suggested to Pro- fessor Baird his having blank forms of questions furnished the captains of all the vessels engaged in sealing, for them to fill out with their observations during the season or during their voyages. These blanks could be sent to the custom-houses at San Francisco, Port Townseud, and Victoria, and given to the captains, with their other papers, when they clear on their seal- ing voyages, with instructions to fill them out and return them to the custom-house at the end of their voyage. "A series of such observations, made during several success- ive seasons, would enable us to ascertain definitely the facts about the Fur Seal, whose habits are but little known except at the rookeries." Prof. D. S. Jordan, the well-known ichthyologist, to whom the letter was addressed, adds: "I may remark that I saw a live Fur Seal pup June 1 [1880], at Cape Flattery, taken from an old seal just killed, showing that the time of bringing them forth was just at hand." These observations, aside from the judicious suggestions made by Mr. Swan, are of special interest as confirming those made some years ago by Captain Bryant, and already briefly recorded (antea, p. ) in this work. They seem to show that at least a certain number of Fur Seals repair to secluded i)laces suited to their needs as far south as the latitude of Cape Flattery, to bring forth their young. Family PHOCID^ Extinct Species.— Prof. A. Leith Adams, in a paper " On Eemains of Mastodon and other Vertebrata of the Miocene Beds of the Maltese Islands" (Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. XXXV, part 3, August, 1879, p. 524, pi. xxv, figg. 1, 2), has de- scribed and figured four teeth and a portion of the left ramus of a seal from the calcareous sandstone of Gozo, Malta, under the name Phoca rugosidens [Phoca rugosidens, Owen apud Adams). They indicate a species of about the size of Mona- cJms alhiventerj with which in respect to the character of the teeth the species may be compared. Mr. Adams says that canine teeth of large size, referable to the Phocidce, are of com- mon occurrence in the sand bed, and are also somewhat plenti- ful in the nodule-seams of the calcareous sandstone. INDEX. [The figures in black-faced type refer to the descriptions of the families, genera, and species.J A. Aglektok, 632, 633. Aglektorsoak, 633. Aglektuugoak, 633. Aglektytsiak, 633. Alactberium, 12, 14. cretsii, 13. Ampliibia, 11. Arctoc6pbales, 210. Arctocephalina, 11, 187, 188, 189, 414. Arctoceplialus, 11, 190, 191, 192, 209, 210, 225, 231, 275, 312. antarcticns, 190, 198, 201, 202, 205, 207, 212, 222. argentatus, 199, 202. australis, 197, 199, 202, 205, 207, 210, 211, 222, 224, 226, 330, 333. brevipes, 204, 213. californiamis, 197, 199, 233, 249, 314, 338. cinereus, 191, 197, 198, 199, 213, 217, 294, 372. tlelalaudi, 190, 191, 196, 197, 213. elegans, 204, 213. eulopbus, 199, 200, 202, 204, 216, 316. falklandicns, 191, 196, 197, 199, 200, 202, 204, 205, 207, 208, 210, 213, 228, 372. forsteri, 199, 204, 205, 213, 372. gazella, 204, 213. gilliespii, 197, 276. grayi, 211. grayii, 199, 200, 202, 204. bookeri, 191, 197, 202, 