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



Lions and Sea Bears as merely species of that genus. A similar view would also appear 

 to be entertained by Dr. St. George Mivart. 1 



The position which Mr. Allen, Dr. Burmeister, and to some extent Professor Peters, 

 have taken up, that a sharp line of demarcation separates the pelage of the Sea Lions 

 and Sea Bears, owing to the absence of an under-fur in the former and its presence in 

 the latter, is apparently not quite free from doubt or absolutely to be accepted. Professor 

 Peters, indeed, admits that both in young and aged Fur-Seals the fur is very sparse. 

 In the young Fur-Seal from Juan Fernandez described on p. 51 there was no differentia- 

 tion of the hair into over-hair and under-kair or fur. Dr. Murie states 2 that beneath 

 the hair of the Sea Lion, Otaria jubata, which is short, firm and thick in the pile, there 

 is a reddish underwool, very sparsely scattered and which sensibly diminishes with age. 

 Mr. J. W. Clark 3 also points out that in a specimen which he examined of the Grey Sea 

 Lion (Arctocephalus cinereus), from New South Wales, whilst the hair was short, stiff, 

 and bristly, a red and sparse under-fur was present. Dr. Gray, in the Supplement to 

 his Catalogue of Seals and Whales, 4 dwells at some length on the variability displayed 

 in the length and abundance of the under-fur, which, indeed, he says may be present or 

 absent in accordance with the season at which the animals are observed. But with 

 reference to his remarks it should be stated that he does not always differentiate, with 

 sufficient precision, the Hair-Seals from the Fur- Seals. For he places the Sea Lion of 

 the North Pacific (Eumetopias stelleri) amongst the Fur-Seals, whilst it is without doubt 

 a Hair-Seal. 5 If the presence in some Eared Seals of an under-fur and its absence in 

 others were absolute, then undoubtedly it would furnish a divisional character of much 

 value. It is, however, without question, that in the Fur-Seals the thick coat of under- 

 fur constitutes a most important structural feature- 

 There is also, I think, sufficient evidence to show that in the cranial construction 

 of the different species of Eared Seals differences do exist of such a kind as to support 

 the view which so many zoologists have entertained that they possess a generic value, 

 though whether these differences are so important as to justify the breaking up of the 

 group into six or more genera, is, I think, very doubtful. The great Sea Lion of the 

 southern hemisphere differs, however, in so many particulars from the Fur-Seals of the 

 same seas, that it may fairly be separated from them by a distinct generic name, and to 

 it, therefore, along with Peters and Allen, I restrict the name Otaria, although, in 

 adopting this separation, it must be admitted that the passage from the Sea Lion of 

 South America to the Fur-Seals is graded by such forms as Steller's Seal, the Californian 

 Sea Lion, and the Hair-Seal from the Auckland Islands. 



1 Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., May 19, 1885. 



2 Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., January 28, 1869. 



3 Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., March 18, 1884. 



4 London, 1871, p. 9; also in Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist, vol. iv. p. 264, 1869. 



5 See Elliott's elaborate description of this Seal in his work on Alaska already cited. 



