MONACHUS. ARCTOCEPHALUS. r>4M 



509. tropicalis (Phoca), Gray, Cat. Seals, Brit. Mus., 1850, p. 28. 

 WEST INDIAN SEAL. 



Type locality. Island of Jamaica. 



Geogr. Distr. Formerly from islands off coast of Yucatan, Mexico, 

 to Bay of Honduras and eastward to Jamaica, Cuba, Florida Keys 

 and the Bahamas. At present found only on some Keys north of 

 Cuba and on some scattered islands between Cuba and Yucatan. 



Gcnl. Char. Whiskers long, flexible; pelage short, stiff; well 

 developed nails on anterior digits; small on those of the pes; muzzle 

 elongated, depressed; soles and palms naked. 



Color. Above brown tinged with gray; sides lighter, grading 

 into yellowish white on the under parts; edge of under lip, front and 

 sides of muzzle yellowish white; limbs brown tinged with gray. 



Measurements. Total length (nose to end of hind limbs), 2390; 

 length of manus, 300; of pes, 320. 



The Fur Seals are best known by the northern animals whose 

 skin has such a high commercial value and whose rockeries or breeding 

 places on the St. George and St. Paul islands of the Pribilof group, 

 are familiar to so many. On a few places like the Guadalupe Island 

 off the coast of Lower California, the Gallapagos Islands, and sundry 

 others about the coasts of Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, a few 

 members of the once great herds of the Southern Fur Seal may still 

 remain, but they seem to be rapidly decreasing in numbers, and 

 recent expeditions have failed to find any living individuals on some 

 of the islands mentioned above, and have been able to bring back only 

 skulls or parts of skeletons. Like other animals whose fur has a high 

 commercial value, the prospect that these animals have for surviving 

 the rapacity of man is but slight. 



1O7. Arctocephalus. Sea-bears. 



Arctocephalus F. Cuv., Dist. Scien. Nat., xxxix, 1826, p. 554. 



Type Phoca twsina Linnaeus. 

 Halarctus Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, p. 7. 

 Arctophoca Peters, Monatsb. Preuss. Ak. Wiss. Berl., 1866, p. 



276. Taf. n. A, B, C. 



Euotaria Gray, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d Ser., xvm, 1866, p. 236. 

 Gypsophoca Gray, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d Ser., xvin, 1866, p. 



236. 

 Skull : slender, with facial portion elongate. 