209. lobatus, 191, 196, 197, 209, 217, 293, 294. monterieusis, 190, 191, 197, 199, 233, 249, 293, 314, 337. nigrescens, 191, 197, 199, 205, 211, 222. nivosus, 198, 199, 202, 203, 213. Arctocepbahis — Continued. pbilippii, 199, 202, 204. pusillus, 203, 204. scbistbyperoes, 198, 202, 203, 213. scbistuperus, 198. ■\villiamsi, 770. uUote, 191. ursinns, 197, 200, 204, 312. Arctopboca, 191, 192, 206, 210. argentata, 192, 199, 204, 206. elegans, 202, 213. falklandica, 192. gazella, 202, 213. pigrescens, 192, 204. pbilippii, 192, 199, 206. AtMtsiak, 633. Atak, 425. Atdrak, 631. Atarpek, 433. Atarpiak, 429, 432, 433. Atarsoak, 633. Attarak, 632. Attarsoak, 425, 631, 632. Atteitsiak, 632. Auvekaejak, 432. Avjor, 739. B. Bartrobbe, 657. Bedlamers, 634. Bedlimers, 634. Bellamers, 634. Beluga catddon, 147. B6te a la grande dent, 26, 82. Bodacb, 600. Bos marinus, 26, 82. Blaakobbe, 657. Blase-Robbe, 740. Bladdernose, 726, 740. Blase-Seebund, 427. Blandrusb, 425. 775 776 INDEX. Blassjiilen, 726. Blas-Skal, 740. Blaiidrnselur, 427. Blne-sidcs, 655. Broca, 5, 11. €. Calloc^ipliale, 415, 417, 557. Callocephalus, 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419, 420, 557, 558, 463. albicaudus, 444. annellatus, 599. barbatus, 443, 444, 449, 656. bicolor, 449. caspicus, 451, 453. dimidiatus, 451, 453, 455, 459, 464, 599. discolor, 443, 444, 449, 458, 599. fcetidus, 451, 598. grffinlandicus, 443, 444, 449, 630. hispidus, 443, 449, 451, 598. lagurus, 443, 444, 631. largba, 561. leporiuus, 443, 444, 449, 656. oceanicus, 444, 449, 631. scoijulicolus, 444, 690. vitulinus, 443, 444, 449, 451, 453, 455, 561, 645. Callopboca, 479. obscura, 479. CallorMnina, 188, 192, 210, 225, 312. Callorhiuus, 190, 191, 192, 210, 312. ursiuus, 190, 196, 199, 201, 205, 210, 216, 218, 224, 225, 3 1 3,760. Campodoutia, 5, H. Chat marin, 314. Chein marin, .562. Cheval marin, 26, 82. Clapmutz, 425, 739. Cystopbora, 3, 11, 57, 220, 413, 414, 415, 419, 420, 462, 465, 467, 723, 724, 742. angustirostris, 456, 470. antillarum, 450, 451, 453, 454, 4.59, 708, 716, 717, 718, 719, 720, 726. borealis, 441, 448, 458,466, 723, 726. cristata, 219, 425, 426, 428, 431, 436, 441, 448, 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, 455, 459, 465, 468, 481, 482, 492, 545, 570, 614, 667, 723, 724, 750, 764. Cystopbora— Continued. falklandica, 456, 4.59, 466, 750. kerguelensis, 456, 459, 466, 750. leonina, 456, 466, 750. proboscidea, 448, 450, 452, 456, 466, 469. Cystopborina, 414. Cystophorinaj, 220, 413, 462, 467, 723. D. Dotard, 502, 614. Dugong, 10, 16. E. Elefante marino, 743. Elephant, Sea, 743. Southern Sea, 750, 754, 755. Enhydris, 57, 412. Equus mariuus ct Hippopotamus falso dictus, 23. Erignathus, 414, 417, 419, 420, 461, 462, 464, 654. barbatus, 139, 425, 426, 430, 431, 436, 454, 459, 465, 468, 481, 482, 488, 545, 570, 641, 655, 656, 763. Eumetopias, 189, 192,209, 225, 231. californianus, 233, 293. cinerea, 204, 210. elongatus, 200, 233, 248, 252. gillespii, 203, 204. stelleri, 189, 195, 196, 199, 202, 204, 209, 217, 218, 223, 225, 232, 233, 296, 305, 316, 338, 757. Eumetopiiua, 188, 189. Euotaria, 191, 192, 210. cinerea, 201, 205, 207, 213. compressa, 202, 203. latirostris, 201, 204, 207, 211. nigrescens, 201. schisthyperoes, 202. F. Fatte-Nuorjo, 739. Fiordsaj], 599. Fjordskal, 597. Fur-seals, 189, 216, 229, Fipper, Square, 657. Flipper, Square, 614, 657. INDEX. 