CAllNARIA. 119 



species which inhabits the Caspian sea, and the great fresh 

 water lakes of Russia and Siberia, but this assertion does not 

 appear to be founded on an exact comparison. In fact, the 

 European seas contain several Phocae, which have long been 

 confounded, some of which are perhaps mere varieties of the 

 others. 



Thus, some of them have the back covered with small cloud- 

 ed, confluent, brownish spots, on a yellowish ground Ph. his- 

 pida, Schreb. 86.(1) These are the most common ones of the 

 northern ocean. In others again the ground is dark, traversed 

 with undulating lines, which sometimes form rings Ph. annel- 

 lata. Nils., Thienem. pi, ix xii ; Ph.fcBtida, Fabr.(2), 8cc. 



A species more easily recognised is the 



Ph. groenlandica, and P. oceanica; Eged. Groenl. fig. A, 

 p. 62; Lepechin, Act. Petrop. I, part I, pi. vi vii.; 

 Thieneman, pi. xiv ^xxi. (The Harp Seal.) Yellowish grey, 

 spotted with brown when young, afterwards marked by an ob- 

 lique black or brown scarf on each flank ; the head of the old 

 male is black ; length five feet. From the whole north of the 

 globe. 



Ph. barbata, Fabr.; Thienem. pi. i iv. (The Bearded Seal.) 

 From the North, and surpasses all the preceding ones in its 

 size, which is from seven to eight feet ; it is grey ; browner 

 above, with a longitudinal blackish line that forms a sort of 

 cross upon the chanfrin. Its mustachios are thicker and stronger 

 than the others. 



Ph. leucopla^ Thienem. pi. xiii. (The White-nailed Seal.) 

 Is of a yellowish grey. 



Ph. lagura, Cuv. (The Hare-tailed Seal.) Has the tail 

 white and woolly, &c.(3) 



Stenorhincus, Fred. Cuv. 



Four incisors above, and four below, the molars deeply notched 

 into three points. 



One species only is known, and that is from the Austral seas 

 Ph. leptonix, Blain. Size of the barbata ; greyish above ; 

 yellowish beneath ; nails small. 



(1) I suspect we should refer to it the Ph. scopuUcola, Thienem. pi. v. 



(2) It is one of those represented by Fr. Cuv. under the name of " Phoque 

 commun. " 



(3) I only wish to mention those species which I consider sufficiently ascertain- 

 ed. The long catalogues of the Phocx, recently published, seem to me to multi- 

 ply them a great deal too much. 



