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 autorem."* 



SUBFAMILY PHOCIN^E Gray. 

 GENUS PHOCA, LINN^ (emend.). 



Phoca, LINNE, Syst. Nat., 1758, i, 37; ibid., 1766, i, 55 (in part). 



Pusa, SCOPOLI, Introcl. Hist. Nat., 1777, 490. Type, Phoca fcetida. (See infra, 



under genus Haliclicerm. ) 

 Caloctfphale [Callocephalus], F. CUVIER, Mein. du Mus., xi, 1824, 182. Type, 



Phoca vitulina, Linne". 



Calocephalus, F. CUVIER, Diet. Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 544; lix, 1829, 462. 

 Pagophilm, GRAY, "Zool. Erebus and Terror, 1844, 3" (snbgenus); Cat. Seals 



Brit. Mus., 1850, 25 (genus). Type, Phoca grcenlandica. 

 Pagomys, GRAY, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1864, 31. Type, Phoca fcetida, Fa- 



bricius. 

 Halicyon, GRAY, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1864, 28. Type, "Halicyon richardi" 



= Phoca vitulina. 

 HalipMltis, GRAY, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., xvii, 1866, 446. Type, Hali- 



chcerus atitarcticus, Peale = Phoca vitulina. 



Incisors |f^4 j 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 fosses and the auditory bullse very small. Erignatlius 

 further differs from Phoca in having small supra-orbital pro- 

 cesses ; in the total absence of the acromiou process of the scap- 



* Journal of a Voyage to North America (Dodsley translation), vol. i, 1761, 

 pp. 222-226. For the original see Journal d'un Voyage fait par ordre du 

 Roi dans 1'Amerique septentrinonale (12mo ed., 1744), pp. 211-216. 