777 Gramm-Selur, 426, 428. Gramselr, 425, 665, 666. Grasskal, 436. Gressigrada, 3. Groenselr, 666. Groulandsal, 631. Groulandsjiil, 631. Gronlauds-Eobbe, 631. Gryplioca, 479. similis, 479. Gypsoplioca, 191, 192, 206, 210. tropicalis, 199, 201, 204, 206, 213, 217. Gypsophociua, 189. H. Haaf-fish, 690. Hsematopinus, 139. Hafert-skal, 657. Hair Seals, 216. Halarctus, 191, 210. Halicore, 10. Ha vert, 657. Havhest, 26. HavSal, 427. Horsewael, 81. Hvalruus, 26. Halichoerina, 414. Halichcerus, 5, 11, 414, 415, 419, 420, 462, 465, 4§3. antarcticus, 418, 450, 459, 463, 561, 580. griseus, 414, 441, 444, 449, 465, 663, 682, 691, 697, 700. gryplius, 691. grypus, 414, 427, 431, 437, 448, 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, 455, 459, 465, 468, 531, 545, 614, 616, 617, 628, 648, 662, 663, 664, 669, 673, 690, 737, 764. macrorhynchus, 451, 459, 465, 690, 698. pachyrhynclius, 451, 459, 465, 690, 698. Halicyon, 414, 417, 419, 454, 463, 557, 559. californica, 453, 454, 455, 459, 464, 561, 584. pealei, 455, 561, .582. richardsi, 453, 455, 459, 464, 561, 572, 582, 587. Haliphilus, 418, 419, 455, 463, 557, 559, 582. autarcticus, 561. Harps, 634. Breeding, 634. Turning, 634. Young, 634. Heliophoca, 417, 419, 465, 707. atlantica, 451, 453, 459, 465, 717. Histriophoca, 419, 461, 462, 464, G7S. equestris, 641. fasciata, 464, 468, 632, «'?6, 763. Hofsskal, 436. I. Ibeen, 599. Iblau, 632. Imab-ukaUia, 429, 433. K. Kabbustskobbe, 739. Kakortak, 726, 740. Kampselur, 666. Kassiarsook, 591. Kassigiak, 425, 562. Kikneb, 739. Killer, 406. Kioluk, 631. Klakkekal, 739. Klapmlits, 422, 724. Klappmutze, 726. Klapmyds, 667, 726, 735. Klappmiize, 426, 724, 738. Klappmysta, 726. Kuubbsjiil, 562. Kongeseteriak, 429, 433, li. Lachtak, 422, 657. Laktak, 657, 665. Lamantine, 14. Lame, 430. Land-Selur^ 427. Leo marinus, 190, 195, 233, 233, 248. Leptonycbotes, 418, 419, 421, 463, 467. weddelli, 467. Leptonyx, 413, 414, 416, 419, 420, 467. leopardinus, 450, 452. monachus, 450, 452. rossi, 450. serridens, 450, 452. weddelli, 450, 451, 452, 453, 467. 778 INDEX. Lion marin, 233, 254, 430. de la Califoniic, 251, 276, 291. Lobodon, 413, 414, 416, 419, 420, 463, 466. carcinophaga, 449, 450, 451, 453, 463, 466, 475, 476, 561, 581. vetus, 480. Lobo marino, 276, 302. Loup marin, 196, 562. ni. Macrorhine, 415, 417, 742. Macrorhinus, 3, 57, 220, 414, 415, 417, 418, 419, 420, 463, 466, 467, 558, 723, 724, '742. angustirostris, 437, 453, 454, 456, 459, 466, 494, 517, '744, 764. ansoui, 444. byroni, 444. leoninus, 430, 456, 459, 466, 517, 724, 750, 753, 754, 755. proboscideus, 433, 444, 449. Macrorbyna, 742. Manatee, 9, 10, 16. Manatus, 9, 10. Meerbiir, 193, 314. Meerbusenkalb, 664. Meerlowe, 193. Meerpferd, 26, 36, 82. Meerrobbe, dicbschuauzige, 698. krummnasige, 69b. langschnauzige, 698. Meerross, 82. Mesotaria, 220, 479. ambigua, 219, 478. M^sotaries, 219. Milatok, 632, 633. Mirounga, 