68 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



Genus Zalopiius Gill. 



Zulophus Gill, Proc. Essex Institute, 18GG, V, 7, 11. Type Otaria GiL 



lespii McBain. 

 Zulophus Peters, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, 18G6, 275, 671. 

 Neophoca Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d Series, 18GG, XVIII, 231. 



Type Arctocephalus lobutus Gray. 



Size medium. Molars approximated, last under the hinder edge of the 

 zygomatic process. Muzzle narrow. Superior profile, from the postor- 

 bital process anteriorly, gently declined. Bony palate moderately con- 

 tracted posteriorly, and but slightly depressed. Hinder edge of the 

 palatals deeply concave. Pterygoid hooks slender. Posterior nares 

 broader than high ; anterior higher than broad. Postorbital cylinder 

 narrow and elongate. The postorbital constriction of the skull is deep 

 and abrupt, giving a quadrate or subquadrate form to the brain-box, which 

 varies to triangular through the varying degree of prominence of its latero- 

 anterior angles. The postorbital processes arc triangular, developed 

 latero-posteriorly into a rather slender point. The sagittal crest forms a 

 remarkably high, thin bony plate, unparalleled in its great development 

 in any other genus of the family. The general form of the skull is rather 

 narrow, much more so than in Eumetopias, and nearly as much so as in 

 Arctocephalus ; the breadth to length being as GO to 100. 



Zulophus, so far as the skull is concerned, is the most distinct generic 

 form of the family Otariadce, it being thoroughly distinct from all the 

 others. It differs from Otaria in having one less pair of upper 

 molars, in the less depression of the bony palate, the less extension 

 posteriorly of the palatines, the much narrower muzzle, the much less 

 abrupt declination of the facial profile, its much higher sagittal crest, 

 and in its narrower and more elongated form. 



Zalophus differs from Eumetopias, as already pointed out, in hav- 

 ing all the upper molars closely approximated, in the concave out- 

 line of the posterior border of the palatines, and otherwise much as it 

 differs from Otaria. 



Zulophus differs from Callorhinus in its less number of upper 

 molars, its high sagittal crest, and in the more declined profile of the 

 face. It differs in a nearly similar manner from Arctocephalus, but 

 more resembles this genus in the general form and proportions of the 

 skull than any other. But in the nature of its pelage, and in other ex- 

 ternal features, it is radically distinct from the whole group of fur seals, 

 as it is also in its high sagittal crest. 



