26 EDWARD A. WILSON. 



Of the diseases of the Antarctic seals there is )jut little to be said. They are not 

 exempt from the ravages of unfriendly bacteria, for one may see their wounds freely 

 suppurating, and in more than one case the eyes both of adult and young have been 

 seen streaming with pus. They are also apparently subject to uric acid troubles, for 

 the kidney tubules have been found in one or two cases occujjied completely by renal 

 calculi. In the coronary arteries also, very definite atheromatous deposits may 

 occasionally be found. 



STENORHINCHUS LEPTONYX. 



The Sea-Leopard. 

 Phoca leptonyx, de Blainville, Journ. de Physique, etc., t. XCI. (1820), pp. 288-289 and 297-298. 

 Stenorhinchus leptonyx, F. Cuvler, Diet. Sci. Nat., XXXIX. (1826), p. 549. 

 Ogmorhmus leptonyx, Peters, Monatsb. k. Akad., Berlin (1875), p. 393 ; Barrett-Hamilton, Rep. ' Southern 



Cross' (1902), p. 25, ihiqm citata ; K. A. Andersson, Wiss. Ergeb. der Schwed. Siidpolar-Esped., 



Bd. V. 2 (1905), pp. 11-13. 



Stenorhynchus leptonyx, Brown, Mossman, and Pirie, Toy. ' Scotia,' (1902), pp. 122, 222, 227. 



Material in the 'Discovery's' Collection. 



No. Ot, 9 , ad. skin and skull. Jan. 7, 1902. Pack ice, Ross Sea, 68° S. 175^ E. {Mounted 

 for the B. 31. Gallery by Rowland Ward.) 



Material in the ' Morning's ' Collection. 



No. 18, M. 7. 9, ad. skin. Dec. 28, 1902. Pack ice, Ross Sea, 68° 5.5' S. 175" 26' E. 

 No. 65, M. 30. i , ad. skin and skull. Jan. 1904. Pack ice, Ross Sea, 68° S. 173° E. 

 No. 66, M. 27. 9 , ad. sk. Jan. 1904. Pack ice, Ross Sea, 69° S. 178° E. 



For the history of the type specimens, and of the earliest descriptions of this seal, I 

 must refer my readers to the account given by Captain Barrett Hamilton under 

 Ogmorhinus in the Report on the 'Southern Cro.ss' Collections (pp. 25-27). The 

 synonomy there given also covers the matter so completely that I could but quote 

 the paragraph word for word. I venture in this paper, however, to return to 

 Stenorhinchus, a name which is certainly open to objection, but not perhaps to so much 

 as are Ogmorhinus and Stenorhynchus, while it is certainly preferable to Hydrurga. 



Stenorhinchus, then, has a very extensive range, not only far to the south and 

 within the Antarctic Circle, l)ut also throughout the Southern temperate regions. It 

 has been recorded, for example, from the Falklands, Campbell Island, Desolation 

 Island, New Georgia, Lord Howe Island, Tasmania, Cape Horn, New South Wales, 

 Patagonia, Kerguelen, and various parts of the coast of New Zealand (Port 

 Nicholson and Wellington Harbour, the Waikato and Wanganui rivers), where Sir 

 James Hector says it is a common Init a solitary animal. " It frequently comes on 

 shore, and, notwithstanding its feeble powers of locomotion, scrambles far l)ack into 

 the bush in flat country, and occasionally ascends rivers for a long distance." Farther 

 south, Captain Larsen reported it from Louis Philippe Land in November, ]Mr. Bruce 

 from Graham's Land, and ]\lr. Borchgrevink from Robertson Bay in September. Sir 