416, 419, 465, 466, 723, 744. ansoni, 445. byroni, 445. cristata, 445, 725. patagonica, 445, 458, 466, 750. proboscidea, 445, 482. Monachina, 414, 707. Monachus, 414, 415, 419, 420, 436, 461, 462, 465, 707, 720. albiventer, 415, 430, 451, 459, 465, 467, 479, 717, 772. mediterrauens, 415, 465. tropicalis, 453, '70S. Mouatberium, 479. Monatherinm — Continued. aberratum, 479. aflfinis, 479. delongii, 479. Mors, 17, 80, 81, 100 Morsch, 24. Morse ou vache marine, 24. Morse, 24, 26, 74, 82, 100. Morses, les, 5. Morsk, 26. Morss, 66, 82, 110. Morsus, 17, 80, 81. Morsz, 80, 81. Morunga, 220, 414, 416, 420, 466, 742, angustirostris, 455, 744. elephantina, 451, 453, 753. Morunge, 436. Miincbs-Robbe, 429. IV. Natautia, 10. Natsek, 599. Neitsek, 425, 597, 616. Neitsersoak, 425, 724, 726, 739, 740. Neitsilek, 425, 616. Neophoca, 191, 192, 209, 275. lobata, 199, 202, 210, 294. Nerimartont, 735. Nerpa, 600. Nersaursalik, 726, 740. Netsia^dk, 599. Netsick, 599. O. Oaado, 739. Odobsenidse, 2, 5, 17. Odobseuus, 3, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17. rosmarus, 23, 26, 80, 157, 757, 765. obesus, 14'7, 758, 768. Odobenotberium, 15, 16. lartetianum, 20, 26, 61, 80. Odobenus, 9, 14. OdontobiBuus, 15, 16, 137. rosmarus, 23, 26. Ogjook, 657, 671. Ogmorbiuus, 419, 421, 463, 466. ieptouyx, 466. Ommatopboca, 413, 414, 416, 419, 420, 463, 467. rossi, 449, 451, 453, 458, 459, 467. Ommatophora, 420. Oo-sook, 657, 665. INDEX. 779 Orca,381,652. Otaria, 187, 190, 191, 192, 208, 221, 225, 231. albicollis, 194, 196, 203, 209, 215. argentata, 211. aurita, 216. australis, 197, 203, 210, 293. bironia, 199. byronia, 198, 208. californiana, 191, 195, 197, 250, 276,291,292. chileusis, 197, 208. cinerea, 194. 196, 198, 203, 209, 213, 215. coronata, 196, 197, 215. elegans, 202, 213. delalandi, 197, 199, 222. fabricii, 19.5, 196,215,313. falklaudica, 191, 194, 198, 210. flave8ceus,194,196,215. forsteri, 196, 203. gillespii, 198, 276, 293. gilliespii, 191, 293. godefroyi, 198, 199, 203, 208. graii, 196. hookeri, 191, 198, 199, 208, 209. liauvillii, 196, 197, 203, 211. japouica, 293. jubata, 188, 190, 191, 196, 197, 198, 199,200,201,203, 204, 205, 208, 209, 211, 226, 232, 245, 247, 248, 276, 305, 315, 770. krascbenniuikowii, 195, 313. lamari,197,213,216. leclerci, 218. leonina, 177, 192, 194, 197, 198, 203, 208, 335. lobata, 197, 198. minor, 201, 203, 208. molinaii, 196. mollissina, 196, 208. nigrescens, 191. oudriana, 218. pemettyi, 196, 208. peroni, 194, 195, 196, 203, 212, 215. pbilippii, 191, 198, 211. platyrhincus, 197, 208. porcina, 194, 197, 215. pusilla, 194, 195, 196, 198, 199, 222. pygmiBa, 201, 203, 208. Otaria — Contiuued. sbawi, 196, 211. stelleri, 191, 195, 197, 198, 200,210, 216, 219, 232, 292, 293, 294. ullofE, 191, 192, 198, 199, 203, 208. nrsinu, 194, 197, 198, 201, 313. weddellii, 444, 458, 467. Otariadi?, ISY, 188. Otarides, 187. Otarie cendr6e, 203. de Delalande, 213. de Lalande, 196. de Steller, 292. du cap, 203. Otaries at tbe Galapagos Islauds,769. Otariidaj, 2, 3, 12, 1^7. Otariina, 188, 189. OtariiniS, 187. Otary, Ash-colored, 196, Cape, 196. Lesson's, 196. WTiite-necked, 