MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 5 



principal recent papers relating to the subject is accordingly here in- 

 troduced. For references to earlier papers the reader is referred to 

 the works cited in Dr. J. E. Gray's British Museum Catalogues of the 

 Seals and Professor W. Peters's elaborate essay on these animals pub- 

 lished in the Monatsberichte of the Berlin Academy for 18GG. 



The present notice of the literature of the Otariadce begins with 

 Dr. Gray's " Catalogue of the Seals in the British Museum," pub- 

 lished in '1850, in which valuable work two genera (Arctocephalus and 

 Otaria) and eight species* are recognized. The next paper requiring 

 mention is that of Dr. McBain.f describing, in 1858, a new species 

 {Otaria Gillespii) from a skull from the Gulf of California. A fe^ 

 months later Dr. Gray published some important notes relative to 

 the Northern sea bear (Arctocephalus ursinus Auct.).:j: based on a skin 

 and skull of an adult male from Behring's Straits, received at the 

 British Museum by way of Amsterdam and St. Petersburg, under the 

 name of Otaria leonina. This paper is accompanied by an excellent 

 profile figure of the skull, which seems to be the only figure of the skull 

 of this species that has been hitherto published. 



Two weeks later Dr. Gray communicated to the Zoological Society 

 another paper on the Eared Seals, § in which the fur seal of the Cape 

 of Good Hope was described anew from a specimen received by him 

 from Paris, and of which he published a view in profile of the skull. 

 He appends to this paper a synopsis of the genus Arctocephalus, in 

 which he divides it into three unnamed sections, based on characters 

 drawn from the skull. Short diagnoses are also given of the species, 

 which he groups as follows : — 



"I. Arctocephalus ursinus; TT. A. Hookcri ; HI. A. Delalandii, 

 A. nigrescens, A. lobatus, A. Gillespii." He also gives a profile fig- 

 ure || of a ca^t of the skull described by Dr. McBain as Otaria Gil- 

 lespii. 



Some months later the same indefatigable author published a paper 



* The<e are Arctocephalus ursinus, A. falklandicus, A cinereus,. A. lobatus, A. austra- 

 lis, A. Hookeri, Otaria S'elleri, and 0. leonina. 



f Proe. Edinburgh Royal Phys. Soc., Vol. I, p. 422. 



| " On the Sea Bear of Forster, the Uisus marinu* of Steller, Arctocephalus ursinus of 

 authors," Proe. London Zoid. Soc., 1859, pp 101, 100, PI. Ixviii. 



§ '• < >n the Eared Seal of the Cape of Good Hope ( Otaria Delalandii)," Ibid , pp. 

 107-110, PI. lxix. 



II Ibid., PI. lxx. 



