a Monograph of the Pinnipedes.” 445 
as is recorded in page 8. And it is evident also that the author 
has not seen the American genus Halicyon; for he refers it to 
the genus Phoca, as “ Gill ex Gray.” Indeed, as far as this 
paper is concerned, the author need not have consulted any 
specimens whatever, as almost all the characters he gives are to 
be found in published papers which have chiefly appeared in the 
‘ Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London.’ 
This absence of new matter is more extraordinary, as there 
are several Seals noticed and imperfectly described in American 
voyages and travels which seem, from the short account given 
of them and from their habitats, to be very probably distinct 
from those known in Europe. 
In the Appendix to the “ Prodrome,” there is a list of the 
Pinnipedes of California, Oregon, &c.; and in it Mr. Gill men- 
tions “ Macrorhinus angustirostris, Gall, California,” observing, in 
a note, “It is distinguished by its narrow snout and the form 
of the palatine bones, &c. It will be described in the Proce. 
Chicago Acad. Sc.” But he takes no notice of it in the “ Pro- 
drome of the Monograph.” A Sea-Elephant from the North 
Pacific is very probably a distinct species, and certainly was 
worthy of being more fully described. 
This is not the only species that is left out of the “ Prodrome.” 
No notice is taken, for example, of the Phoca Largha of Pallas, 
from Japan, or of the Australian Eared Seals A. lobatus, A. 
cinereus, and A. australis ; and he even does not include the two 
Seals from Jamaica, viz. Cystophora Antillarum and Phoca tro- 
picalis, and only mentions them, in a note, as if they were 
a single species—saying, “Its West-Indian habitat requires 
confirmation,” overlooking the fact that they were both col- 
lected in Jamaica, and sent home direct from the island, by 
Mr. Gosse. 
As the author has nothing new to describe, or, at least, refers 
all the materials at his command to well-known species, he pro- 
ceeds to change the names which have been applied to well- 
established genera (always a great evil to science); but it is a 
change that any tyro in natural science, however little acquainted 
he may be with a group, can easily make, and find an excuse for 
so doing. 
Naturalists have generally agreed that the twelfth edition of 
Linnzeus’s ‘Systema Natura’ is to be regarded as the standard 
of the Linnean nomenclature; but Mr. Gill says “the tenth 
edition, of 1750, the first in which the binominal system was in- 
troduced,” is the standard; and thus he finds an excuse for 
changing the type used for the genera Phoca and Trichechus, 
and this gives him the opportunity of applying the name 
Lrignathus to the genus Phoca as defined by F. Cuvier. In the 