196. Oulipbociuse, 188. Ours marin, 314. Oxystomus, 10. Pagomys, 414, 417, 419, 420, 421, 463, 557, 558. fcetidus, 453, 454, 455, 598, 645. largha, 453, 561, 577. nummularis, 561, 577. ocbotensis, 455. PagopMlus, 414, 416, 419, 420, 421, 462,4'J3,557,558. equestris, 455, 676, 681. grcenlandicus, 451, 453, 454, 455, 631. Palseophoca, 218, 479. nysti, 477, 478. Palmata, 9. Pelage, 415, 465, 707. Pelagias, 416. Pelagios, 416. Pelagius, 413, 415, 416, 419, 420, 465, 707. monacbus, 218, 443, 444, 449, 465. PMpper, Square, 616. Phoca, 15,24, 188, 413, 414, 417, 418, 419, 420, 462, 463, Ji57f 597, 654. 780 INDEX. Plioca — Coutinnefl. albicauda, 440, 457, 464, 631, 639. albigena, 447, 455, 458, 465, 656, 666. albini, 631. aJbiventer, 430, 440, 457, 465. ambigua, 477, 479. ansoui, 440, 443, 446, 458, 466, 750. antarctica, 212, 446. australis, 193, 210, 429, 434, 437. anuellata, 441, 442, 448, 450, 452, 455, 458, 464, 599, 607, 609, 612, 619, 631. baicalensis, 456, 459, 464, 610, 612. barbata, 422,* 423, 425, 427, 428, 429, 432, 434, 437, 440, 442, 443, 445,446,448, 450, 451, 452, 455, 457, 614, 654, 690, 698, 699, 700, 702. bicolor, 437, 440, 457, 465. byroni, 208, 440, 441, 446, 457, 466, 750. byionia, 198, 443. califoruica, 276. canina, 436, 438, 446,447, 457, 458, 463, 561, 576, 587. canina var. caspica, 464, 609. carcinopliaga, 416, 466. caspica, 426, 437, 448, 450, 452, 456, 457, 458,459,464,468,484, 514, 546, 607, 608, 609. cbilensis, 434, 457. cliorisi, 441, 446, 450, 458, 463, 561, 576. communis, 559, 575. communis var. octonotata, 449, 458, 464, 599, 601, cOHununis Tar. undulata, 449, 458, 464, 599, 601. concolor, 449, 458, 463, 561, 579. coronata, 196, 215, 316. coxii, 440, 443, 444, 446, 457. cristata, 428, 434, 437, 440, 445, 446, 450, 457, 723, 724, 738. cucullata, 431, 457, 465, 725, 738. debilis, 470, 473. dentiJjus caninis tectis, 562. desmaresti, 446, 458, 464, 631,639. diiuidiata, 599. Phoca — Continued. discolor, 441, 445,446, 464, 599, 619, dorsata, 447,458,464,631, 639, 641. dubia, 446, 458, 466. elephantina, 430, 457, 466, 750. equestris, 447, 4.52, 458, 464, 675, < 676, 680. falklandica, 193, 196, 210, 437. fasciata, 429, 434, 437, 438, 440, 441, 444, 446, 455, 457, 675, 676, 679. flavesceus, 196, 208, 215, 437. fcetida, 221, 425, 426, 427, 430, 431, 436, 440, 443, 445, 457, 459, 464, 468, 481, 483, 488, 497, .545, 561, 565, 566, 567, 570, SO-?, 598, 641, 659, 664, 682, 688, 762. frederici, 446, 464, 599, 619. gaudini, 478, 479. groeulandica, 219, 221, 422, 425, 426, 428, 429, 430, 431, 433, 434, 436, 437, 440, 442, 443, 445, 446, 448, 450, 452, 457, 459, 464, 466, 470, 474, 481, 483, 484, 488, 492, 497, 511, 545, 565, 607, 614, 616, 630, 659, 688. groenlandica var. nigra, 434, 457, 631, 76J' gryphus, 566, 567, 569, 570, 663, 689, 697. grypus, 426, 431, 446, 457, 682, 685, 689, 697. halicbcerus, 442, 458, 465, 690,697. balitscbensis 477, 479. hermanni, 446, 458, 465. hispida, 426, 428, 434, 436, 437, 440, 446, 457. 464, 598, 617,618, 619. hispida var. quadrata, 434, 457. liomei, 446, 458, 466. isidorei, 449, 458, 466, 725, 736, 738. jubata, 193, 208, 232, 426, 433,437. lagura. 