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 

 emphatic manner, how imperfect our knowledge still is respect- 

 ing the Otaries of the Southern Hemisphere. Those of the 

 Xorthern are much better known, the oulv doubts still existing 



/i/ O 



having relation to those of Japan. Kespecting all the others, 

 there has been for the last eight years an almost perfect uuai- 

 uimity 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 iny 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 : 



Hair Seals or Sea-Lions. 



1. Otaria jubata. 



2. Eumetopias stelleri. 



3. Zaloplius californiauus. 



4. Zalophus lobatus. 



Fur Seals or Sea-Bears. 



6. Callorhinus ursinus. 



7. Arctocephalus falklandicus. 

 ?8. Arctocephalus antarcticus. 

 19. Arctoceplialus forsteri. 



5. Phocarctos hookeri. 



Although taken severely to task by Gray and others for my 

 " conservatism," especially respecting Otaria hookeri, 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, Callorhinus ursinus &n&AretocepMlusfalk- 

 landicus, auct.. av.stralis, Zimm.) show to have no importance as 

 specific characters. Indeed, I find Gray himself, in his latest ref- 

 erence to two of these species, writing as follows : " The Xew- 

 Zealand skull [ u Euoiaria cineiea"] is very like the skull of the 

 Southern Fur-Seal (Arctocepltalus niyrescens) from the Falkland 

 Islands and the south-west coast of Patagonia. It differs in the 

 position and form of the grinders, and in the form of the palate, 

 and its contracted Sides and truncated hinder part ; it differs 

 considerably from it in the outline and prominence of the tern- 



