G2 BULLETIN OF THE 



able to E. Stelleri ; but the skin is unquestionably that of the Callor- 

 hinus ursinus. Nothing can be more sure than that it cannot belong 

 to the E. Stelleri, which is completely destitute of soft fur, as proved 

 by the specimens before me, and the description given by Professor 

 Peters of the one in the Berlin Museum. 



Lesson gave the name Otaria californiana to a supposed species of 

 eared seal based solely on the " Jeune lion marin de la Californie " of 

 Choris.* The figure given by Choris is too poorly drawn to be recog- 

 nizable as that of one species of eared seal rather than of another. 

 The following is the only allusion Choris makes to this animal in his 

 text : " Les rochers, dans le voisinage de la baie San-Francisco sont 

 ordinairement couverts de lions marins. PI. XI." From the locality, 

 which is the only possible guide, it was doubtless the E. Stelleri, but it 

 may have been the Zalophus Gillespii. Dr. Gill in his " Prodrome," 

 adopted provisionally Lesson's name {californiana) for the present spe- 

 cies, but at the same time suggested its probable identity with the so- 

 called Otaria Stelleri of Miiller. Peters, a few months later, confirmed 

 Gill's suggestion, since which time the name Stelleri has been univer- 

 sally adopted for the larger northern hair seal. The Otaria Stelleri of 

 Schlegel, f formerly supposed by Gray % and also by Peters § to in- 

 clude both the Australian eared seals (viz. Arctocephalus cinereus and 

 Zalophus lobatus), has finally been referred by the latter, after an ex- 

 amination of the original specimens in the Leyden Museum, to the 

 Zalophus Gillespii.\\ I am now convinced of the correctness of this 

 determination, though for a time I suspected the skull of the young 

 female figured in Fauna Japonica (PI. XXII, Figs. 5 and 6) to belong 

 to some species of fur seal. It certainly differs greatly in proportions, 

 as well as in dentition, from the other skulls figured in this work (same 

 plate), and called 0. Stelleri. 



The northern sea lion having become generally recognized as specifi- 

 cally distinct from the sea lion of the southern seas, Dr. Gill, in 1866, 

 separated the two generically. This had indeed already been done prac- 

 tically by Dr. Gray, inasmuch as he placed his A. monteriensis (=0. 



* Voyage Pittoresque, PI. XI, of the chapter entitled " Port San-Francisco et se9 

 habitants." (The date of this work is 1822.) 

 t Fauna Japonica, Mam. marine, p. 10. 



\ Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d Series, 1866, Vol. XVni, p. 229. 

 § Monatsberichte Akad. Berlin, 1866, pp. 272, 276. 

 || Ibid., p. 669. 



