MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 9 



numerous other general features, as well as in the pelage, as will be 

 more fully noticed hereafter. Fourteen species have been recognized, 

 but three of them (0. leoriina, 0. Byronia, 0. falklandicd) he seems to 

 have regarded as doubtfully distinct from others. He refers Gray's 

 Arctocephalus Delalandii to the Phoca pusilla of Schreber, and (with a 

 query, however) Gray's Arctocephalus nigrescens to the Otaria falk- 

 landica of Shaw. 



In consequence of the publication of these papers of Dr. Gill and 

 Professor Peters, Dr. Gray was led to a re-examination of the speci- 

 mens of the Otariadce in the British Museum, and in September of the 

 same year he published the results of his investigations.* In this 

 paper he for the first time regards the Otarice as a family (though 

 several other writers had done so previously), and speaks of certain 

 features that indicate their superiority to the Phocidce. He adopts an 

 entirely different generic class'ieatiou from that given by him a few 

 months before, f both as to the number of genera and their mutual 

 relations. The seven named sections of Otaria of Peters he admits to 

 the rank of genera, with the limits ascribed to them by Peters. He 

 adds also one " new genus " (DFeophoca), based on his Arctocephalus 

 lobatus, which species Peters had referred to Gill's genus Zalophus. 

 Gray had now eight genera and three subgenera.! Only ten species 

 being recognized by him as valid, he has now but a single species to 

 each of his generic and subgeneric subdivisions. Although the paper 

 is a somewhat important one, containing as it does many valuable sug- 

 gestions, no really new matter is described in it. 



Another paper on the Eared Seals by Peters § immediately followed 

 this one of Gray. In the few months intervening since the publication 

 of his previous e-say on this subject, Professor Peters had visited Eng- 

 land and Holland, and examined the specimens contained in the prin- 

 cipal museums of these countries, including among them the specimens 

 in the Leyden Museum described and figured in the Fauna Japonica, 



* " Notes on the Skulls of the Sea Bears and Sea Lions (Otnrindce) in the British 

 Museum," Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d Series, Vol. XVIII. pp. 228 -237, September 

 1866. 



f In his Catalogue of Seals and Whales. 



\ Arctocephalus is divided into Arctocephalus, containing A. Delalandii; Euotaria, con. 

 taining A. nigrescens ; and Gypsopkoca, containing A. cinereus. 



§ A supplement to his previous " Abhandlungen iiber die Ohrenrobben, Olariiv.^ 

 Monatsb. d. k. I'. Akad. z. Berlin, 1866, pp. 665-672, November, 1866. 

 VOL. II. 2 



