582 PHOCA VITULINA HARBOR SEAL. 



which, of course, it has very remote affinities. It seems, how- 

 ever, that he was subsequently not fully satisfied with this alloca- 



FIG. 47. "Halichoerus antarcticus", Peale=Phoca vituliua, 1 natural size. 



tion of the species for he says later in the year last mentioned,, 

 " On rereading- Peale's description, I think that it is very prob- 

 ably a new genus, for he says it has six cutting teeth in the 

 upper jaw, and that the four posterior molar teeth in both jaws 

 are double-rooted, their crowns inany-lobed, the cutting teeth 

 short, simple and curved ; the whiskers flattened, waved on the 

 edges. To the animal so characterized the generic name Hali- 

 philus may be given."* Still later, on the basis of Dr. Gill's 

 determination of Peale's species, as previously noted, Dr. Gray 

 transferred it to his genus Halicyon, and adopted for it the name 

 Halicyon pealei.\ Cassin, in 1858, also referred Peale's Hali- 

 chcerus antarcticus to Lobotlon carcinophaga, doubtless following 

 Dr. Gray. 



In 1864, Dr. Gray described a Seal from a skull from Vancou- 

 ver's Island and a skeleton from Fraser's Biver, which he referred 

 not only to a new species but to a new genus, naming it ^'Ha- 

 licyon richardi. n \ The validity of the species seems to have 

 been first called in question by Mr. J. W. Clark in 1873, when 

 he compared Dr. Gray's type specimen with a skull from San- 

 Francisco, and with others from Newfoundland, and also with 

 a series of skulls of Phoca vitulina from the English coast. He 



*Aun. and Mag. Nat. Hist., xvii, 1866, p. 446. 



tSuppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, 1871, p. 2. 



JThe species was dedicated by Dr. Gray to " Captain Richard [lege Rich- 

 ards], tho Hyclrographer of the Admiralty," and ten years later Dr. Sclater 

 notes the fact that the name should be consequently richardsi. Proc. Zoiil- 

 Soc. Loml, 1873, p. 556, footnote. 



