1 88 Miscellaneous. 



On a Salamander (Sieboldia) from Shanghai. 

 By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.K.S. &c. 



Mr. Swinhoe has sent to the British Museum a skin, including the 

 bones of the head and feet, of an animal of this genus from Shanghai. 

 It is about 27 inches long. I do not see any character by which it 

 differs from the Sieboldia from Japan, and am inclined to regard it 

 as a specimen of that species. I have compared the head with the 

 skull on the skeleton of the latter animal, but do not find any differ- 

 ence, except that the Japanese specimen in the Museum is older than 

 the one which Mr. Swinhoe has sent from Shanghai. 



M.Blanchard, in the 'Comptes Rendus,' 1871, lxxiii.p. 79, describes 

 a new species of this genus under the name of Sieboldia Davidiana, 

 from Western China, which is noticed in the Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 

 1871, viii. p. 212. M. Blanchard, though he gives it a name, gives 

 no distinctive characters between it and the Japanese species. 



The Ribbon Seal of Alaska. By T. Gill. 



This species of seal (Phoca fasciata, Shaw, or P. equestris, Pallas) 

 is found in the waters of Northern Alaska, and is, so far as known, 

 only represented well in the museum of St. Petersburg. In the 

 Smithsonian collection there are two skins, obtained by Dr. Dall 

 from Cape Bomanzoff, but no skull or other parts of the skeleton. 

 The species is remarkable for colour as well as for structural pecu- 

 liarities. The male is at once recognizable by the colour : this may 

 be said to be a chocolate-brown, except (1) a band of whitish yellow 

 bent forwards towards the crown around the neck, (2) an oval ring 

 of the same colour on each side, encircling the fore feet, and passing 

 in front just before them, and (3) another band, also bent forwards 

 above, behind the middle of the trunk. There is considerable varia- 

 tion in the extent of these bands ; and sometimes the peribrachial 

 rings are more or less confluent with the posterior band. The 

 females are simply whitish yellow, or have very indistinct traces of 

 the postmedian band (fide Von Schrenck). 



The structural (and especially dental) characters of this species, 

 according to Yon Schrenck, indicate a generic distinction from all 

 the familiar forms of the subfamily Phocinos. The molars (except 

 the first) are two-rooted, as in the typical Phocina? — but in external 

 form are simply conic or have rudimentary cusps, thus resembling 

 Halichoerus. The genus may be named Histriophoca. 



The special object of this communication is to call the attention 

 of travellers in Alaska to the species ; and skeletons (especially 

 skulls) and skins are earnestly asked for. The species has been 

 found also in Kamtschatka, and at the mouth of the Kamtschatka 

 river in March and April, arriving there later than the other seals 

 named. 



One of the skins in the Smithsonian collection has been peeled off 

 from the animal almost entire, and by a cross slit below and between 

 the fore feet, and, being tied in front, has evidently been used as a 

 bag. — American Naturalist, vol. vii., March 1873. 



