338 CALLORHINUS URSINUS NORTHERN FUR SEAL. 



Hair Seal. This skin was accompanied by a young skull, pur- 

 porting, by the label it bore, to belong to it, but Dr. Gray 

 observes that otherwise he should have thought it too small to 

 have belonged to the same animal. Seven years later,* he de- 

 scribed the skull as that of a new species (Arctocephalus cali- 

 fornianus), still associating with it, however, the skin of the 

 Callorhinus ursinus. The skull he subsequently considered as 

 that of a young A. monteriensis ( = Eumetopias stelleri) 5 and refer- 

 ring his A. californianus to that species, he was consequently 

 led into the double error of regarding the Eumetopias stelleri as 

 a Fur Seal (as already explained under that species and else- 

 where in the pre:#6fr paper), and of excluding the Callorhinus 

 ursinus from the list of Fur Seals. To this I called attention 

 in 1870, and in 1871 Dr. Gray correctly referred his A. monteri- 

 ensis and A. californianus in part (the " skin only") to Callo- 

 rhinus ursinus. t 



What may be termed the second or modern epoch in the 

 general history of this species began in 1869, when Captain C. 

 M. Scammon published a highly important contribution to its 

 biology, $ he describing at considerable length, from personal 

 observation, its habits, distribution, and products, as well as 

 the various methods employed for its capture. The following 

 year Mr. W. H. Dall devoted a few pages to its history, in 

 which he made many important suggestions relative to the 

 sealing business. During the same year I was able to add not 

 only something to its technical history, || but also to make pub- 

 lic an important communication on its habits kindly placed at 

 my disposal by Captain Charles Bryant,^ Government agent in 

 charge of the Fur Seal Islands of Alaska. In 1874, Captain 

 Scammon republished his above-mentioned paper,** adding 

 thereto a transcript of Captain Bryant's observations already 

 noted. Almost simultaneously with this appeared Mr. H. W. 

 Elliott's exhaustive Eeport on the Seal Islands of Alaska, ft in 



* Cat. Seals and Whales, 1866, p. 51. 



t Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales, p. 15 ; Hand-List of Seals, 32. 

 4 Overland Monthly, vol. iii, Nov. 1869, pp. 393-399. 

 Alaska and its Resources, 1870, pp. 492-498. 

 || Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., ii, pp. 73-89. 

 If Ibid., pp. 89-108. 



** Marine Mammalia, 1874, pp. 141-163. 



tt Report on the Prybilov Group, or Seal Islands of Alaska, 4to, unpaged, 

 1873 [1874]. 