442, 445, 446, 450, 458, 464, 561, 631, 639. lakbtak, 440, 441, 457, 465, 665. laniger, 434, 439, 457. largha, 447, 449, 458, 464, 561, 576. leonina, 190, 208, 233, 417, 422, 423, 426, 428, 430, 433, 437, 446, 447, 457, 4%, 466, 724. 738 INDEX. 781 Phoca — Continued. leoniua capite antice cristato, 425. leopardina, 467. lepecliini, 44.5, 458, 465, 656, 666. leporina, 429, 4:31, 432, 433, 434, 437, 440, 445, 446, 457, 465, 656, *658, 665, 666. leptonyx, 440, 441, 445, 446, 450, 457, 466. leucogaster, 438, 457., leucopla, 442, 445, 446, 458, 466, 725, 738. UuufBi, 445, 458, 463, 561, 576. littorea, 442, 445, 458, 463, 561, 576. longicollis, 214, 437, 438, 440, 443, 444. lupina, 430, 437, 440, 443, 444,446. lutris, 447. maculata, 431, 434, 438,439, 440, 441, 444, 446, 457. major, 445. maxima, 422, 665. mediae magnitudinis, 562. mitrata, 442, 458, 466, 725, 738. modesta, 470, 47'J. moeotica, 478, 479. monacha, 429, 431, 434, 437, 440, 446, 447, 450, 457, 465, 707. mlilleri, 445, 458, 464, 631, 639. mutica, 439, 457. naurica, 455, 465, 656, 666. nautica, 447 ,455, 458, 465,656, 666. nigra, 313, 434, 439, 440, 441, 446, 447. nummularis, 449, 450, 452, 458, 464, 558, 561, 572, 57(., 587. oceanica, 422, 429, 440, 443, 446, 457, 464, 631, 639. ocliotensis, 447, 452, 458. parsonsi, 445, 458, 465, 656, 666. parva, 212. pealei, 418, 4.54, 464, 495, 561, 581. pedroni, 477. platythrix, 448, 458. pontica, 477, 479. porcina, 215, 430, 431, 433, 434, 437, 457, 466. proboscidea, 438, 440, 446, 450, 457, 466, 742. Phoca — Continued. punctata, 434, 438, 439, 440, 441, 444, 446, 457. pusilla, 194, 196, 212, 214, 215, 426, 430, 434, 437. pylayi, 446, 448, 464, 631, 639. resima, 438, 440, 446, 457. richardsi, 454. rosmarus, 24, 417, 423. rugidens, 477. rugosidens, 772. sericea, 436, 438, 446, 450, 457. semilunaris, 430,4.57, 404, 631, 639. sclireberi, 445, 458, 464, 617. scopulicola, 442, 446, 458, 465, 560, 576, 690, 697. sibirica, 426, 437, 464, 468, 607. stelleri, 232. seu vitulus marinus, 562. testudinea,437, 438, 440, 446, 450, 457. testudo, 434, 438, 457. tetradactyla, 438. thienemanni, 445, 4.58, 465, 690. tigrina, 444, 463, 561, 576. tropicalis, 451, 459, 708, 716, 717, 718. ursina, 26, 193, 195, 210, 212, 213, 417, 423, 426, 429, 431, 432, 433, 437, 447. variegata, 436, 438, 441, 457, 458, 463, 560, 576. vitulina, 221, 417, 421, 423, 426, 430, 431, 434, 436, 437, 440, 441, 445, 446, 448, 450, 452, 454, 457, 459, 463, 468, 479, 484, 488, 492, 493, 497, 534, 545, 559,608, 614, 641, 659, 761. vitulina var. bothionica, 445, 458. vitulina var. botnica, 431, 434, 457, 599, 616. vitulina var. caspica, 431, 434, 445, 464, 609. vitulina var. maculata, 445. vitulina var. sebrica. 445, 4.58. vitulina var. sibirica, 431, 434, 457, 464, 612. vituliuoides, 479. vulgaris, 561. weddelli, 214, 446, 450. 