REPORT ON THE SEALS. 51 



massive of all the bones of the toes. The 2nd metatarsal articulated with the 1st 

 and 3rd and with the three cuneiforms ; it was bent a little inwards, much less than 

 in the Elephant Seal, in order to pass slightly behind the 1st metatarsal. The 3rd 

 metatarsal articulated with the 2nd and 4 th and with the ecto-cuneiform ; it was the 

 shortest of the metatarsals. The 4th metatarsal articulated with the 3rd and 5th and 

 with the ecto-cuneiform and the cuboid, it was not hollowed out on the outer side of the 

 shaft as in Macrorhinus and Leptonychotes. The 5th metatarsal was next in length to 

 the first, but much less broad; it possessed at its tarsal end a peroneal tubercle and 

 articulated with the 4th metatarsal and the cuboid. The terminal phalanx of the 2nd, 

 3rd, and 4th toes was prolonged into a pointed ungual process on which the nail rested, 

 but the corresponding phalanx of the 1st and 5 th digits had no such process, and the 

 nails w T ere smaller than in the other toes. A pair of sesamoids was situated on the 

 plantar surface of each metatarso-phalangeal joint. In the adult male all the epiphyses 

 were fused with the diaphyses, but in the young male the epiphyses were seen to have 

 a similar arrangement to those described in the metatarsals and phalanges of the 

 Elephant and Weddell's Seals. 



The tarsalia in Arctocephalus gazella corresponded in number, form, and arrangement 

 to those of A rctocephalus australis. The bones of the digits were also similar, but more 

 slender, and the epiphyses as in the young male of the other species were not ankylosed. 



Nearly twenty years ago the late Professor Alleu Thomson described : the ossifica- 

 tion of the digits in the common seal, Phoca vitulina. In the manus he said that the 

 1st metacarpal bone and all the digital phalanges, except the terminal phalanx, each 

 possessed only a proximal epiphysis, whilst in the four other metacarpal bones there were 

 only distal epiphyses. In the pes again, the 1st metatarsal bone had both a proximal 

 and a distal epiphysis like the phalanges generally, except that the terminal phalanx had 

 only a proximal epiphysis ; the four other metatarsals had each only a distal epiphysis. 

 In the year 1869, the late Mr. A. B. Stirling prepared and mounted, in the Anatomical 

 Museum of the University of Edinburgh, specimens to illustrate this method of ossification 

 of these bones. The description which has been given in this Report of the manus and 

 pes of Macrorhinus, Leptonychotes, and Arctocep>halus, shows that in them the bones 

 of the digits of the manus do not ossify in the same manner as in the manus of Phoca 

 vitulina, but that in all these three genera the digits both of the manus and pes ossify 

 after the same plan, which corresponds with that seen in the pes of the common seal. 



The length of the spine of the adult male Fur-Seal from Messier Channel was 1490 

 mm., the dried intervertebral discs being included, and that of the skull of the same 

 animal was 233 mm., giving a total length of 1723 mm. or 5 ft. 6 in. The length of 

 the spine of the adult female, including the dried intervertebral discs but exclusive of 

 the six terminal caudal vertebrae which were missing, was 1100 mm., and the length of 



1 Journ. of Anat. and Phys., November 1868, p. 140. 



