TECHNICAL HISTOEY SPECIES. 433 



&c., under various Eskimo names, but which he was unable to 

 decipher. Ilr. Fleischer, Colonibestyrer of Jacobshavn, has 

 aided me in resolving these : 



"1. fiiguktoJ;, having a long snout and a body similar to 

 Phoca grcenlandica, perhaps P. ursiwt. This is apparently some 

 Eskimo perversion, if interpreted properly; for I am assured 

 that it is only the name of the Eider Duck (Somateria mollis- 

 Nima). [In his memoir in the ' Skrivter af Naturhistorie- 

 Selskabet' (vol. i, part ii, p. 163) it is called ' Sviinsaeleu (Phoca 

 porclna}\ and he refers to it such diverse creatures as Molina's 

 1 Phoca porcina' and Pennant's 'Bottle-nosed Seal,' and devotes 

 nearly four pages to its consideration.] 



"2. Itab-ukulUa; a Seal with a snow-white coat, 'the eye pre- 

 senting a red iris, probably P. leporina\ is a rare albino of the 

 Netsik (Pagomys fcetidus). The meaning of the word is the Sea- 

 hare. [In the 'Skrivter' (1. c. p. 168) this is called 'S^eharen 

 (Phoca leporinay, of which Lepechiu's ' Phoca leporina' and 

 Schreber's 'sibirische Seehuud' are cited as synonyms.] 



" 3. Atarpiak or atarpek, 'the smallest species of Seal, not ex- 

 ceeding the size of the hand, of a whitish color, and a blackish 

 spot of the form of a half-moon on each side of the body.' This 

 description does not correspond to the meaning of the word, 

 which is ' the Brown Seal'. [This in the ' Skrivter' (1. c. p. 169) 

 appears as the 'Niende Art, Atarpiak', without a Latin name or 

 synonyms.] Hr. Fleischer thinks that it is only a myth, as is 



"4. Kongest&riak [not mentioned in the 'Skrivter'], which 

 has, ' according to the description given by the natives, some 

 resemblance to the Sea-ape described by Mr. Heller '. This is 

 one of the northern myths." 1 



In 1792 appeared Kerr' "Animal Kingdom", the title-page 

 of which states it to be "A translation of that part of the Sys- 

 terna Naturae, as , lately published by Professor Gmelin of Gcet- 

 tingen, together with numerous additions from more recent 

 zoological writers and illustrated with copper plates." In this 

 work (pp. 121-128) nineteen species appear under the generic 

 name Phoca, with five additional varieties, among which we find 

 the real origin of quite a number of names currently attributed 

 to much later authors. The species and varieties here enumer- 

 ated are the following, the new names being distinguished by 

 the use of thick type: 1. Phoca ursina; 2. P. leonina (=Bot- 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1868, p. 360; Man. Nat. Hist., etc., Greenland, 

 pp. 31, :'--,'. 



Misc. Pub. No. 12 28 



