18 MAMMALIA. FERA. Trichechus. 



22. P. barbata. Great Seal. — Length about 12 feet ; fur 



consisting of thin brown hairs. 



Haaf-fish, Bull-fish, Pen. Brit. Zool. 1. p. 130". — On the shores of the 

 Hebrides and northern islands. 



The history of this species as a British subject is very imperfect. Pen- 

 nant did not meet with it during his voyage. The Bev. Donald Maclean, in 

 his account of the Parish of Small Isles, Stat. Ac. vol. xvii. p. 275-, mentions 

 the great seal as a distinct species, and states, that, while the common kind 

 bring forth their young in the middle of summer, this species does so about 

 the middle of harvest. Dr Edmonston, in his " View of the Zetland Is- 

 lands," ii. p. 294., says, "That the head is longer in proportion to the body 

 than in the common seal; that they live in pairs only, and in exposed situa- 

 tions." In the article Greenland, in the Edin. Encyc, by Sir Charles Gieseeke, 

 it is stated, that the flesh of this species is white and very good. The " Great 

 Seal" of the British Museum (Phil. Trans, xlii. p. 383. tab. i.), seems to be an 

 aged individual of the common species. In the Appendix, No. 4., to " Ross's 

 Voyage of Discovery to Baffin's Bay," there is a description of this species, 

 which we shall here insert, as furnishing a standard of comparison in the exa- 

 mination of our native kind. 



" Its length, from the tip of the nose to the extremity of the tail, was 

 8 feet ; its circumference, behind the fore-flippers, 5 feet 7 inches ; weight, 

 830 pounds. " Fore-flippers measured in length 1 1 inches, in breadth 6 in- 

 ches. Hind-flippers, in length 1G inches, in breadth 2 feet; when expanded. 

 The claws of the former were black, horny, and curved ; those of the lat- 

 ter were long and straight. Fingers five, middle ones longest in fore-flip- 

 pers. The body covered with thick, coarse, short, dark grey hair. The eyes 

 about the size of an ox's, furnished with a nictitant membrane, irides dark 

 hazel ; the pupil elliptic, perpendicular. No external ears ; the auricular 

 apertures placed about 2 inches behind the eyes. The upper lip broad, round- 

 ed, fleshy, divided into two lobes by a deep sulcus, division, which is black and 

 naked ; each lobe is provided with eight rows of strong white bristles, semi- 

 pellucid, and curled at the ends ; the lower less thin and pointed. Tongue 

 thick, pointed and cleft ; upper surface papillous. Teeth, upper front six, 

 truncate, small ; tusks solitary, truncate ; grinders three, the anterior one 

 solitary ; lower front four, imperfectly developed ; tusks small and obtuse ; 

 grinders seven, the two posterior imperfectly lobed, the rest being small long 

 tuberosities, scarcely produced through the gum. The heart about the bulk 

 of that of the ox, its texture strong ; the foramen ovale obliterated, (a point 

 on which there is yet some discord among comparative anatomists). The 

 aorta 3 inches in diameter, its coats 2^ lines in thickness ; the caliber of the 

 pulmonary artery nearly the same ; the thickness of its coats 1 line. Kidneys 

 elliptic, lobes 150 to 100. Stomach filled with a greenish dark fluid; its in- 

 ner coat lined with ascarides an inch and a half long ; they hold on with great 

 tenacity, rendering it difficult to detach them; the small intestines were in- 

 habited thickly with teniae, from 1 to 5 feet in length. Excrementa of the 

 large intestines resembling thick verdigris paint. Penis about 18 inches 

 long, 8 in circumference ; the lobe about 8 inches long, and 3 in circumference ; 

 the lower surface depressed for the reception of the urinary canal." 



11. Destitute of incisors or tusks in the lower jaw. 



Gen. XVI. TRICHECHUS. Walrus— Tusks of the up- 

 per jaw greatly produced, and directed ventrally. 



23. T. Rosmarus. Tusks remote. 

 Walrus, Sibb. Scot. p. 10., Mac S Ulivrcty y Edin. PhiL Journ. ii. p. 380 — A 

 rare straggler. 



