26 



Sotithern Cross. 



Cuvier is not preoccupied by Stenorhynchus of Lamarck, and the 

 correct name of this animal will, no doubt, some day stand as 

 Stenorhinchus lejjfoni/x, F. Cuvier ! ^ 



History. — The two earliest descriptions of the Leopard Seal 

 — the one by de Blainville, the other by Desmarest — appeared in the 

 year 1820. The latter was a meagre extract from the MS. notes of 

 the former naturalist, whose own description, published under the 

 name of " P. a petits ongles. Phoca leptonyx," was based on two 



LEOPARD SEAL BASKING IN THE SUN. 

 (/?3/ jiermissinn oj Sir George Newnes, Bart.') 



specimens, the one a skull in the museum of the lioyal College of 

 Surgeons, the other a skin and skull from the Falklands, then in the 

 collection of Monsieur Hauville at Havre. According to Gray, the 

 former skull was that figured by Sir E. Home in the ' Philosophical 

 Transactions,' 1822, which specimen the latter writer states to have 

 been presented to the Koyal College of Surgeons " by Mr. Chevalier : 

 this proves to have been brought by Mr. Kearn, in a whaler, from 

 New Georgia, near the ice towards the South Pole." G. Cuvier^ 

 states that M. Hauville's specimen found its way to the Paris 



' OfjmorJdnus is antedated bj^ Ilydrurtja, Gistel, Nat. Tliierw,, p. xi., 1848, 

 so that the correct name of tne Leoiiard-Scal shouhl probably be Hydrurqa leptonyx. 

 —II. I. P. 



'^ Oss, Foss., v., pt. L, p. 207, 1825. 



