On the Seals of the Auckland Islands. 27 



Mr. Clark has bought two skulls and the fragments of a third, 

 now in the Museum of Cambridge, obtained from the Auck- 

 land Islands during the French expedition of the ' Astrolabe ' 

 in the years 1837-1840. He has determined, with the assist- 

 ance of Mr. E. Gerrard, and by comparison of them with the 

 named skulls in the British Museum, that they belong to 

 Otaria Hookeri ; and he concludes, from the size of the canine 

 teeth, that the larger is the skull of a male of this species (of 

 which a side and a palatine view are figured P. Z. S. 1873, 

 pp. 754, 755) , and the two smaller ones those of females. 



Mr. J. W. Clark observes, p. 757 :— " It follows that 

 Otaria Hookeri has been determined and hitherto known only 

 from female skulls ;" and at p. 760 he further observes : — " It 

 is curious that no male specimen " (skull) " should have been 

 brought back, except the one that M. Dumoutier reserved for 

 himself" (which is now in the Museum of Cambridge, and 

 figured by Mr. Clark). 



There were in the British-Museum collection, at the time 

 Mr. Clark consulted it to identify the skulls he bought in Paris, 

 the skulls of an adult and a younger male and three skulls 

 of females of this species. The skulls belonged to stuffed 

 specimens of a male and two females, and the skeletons with 

 their skulls belonged to two males and a female. 



All except one skeleton of these were brought home by the 

 Antarctic Expedition under the command of Captain Sir. J. 

 Ross ; and the skull of the female specimen was chosen to be 

 figured in the ' Zoology of the Erebus and Terror ' as being in 

 the most perfect state. The other skeleton was brought from 

 New Zealand. 



Mr. Clark observes, " It will be most interesting to discover 

 whether Otaria Hookeri is restricted to the Auckland Is- 

 lands, or whether it extends to any part of New Zealand or 

 Australia." There is in the British Museum the skeleton of 

 a young male from New Zealand, presented to the Museum 

 in 1851 by Sir George Grey. 



Mr. Clark goes on to say, " If I am right in my opinion that 

 Otaria Hookeri is not found at Cape Horn, the identification 

 of it with the Eared Seal of Pennant, the Phoca flavescens of 

 Shaw, and the Otaria flavescens of Desmarest, falls to the 

 ground. Pennant's specimen came from the Straits of Ma- 

 gellan." 



It is very true that all the specimens of 0. Hookeri in the 

 Museum, like all the other specimens received from the Ant- 

 arctic Expedition, were without special habitats. Dr. Bur- 

 meister, in the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' 

 1866, xviii. p. 99, describes and figures the skull of a specimen 



