SPECIES. 205 



during the last ten or twelve years. Peters and Gray have both 

 repeatedly during this time radically modified their views re- 

 specting both the number of genera and species 5 greatly, in the 

 case of Gray at least, out of proportion to the new material they 

 have examined. This fluctuation of opinion shows, in a most 

 emphatic manner, how imperfect our knowledge still is respect- 

 ing the Otaries of the Southern Hemisphere. Those of the 

 Northern are much better known, the only doubts still existing 

 having relation to those of Japan. Eespecting all the others y 

 there has been for the last eight years an almost perfect una- 

 nimity of opinion, so far as the question of species is concerned. 

 In 1870 I could find no satisfactory basis for the discrimina- 

 tion of more than a single species of Fur Seal in the Southern 

 Hemisphere, and to my mind the case is now scarcely better, 

 since I have as yet had opportunity of examining only speci- 

 mens from South American localities, with the exception of a. 

 skin and skull of a very young individual from Australia. I 

 now add one species of Hair Seal to the number I then recog- 

 nized. These, which will be discussed more fully later, are the 

 following : 



Hair Seals or Sea-Lions. 



1. Otaria jubata. 



2. Eumetopias stelleri. 



3. Zalophus calif ornianus. 



4. Zalophus lobatus. 



Fur Seals or Sea-Bears. 



6. Callorhinus ursinus. 



7. Arctocephalus falklandicus. 

 f 8. Arctocephalus antarcticus. 

 ?9. Arctocephalus forsteri. 



5. Phocarctos hookeri. 



Although taken severely to task by Gray and others for my 

 " conservatism," especially respecting Otaria hoolceri, auct. (the 

 justness of which in this instance I now concede), but also as 

 regards the Southern Fur Seals, I must still confess my inability 

 to satisfactorily distinguish them by the published figures and 

 descriptions. I find only such differences indicated as a large 

 series of specimens, embracing both skulls and skins, of two 

 allied species (namely, Callorhinus ursinus and Arctoceplialusfalk- 

 landicus, auct., australis, Zimm.) show to have no importance as 

 specific characters. Indeed, I find Gray himself, in his latest ref- 

 erence to two of these species, writing as follows : " The New- 

 Zealand skull ["Euotaria cinetea"] is very like the skull of the 

 Southern Fur-Seal (Arctocephalus nigrescens) from the Falkland 

 Islands and the south-west coast of Patagonia. It differs in the 

 position and form of the grinders, and in the form of the palate, 

 and its contracted sides and truncated hinder part 5 it differs 

 considerably from it in the outline and prominence of the tern- 



