102 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



specialized type and differs in some important particulars (e. g., external 

 scrotum) from most other pinnipeds. t 



This excessive virility might lead to the habit of abstaining from food in 

 order to secure and then guard the females. This abstinence in its incip- 

 iency would not be of very great duration, but the period might be length- 

 ened by almost imperciptable increments throughout hundreds of genera- 

 tions until the surprising results noted above would be reached. The 

 animals live on their own blubber during their. long fast, and it is reasonable 

 to suppose that the male progenitors of the sea lions which were the 

 strongest and lustiest and possessed the most blubber, would be able to 

 out stay their rivals, and hence obtain possession of a greater number of 

 females and beget a greater number of offspring than those having less 

 strength and blubber. Thus a process of selection would be instituted 

 whereby animals would eventually be produced possessed of sufficient blub- 

 ber and endurance to survive the effects of even such phenomenal fasts as 

 are endured by the fur seal of the pi'eseut day. 



In the preceding pages the writer has endeavored to account for the fol- 

 lowing peculai'ities met with among the pinnipeds: 



1. The relation between great sexual disparity in size and polygamy. 



2. The manner in which polygamy may have orginated. 



3. The origin and effect of excessive pugnacity. 



4. The origin and advantage of great sexual disparity. 



5. The origin and advantage of the ability to endure long protracted 

 fasts. 



The sexual disparity, excessive pugnacity and ability to endure protracted 

 fasi^s, are all intimately related to polygamy either as cause or effect. 



Up to a certain point pugnacity and disparity seem to have acted as 

 causes of polygamy. Beyond that point they seem to be effects of polygamy, 

 or at least, are accelerated or intensified by it. The ability to endure long 

 fasts would seem to be purely an effect of polygamy. 



SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGY IN COLLEGES. 



BY C. C. NUTTING. 



A few months ago one of the curators of the Smithsonian Institution took 

 occasion, in private conversation, to complain of the fact that our universi- 

 ties and colleges did not turn out men capable of taking hold of a collection of 

 zoological specimens and working it up systematically. He said: "We can 

 find plenty of students from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, the University of Penn- 



+ For further interesting particulars, see Monograph of North American Pinnipeds, 

 pp. 382-405 



