GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 11 



equivalent in extent with the order Pinnvpedia. The propriety 

 of the changes introduced by niiger was not speedily recognized 

 by contemporary writers ; Cuvier, and many subsequent syste- 

 rnatists for half a century, placing the Pinnipeds among the 

 Carnivora and the Sirenians among the Cetacea, with the rank 

 respectively of families, the family PJiocidce embracing all the 

 Pinnipeds. Dr. J. E. Gray, in 1821,* and again in 1825,f widely 

 separated the Walruses from the Seals as a family, TrichecMdcc, 

 Avhich he most strangely placed (together with the Sirenians) in 

 the order Cete. Later, however, in 1837, he reunited the Wal- 

 ruses and the Seals into the single family Phocidce, which he 

 divided into five subfamilies, Trichechina being the third and 

 central group, and embracing the genera Halichcerus and Triclie- 

 chus. This highly artificial classification he retained till 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 Pinnipeds as an 

 order (Amphibia), but separated the Walruses from the others 

 as a distinct family (Broca), the Seals forming his family Cyno- 

 morpha. 



In 1829, F. Cuvierll divided the Pinnipeds into the Seals proper 

 ( " les Phoques proprenient dits"), and theWalruses ("les Morses") . 

 Brookes, ff in 1828, again recognized the Walruses as forming 

 a family (" TrichecMdw sen Campodontia") distinct from the 

 < ther Pinnipeds. Wagler,** in 1830, made the Walruses merely 

 a genus of his order Ursi. Xilsson, ft in 1837, divided the Pin- 

 nipeds into two sections, the second of which embraced not only 

 Triehechits, but also Halichcerus, Cystopliora, and Otaria. Tur- 

 ner, || in 1848, from a study of the skulls, separated the Pinni- 

 peds into three natural groups, considered by him to hold the 

 rank of subfamilies, namely : Arctoccplialina, embracing Otaria 

 and Arctoceplialus ; Tricliccina, consisting of the genus "Triche- 

 cus " $ and Phocina, embracing all the other Seals. Gill, in I860, 



* "London Med. Repos., 1821, p. 302," aptid Gray. 

 t Annals of PMlosophy, 2cl ser., vol. x, 1825, p. 340. 

 t London's Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. i, p. 583. 

 vS Fam. Reg. Anim., p. 51. 

 || Diet. Sci. Nat,, t. lix, p. 367. 



H "Cat. of Ms Anatoin. and Zool. Mus., p. 36," apud auct. 

 **Naturl. Syst. Amph., p. 27. 



tt Vctcusk. Akad. Haudl., 1837, 235; Wiegmann's Arch. f. Naturg., 1841,. 

 p. 306 (trausl.). 



tt Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1848, pp. 85, 88. 

 ^ Pror. Essex Institute, vol. v, p. 7. 



