REPORT ON THE SEALS. 5 



the ventral aspect of the tail. Into it the urethra, vagina, and rectum opened. A pair 

 of nipples projected from the abdominal wall about ] 6 inches in front of the vent ; when 

 pressed on, each nipple receded into a depression in the integument, 



The hair of the face and back was dark grey, dashed with a brown or yellow tint ; 

 down the sides and belly it was lighter and more yellow, with a dash of reddish-brown, 

 but the brownish tint was to some extent due to discoloration from the oil which had 

 escaped out of the blubber amongst the hair. In Dr. Gray's figure of a female Elephant 

 Seal in the Voyage of the "Erebus" and "Terror" (pi. ix.), the face and the sides and 

 belly are coloured a lighter yellow than was seen in my specimen. Mr. Eaton 1 does not 

 refer to the yellow colour of the hair, which he says in some specimens is uniformly 

 reddish-brown, in others is pale, blotched and spotted with darker grey. 



Skeleton. — There does not appear to be on record any detailed description of the 

 skeleton of the Elephant Seal, or of the characters which differentiate the bones of the 

 male and female. F. Cuvier has given 2 a short description of the skull. Some measure- 

 ments both of the skull and other bones have been recorded by Mr. J. A. Allen in his 

 monograph on the North American Pinnipeds. 3 Professor Flower has described some 

 characters of the cranium of a splendid specimen of a large male from the Falkland Islands, 4 

 and in the Catalogue of the Skeletons of the Mammals in the Museum of the Eoyal 

 College of Surgeons of England 5 he has given the length of the articulated skeleton as 

 4500 mm. from tip of nose to end of tail, and 4890 mm. to end of posterior digits. Dr. 

 St. George Mivart has also published 6 short notes on the cranium. A more detailed 

 description is still, however, a desideratum. It is especially necessary to make a com- 

 parison of the male and female crania, as they differ from each other so much in size, 

 and to some extent in relative proportions, that a naturalist, in ignorance of the animals 

 from which they had been obtained, might easily regard them as belonging to different 

 species. As the collection contained crania in different stages of growth, some obser- 

 vations on the influence of age on the skull have also been made. 



Skull. — The skulls which have been examined whilst writing the following description 

 consisted not only of those collected by the Challenger, both males and females (p. 3), 

 but of a fine male, which had been shot on Heard Island, presented to me for the 

 Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh by my former pupil and assistant, 

 Professor J. Halbday Scott of Dunedin, N.Z. 



In the following table I have stated the measurements of the three male skulls, and of 

 the large female (f) shot at Betsy Cove ; and to allow their relative size to be compared 

 with that of other recorded specimens, I have, in addition to a number of new measure- 

 ments, also adopted those employed by Professor Flower in his account of the skull of 



1 Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond., vol. xxiii. p. 502, 1875, and Phil. Traiu., vol. clxviii. p. 96, 1879. 



2 M4m. du Museum, t. xi. p. 200, pi. 14, 1824. 3 U.S. Geol. Survey, Washington, 1880. 

 4 Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., January 4, 1881. 5 London, 1884. 6 Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., May 19, 1885. 



