On the Fossil Fishes of Mount Lebanon. 237 
face of another young specimen of this Seal in the British 
Museum, collected in the Australasian Sea by Mr. John Mac- 
gillivray. 
The Eared Seals are collected for their oil and skins. Most 
of the species have very dense under-fur of soft erect hairs be- 
tween the base of the longer hairs. These are called “ Fur- 
Seals ;” and the skins, when deprived of their long hairs, are 
very valuable. The dressed furs of the various species and loca- 
lities are of very different commercial and economic value. 
The skins of Neophoca lobata of Australia and Phocarctos Hookeri 
of the Southern Ocean, being destitute of this under-fur, are 
called Hair-Seals by the sealers. Their skins are of little com- 
parative value, as they are only used like the skins of the Earless 
Seals (Phocide). 
I have not been able to identify the “Tiger Seal” of Musgrave 
(‘Cast away on the Auckland Islands,’ pp. 7, 10, 18, 29, &c.), 
which seems as abundant as the Sea-Lion of the same locality. 
They are both probably undescribed. 
XXXIII.— Recent Researches on the Fossil Fishes of Mount 
Lebanon. By MM. F. J. Picrer and A. Humperr*, 
Tart the fossil fishes of the coasts of Syria are among those 
which have been longest known is shown by the mention of 
them in De Joinville’s ‘ Histoire de Saint-Louis.’ This chro- 
nicler tells us that, during the sojourn of the Crusaders at 
Sayette (the ancient Sidon, now Satda), “A certain marvellous 
stone was brought to the king, in appearance like a quantity of 
scales, of the which when one was raised you saw beneath, be- 
tween the two stones, the shape of a fish of the sea. And the 
fish was of stone, but nothing of its form was wanting, neither 
eyes, nor fins, nor colour, any more than if it had been living. 
The king asked for one of these stones, and found a tench in it, 
of a brown colour and lke any other tench.” 
Various travellers, such as J. Korte, C. Lebrun, Volney, &c., 
have also mentioned these fishes; but Scheuchzer is the oldest 
naturalist who, as far as we know, has paid any attention to 
them. In his work ‘Piscium Querulz et Vindicie,’ published at 
Zurich in 1708, we find a passage devoted to the fish figured in 
Lebrun’s ‘ Voyage’ (Cornelius de Bruyn), and another referring 
to a specimen in the Woodward Collection. The Zurich natu- 
* Translated by A. O’Shaughnessy from a separate impression, com~ 
municated by the Authors, from the ‘Archives des Sciences de la Biblio- 
théque Universelle,’ Geneva, June 1866. See also ‘ Nouvelles Recherches 
sur les Poissons Fossiles du Mont Liban,’ 1 vol., with plates, by F. J. 
Pictet and A. Humbert : Geneva, 1866. 
