PART II. 

 CLASSIFICATION OF THE PINNIPEDIA. 



In the course of the study of the species of Seals described in the preceding part of 

 this Report, I have been led to examine and compare, so far as the material at my 

 disposal would admit, the skeletons of other species of Seals, belonging both to the 

 Earless and Eared families, and also that of the Walrus. This examination and compari- 

 son have enabled me to recognise several anatomical characters, which either have had 

 too little attention paid to them, or have been altogether overlooked, and which are of 

 undoubted value in assisting one to discriminate between the different genera and species. 

 I propose in this part of the Report to give a classification of the Pinnipedia, and to 

 introduce into it, along with the characters usually recognised, those additional ones 

 which seem to me to be of value in taxonomy. 



Starting from the usually accepted position that the Pinnipedia are a suborder of 

 the Carnivora, which suborder is divided into three families, Phocidse, Trichechidas or 

 Odobaenidse, and Otariidse or Arctocephalidas, 1 I shall first state briefly the distinguish- 

 ing characters of these families, and then subdivide them into their subfamilies, genera, 

 and species. 



Phocida 



Without pinna of ear and scrotum ; postorbital processes either wanting or 

 rudimentary ; no alisphenoid canal ; mastoid moderate and not entirely discontinuous 

 from the tympanic bulla ; nasal bones elongated backwards between the two halves of 

 the frontal. Inner wall of orbit complete or almost complete. Hard palate the widest 

 opposite or a little behind the last pair of molars and almost in line with the hinder 



i See as authorities on the subdivision of the Pinnipedia, H. N. Turner, Proc. Zool. Soc. Land., 1848 ; Gill, 

 Proc. Essex Inst., vol. v., 1866, and Families of Mammalia, 1872 ; J. E. Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866 and 

 Supplement ; W. H. Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 'January 14, 1869, and article Mammalia in Ency. P.rit., 9th Ed.; 

 J. A. Allen, North American Pinnipeds, 1880 ; and St. George Mivart, Proc. Zool. Hoc. Lond., May 19, 1885. 