782 INDEX. Phoca — Continued. wilkianus, 708, 710, 718. wymani, 470, 471, 473, 480. Phocacea auriculata, 187. inauriculata, 412. Phocanella, 479, 614. minor, 479. pumila, 479. Phocarctos, 191, 209. elongatus, 189, 201, 210, 233, 252, 294. hookeri, 199, 201, 205, 209. ullose, 191. Phociflaj, 2, 4, 188, 412, 461. Phocina, 414. Phocinaj, 221, 413, 414, 461, 467, 557. Phocoidea, 12. Phoque a capuchon, 430, 726, 740. k croissant, 430, 631. k ventre blanc, 430. commune, 562. de n6tre ocean, 562. Gassigiak, 430. Grum-selur, 439, 440. Laktak, 430, 440. marbrd, 599. Neitsoak, 430. petit, 195, 196, 203, 204, 214. tigr6, 439, 440, 576. Phoques k oreilles, 187. proprement dits, 412, 429. sans oreilles, 412, 429. Pickaninny Pussy, 600. Pinnipedia, 1. Pinnipeds, 1. Platyrhinchus, 190, 208. Platyrhincus, 208. leouinus, 208. mollossinus, 208. uranise, 208. Platyrhinques, 190, 208. Platystomus, 10, Porcus monstrosus oceani Germanici, 93. Porco marina, 430. Pristiophoca, 479. occitana, 477, 488. Prophoca, 479. proxima, 479. rousseaui, 479. Pua, 683. Pusa, 414,417, 419, 421,462, 463, 557, 558, 559, 682, 683. grypus, 684, 690. Puese, 684. Puirse, 684. P^se, 684. Pflse, 684. Pussy, 684. R. Ragged Jackets, 634 Eanger, 562. Rat, Floe, 510, 600. Rawn, 562. Remmesselen, 657. Remmssel, 666. Eeptigrada, 4. Rhinophora, 416, 419, 466, 742. Rhytina, 9. gigas, 73, 432. Rosmaridse, 5, 12, 17. Rosmaroidea, 5, 12. Rosmarus, 15, 16, 17, 23, 80, 82. arcticus, 22, 26, 147. cookii, 22, 147. obesus, 22, 26, 147. trichecbus, 26, 147. Rosmarus seu morsus norvegicus, 23^ 93. Rosmbvalr, 80. Rosmul, 80. Rostungr, 80. 8. Saddleback, 631, 634. Sadlers, 634. Ssel, 562. Krumsnudede, 431, 690. Spraglede, 431, 562. Saelhund, 562. Sattel-Robbe, 631. Sea-Bear, 193. Forster's, 196. Steller's, 196. Sea-Bears, 188, 216. Sea-Calf, 422, .562, 657, 662. Bay, 524. Gray, 664. Sea-Cat, 336, 341, 562. Sea-Co w, 24, 26, 67, 82, 177. Steller's, 9, 16, 432. INDEX. 783 Sea-Dog, 562. Sea-Elephant, 177,290, 484,494,517. Southern, 422,750. Sea-Horse, 26, 28, 76, 82, 95, 147. Sea-King, 233. Sea-Lion, 193. Anson's, 422. California, 276. Northern, 190,233. Southern, 245. Sea-Lions, 188, 216, 770. Sea-Oxen, 66. Sea-Wolf, 432. Seal, 562. Baikal, 612. Bay, 534, 562, 614. Bearded, 139, 431, 488, 510, 545, 655, 657, 706. Black, 434. Blackside, 422, 631. Bladder-nosed, 510. Bottle-nosed, 433, 435. Caspian, 484, 514, 546, 609, 611. Cinereous, 194. Common, 423, 434, 562. Crested, 422, 428, 484, 492, 726. Eared, 435. Elephant, 221, 517, 743. Falklfind Isle, 193, 435. Fjord, ,599. Fossil, .599. Freshwater, 562. from the South Seas, 690. Fur, 314. Gray, 531, 545, 614, 616, 628, 664, 673, 689, 690. Great, 435, 6.57. Great Seal of the Farn Islands, 698. Greenland, 484, 488, 492, 545, 631. Ground, 657. Hair, 233. Harbor, 431,488, 497, 524, 559,614. Harnassed, 434. Harp, 422, 431, 435, 488, 492, 497, 545,614,630,631. Hispid, 488. Hooded, 428, 431, 435, 410, 545, 614, 648, 724, 726, 738, 740. Jamaican, 708. Seal — Continued. Land, .562. Leopard, 495, .569. Leonine, 435. Leporine, 435, 657. Little, 435. Long-bodied, 423, 430, 657, 662, 665. Marbled, 600. Mediterranean, 435 Mitred, 739. Monk, 429. Native, 562, 614. New to the British Islands, 726. Pedro, 708,710, Pied, 435. Porcine, 435. Ribbon, 676. Enbbon, 434, 435, 676. Rough, 435, 488, 541, .598, 618. Saddle-back, 510, Shot near the Orkney Islands, 599. Square Phipper,434, 614, 670. Spring, 427. Tortoise-headed, 