I02 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: ZOOLOGY. 



proposed, but they rest thus far on very unsatisfactory evidence, as will 

 be noted later. 



All the Seals were placed by all authors in the Linnaean ger^us Phoca 

 till Peron, in i8io,^ proposed to consider the Eared Seals as a new genus, 

 "sous le nom ^ Otariey In 1816 he introduced, informally, the generic 

 name Otaria for these animals, which he employed incidentally and con- 

 sistently for them throughout his chapter on the Sea Elephant in the second 

 volume of the "History" of Freycinet's "Voyage aux Terres Australes."^ 

 He mentioned here, in footnotes and in the text, three species of Eared 

 Seals, and subsequently two others in the same volume, as follows : (i) 

 Otaria ursiua (pp. 39, 41, 42, 49, $2)= Phoca ttrsina Linn., based on the 

 Sea Bear of Steller; (2) Otaria koniiia (pp. 40, 65, etc.) = Sea Lion of 

 Forster ; (3) Otaria jiibata (p. 40, footnote) = Leo marimts of Steller ; 

 (4) Otaria cinerea (p. 77), lies. Decres, — not identifiable; (5) Otaria 

 albicollis (p. 1 18), Isle Eugene. The first three of these names (O. ursina, 

 O. leonina and O. jnbata) are perfectly identifiable with previously de- 

 scribed and now well-known species. The other two (O. cinerea and O. 

 albicollis) were given to supposed new species, but so inadequately de- 

 scribed as not to be satisfactorily identifiable.'' 



Up to this time all of the Sea Lions had been regarded as forming a 

 single species, named Phoca jnbata by Schreber in 1776, and all the Sea 

 Bears, or Fur Seals, as referable to the Phoca itrsijia of Linnaeus (1758). 

 Peron thus for the first time not only separated the Otaries from the Pho- 

 cids, but he also distinctly separated the Northern Sea Lion from the 

 Southern Sea Lion, retaining for the former (very properly, as will be 



'Ann. du Mus. d'Hist. Nat., Vol. XV, 1810, p. 300, footnote. He here cites his use of 

 the name "Otarie" (probably written by him Otaria) in "Voyage aux Terres Australes, t. ii, p. 

 37," which work was not issued until long after the sheets were printed, owing to delay with the 

 plates. Otaria Peron is generally cited from the "Voyage," 18 16, which appears to be its 

 proper date. 



^ Voyage de decouvertes aux Terres Australes, Historique, Tome Second, 18 16 . . . Chap- 

 itre XXIII, " Histoirede I'Elephant marin, ou Phoque a trompe \Phoca proboscidea, N] : Peches 

 des Anglois aux Terres Australes," pp. 32-66, pi. xxiii. 



^ Mr. G. W. Clark, who some years ago made them the subject of special investigation (see his 

 valuable paper " On the Eared Seals of the Islands of St. Paul and Amsterdam, with Description 

 of the Fur Seal of New Zealand, and an attempt to distinguish and rearrange the New Zealand 

 Otariidas," in P. Z. S., 1875, pp. 650-677, pll. Ixx-lxxii, and 8 text cuts), considers 0. cinerea 

 as closely related to Arctocephalus forsteri, but possibly entitled to recognition as a species, with- 

 out, it seems to me, very good grounds. He considers 0. albicollis as identical with Gray's 

 Arctocephalus lobatus, which is perhaps probable, though not satisfactorily provable. 



