36 Southern Cross. 



Types. — No actual specimen was indicated by the describers of 

 this species. One of the specimens brought home by the French 

 Antarctic Expedition is in the University Museum of Zoology at 

 Cambridge. It is a skull numbered 897, and was presented to the 

 museum by Professor J. W. Clark. Dr. S. F. Harmer has been good 

 enough to inform me that this specimen, together with a skull of 

 Ogmorhinus lejitonyx (De Blainville), was purchased in Paris in 1853 

 of M. Dumortier, by whom they had been obtained, and " who had 

 accompanied MINI. Quoy and Gaimard on board the 'Astrolabe.' " 



Synonymy and history. — The tooth figured by Leidy under the 

 name of Stenorhynchus vetus bears such a remarkably close resem- 

 blance to those of Lohodon ccircinojyhagns that I provisionally 

 regard the two species as identical. Without an actual examina- 

 tion of the tooth it is impossible to come to any final decision in 

 regard to it. It is possible that there may have been some mistake 

 as to its origin, which is stated to be the Cretaceous Greensand of 

 New Jersey. 



Owen's description of Stenorhynchus serridens was taken from a 

 skeleton presented by Dr. McCormick, the Surgeon of H.M.S. 'Terror' 

 to the museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons of England. It had 

 been obtained during Sir James Eoss' expedition in a high latitude 

 in the Australian seas. 



The Crab-eating or Antarctic White Seal was first made known to 

 science by the two good plates, the one of the animal, the other of 

 the skull, which were published in the " Zoological Atlas " of the 

 French Voyage to the South Pole. The exact year of publication of 

 these plates is doubtful, since the series bears only the vague date of 

 1842 to 1853. All w^e know for certain is that the written descrip- 

 tion of the animal did not make its appearance until after Gray had 

 described the skins and skulls brought home by Sir James Eoss. 

 Gray, however, could not but recognise his specimens as belonging to 

 the same species as that already figured ; he therefore, while insti- 

 tuting the new genus Lohodon, felt bound to accept the specific name 

 careino'phaya, a compliment which the French naturalists returned 

 by adopting the generic term proposed by the Englishman. The 

 first specimens were captured on the South Polar ice, between the 

 islands of the Sandwich and Powel group, at a distance of 150 leagues 

 from either. The specific name had its origin in the food of the 

 animals, which is stated to have consisted principally of shrimps 

 (" crevettes "), as a result of eating which their excrement was 

 coloured red. 



As already stated, this species was met with by Sir James Eoss, 



