16 BULLETIN OF THE 



The skull from the Cape of Good Hope is (he one on which Professor 

 Turner* had founded his Arctocephalus schisthyperoes. This skull Dr. 

 Gray is induced to helieve is that of a half-grown Arctocephalus Dela- 

 landii, presenting an individual abnormality in the form of the palatine 

 bones. The three skulls from Desolation Island he refers to his Euotaria 

 nigrcscens. In his remarks respecting them he speaks of certain differ- 

 ences he had observed in the relative position of the hinder grinders in 

 the Desolation Island skulls, and also in the form of the posterior nares. 

 In this connection he also compares Euotaria nigrcscens with Arcto- 

 cephalus Dclalandii, and says that the last upper molar teeth being 

 " placed in front of the hinder edge of the front part of the zygomatic 

 arch" in the former is, so far as the skull is concerned (on which his 

 distinction of his groups is mainly based), all that distinguishes them. 

 This difference, he says, is slight in the adult, but more marked in the 

 young ; but '• even then," he adds, " the difference is more imaginary than 

 real." We should hardly expect, after this admission, and his apparently 

 appreciative remarks in the same paper on the notable differences he 

 had observed in skulls he regards as specifically identical, that in his 

 subjoined new synopsis of the "tribes and genera" of the Otariadfe he 

 should place, as he has done, these two species in different genera! 

 He remarks that he does not now regard the " form of the hinder 

 opening of the nostrils, and the form of its front edge," a< constituting 

 "a good character." The position of the grinders he regards as afford- 

 ing reliable specific characters during youth, but that in maturity their 

 form is so much altered by age, "and their position in different spe- 

 cies so similar, that the distinction of the species becomes more diffi- 

 cult." He finally briefly recapitulates the principal distinctive family 

 characters of the Otariadce, and concludes the paper with a synopsis 

 of its " genera and tribes." He having previously established as 

 many genera as there are commonly recognized specie-,f no new genera 

 could well be added. It is, nevertheless, a radically new classification, 

 and one as arbitrary a could well be devised. The family is first 

 divided into two primary groups, termed ''sections." The first section 

 embraces a single "tribe," called Otariina, containing the single species 

 Otaria jubata of the east and west coast of Southern South America. 



* See anten, p. 12. 



t See his papers on the Eared Seals in the Ann. and Mag. Nat Hist, for 18G0 and 

 1868. 