423, 434, 435. Urigene, 435. Ursine, 196, 314, 435, Yellowish, 194. West Indian, 708. Wikare, 534. Winter, 427. With a Cawl, 422,724,738,740. Seals, Eared, 187. Earless, 221, 412. Sealch, 562. Seebiir, 426. Seehund, 562, 609. caspische, 426, 609, gefleckte, 562. gemeine, 562. geringelte, .599. graue, 426, 498, 690, 696. gronlandische, 631. grosse, 426, 697, kleine geohrte, 426, rauhe, 426, 498, 499, 617 schwarzseitige, 631. sibirische, 426, 612. Vierte Sorte, 612. 784 INDEX. Seekalb, 5G2, 664. graxie, 689. Seelowe, 233. glatte, 426. zottige, 426. See-vitcLie, 233. Selkie, 562. Sial, Gra, 616, 689, 690, 697. Singiiktop, 429, 433. Sirenia, 10. Sixenians. 10. Sjtel, Grii, 599. Wikare, 562. Skiil, Gra, 664. Gra Wikare, 599, Ringlad, 599. Skajl, Blass, 726. Gra, 664. Spracklig, 562. Spragle, 562. Squalodon, 218, 470. debilis, 473. wymaoi, 473. Steen-kobbe, 562, 599. Stenorbyncbiua, 414. Stenorhynchinaj, 413, 414, 463, 467. Stenorbynchus, 413, 414, 415, 416, 419, 420, 421, 466. leopardinus, 449. leptouyx, 443, 444, 449, 453. serridens, 466, 475. vetus, 475, 476. weddelli, 444, 467. St6iiorbinque, 415, 466. Stemmatope, 415, 723. Stemmatopus, 415,^416, 419, 465, 723. cristatus, 443, 444, 449, 725. mitratus, 449, 726. Stink-Kobbe, 599. Storkobbe, 657. Storsjiil, 657. Sulryg, 631. Svartside,431,631. Svartsiide, 422, 631. Sviinsael, 431, 433. S0ebi0rue, 431. S0ehare, 431. T. Tangfish, 562. Tapvaist, 690, 702. Tevyak, 726. Tizak, 599, 624. Tbrichechus, 15. Trichecbina, 5, 414. Tricbecbidse, 5, 11. Tricbecbodou, 12, 14, 15. huxleyi, 13, 14, 20, 26, 64, 80. konnincki, 14. Tricbecbus, 9, 11, 15, 16, 413, 414. cooki,22,51,147,171. divergens, 18, 19, 147, 170. dubius, 20, 26, 171. longidens, 19, 20, 26, 80, 171. manatus, 26, 432. obesus, 18, 80, 147, 170. rosmarus, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 147, 170. vlrginianus, 20, 26, 58, 80. Trichecina, 5, 11. Tricbecus, 9, 15. dugong, 9. manatus, 9. rosmarus, 9. Tricbipbociuce, 188. Tricbisiua, 414. TricbopbocacEB, 208. r. Uksuk, 657, 665. Urique, 430. Urksuk, 425, 665. Ursus mariuus, 193, 195, 313. 426. Utok^itsiak, 633. Utselr, 616. Ut-Selur, 426, 427, 617, 690, 697 Utsuk, 425, 426. T. Vacca marina, 94. Vacbe, marine, 24, 26, 82. Vade-Siil, 427. Vadeselr, 425. Vadeselur, 631. Veau marin, 562. Vikaresjiil, 599. Vikare-skal, 436. Gra, 436. Svart, 436. Viksiil, 599. Vitubis marinus, 423, 561, 6.57, 662. Vitulus maris oceani, 561. INDEX. 785 Wallross, 23, 26, 36, 81, 100, 147. Wallrus, 81. Walross, 23, 81. Walrus, 26, 82. Arctic, 24. Atlantic, 22» Fossil, 24. Pacific, 22, 147. Walruses, 2, 5, 221. Walrushen, 38. Wetrar-Selur, 427. 690, 697. Whitecoat, 631, 634. Wikare, 664. Wor-Selur, 427. Z. Zalophina, 188, 189. Zalophus, 189, 192, 209, 217, 223, 225, 2Y5. califomiauus, 205, 209, 217, 224, 226, 248, 252, 276, 759, 771. gillespii, 195, 199, 200, 202, 204, 251, 276, 291, 292. lobatus, 199, 200, 203, 204, 205, 209, 217, 252, 293, 294, 770. I \ \ 0 J OCT 6 1993 -%>?S/IY OF \Q'^ ' '^ t^f QL Allen, Joel Asaph 737 History of North P6A4 American Pinnipeds 1880 c . 1 . ESCI PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY \ rr ^c^' ^