36 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



Arctocephalus, F. Cuvier. 

 Arctocephales, F. Cuvier, Mem. du Museum, xi., 1824. 



In the Narrative of the Voyage it is stated that Fur-Seals frequented Nightingale 

 Island, one of the Tristan da Cunha group ; the Crozet Islands ; Kerguelen Island ; Juan 

 Fernandez ; the Messier Channel ; and Elizabeth Island in the Strait of Magellan. 

 Specimens of Eared Seals, which did not possess the elongated concave palate so 

 characteristic of the genus Otaria in the sense defined on p. 29, were procured from the 

 Kerguelen group of islands ; in Messier Channel on the west coast of South America, and 

 from Juan Fernandez. They consisted of the following specimens from Kerguelen : — 

 Two carcases of young Fur-Seals without the skin, procured from the " Emma Jane " at 

 Fullers Harbour, January 1874; two skeletons of Fur-Seals also at Fullers Harbour, which 

 were distinguished from each other as No. 1 and No. 2 (No. 2 having been killed on 

 Swaine Island). From the Messier Channel were obtained the skin and skeleton of a 

 male and the skin and skeleton of a female, also two skeletons of males shot on rocks in 

 January 1876. The specimen from Juan Fernandez was a skin containing the skeleton 

 of a very young animal. 



Arctocephalus gazella, Peters (PI. VI.). 



Arctocephalus gazella, Peters, Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Aknd. d. Wiss. Berlin, June 10, 1875, p. 393. 

 Kerguelen Island Fur-Seal. 



This species of Fur-Seal was described by the late Professor W. Peters from two 

 specimens procured for the Berlin Museum by the German exploring ship " Gazelle," 

 which visited Kerguelen Island shortly after the departure of the Challenger in 1874. 

 The larger of these two specimens was the skin of a male, but without the cranium, 

 whilst the smaller skin contained the head and trunk of a female, not quite adult. 



Subsequently to his first description of this species, Peters ascertained ' that only 

 the female specimen had been obtained from Kerguelen ; whilst the male skin was either 

 from St. Paul or Amsterdam Island, and he named it Arctocephalus elegans. 



The Fur-Seals collected by the Challenger at Kerguelen Island I have referred to 

 Arctocephalus gazella. At the request of the late Sir C. Wyville Thomson, I forwarded, 

 in November 1877, the skull of one of the larger specimens (No. 2) procured by the 

 Challenger to Professor Peters for examination. In returning the specimen to me in 

 April 1878, Professor Peters wrote that it was the male of Arctocephalus gazella, of 

 which he had previously seen only the skull of a female. The male, he said, showed 

 " all the peculiarities of the species, which consist, amongst others, in the extreme small- 

 ness of the tympanic bones, a part which is of so great an importance as it is peculiar for 

 each species." 



1 Idem, May 18, 1876, p. 315. 



