TECHNICAL HISTORY SPECIES. 433 



&c., under various Eskimo names, but which he was unable to 

 decipher. Hr. Fleischer, Colonibestyrer of Jacobshavn, has 

 aided me in resolving these : 



"1. Siyuktok, having a long snout and a body similar to 

 Phoca grcenlandicd) perhaps P. ursina. This is apparently some 

 Eskimo perversion, if interpreted properly ; for I am assured 

 that it is only the name of the Eider Duck (Somateria mollis- 

 sima). [In his memoir in the i Skrivter af Xaturhistorie- 

 Selskabet' (vol. i, part ii, p. 163) it is called l Sviinsselen (Phoca 

 porcina) ', and he refers to it such diverse creatures as Molina's 

 ' Phoca porcina' and Pennant's l Bottle-nosed Seal/ and devotes 

 nearly four pages to its consideration.] 



U 2. Imab-ukullia^ a Seal with a snow-white coat, * the eye pre- 

 senting a red iris, probably P. leporina', is a rare albino of the 

 Netsilc (Payomys fcetidus). The meaning of the word is the Sea- 

 hare. [In the i Skrivter' (1. c. p. 168) this is called ; S0eharen 

 (Phoca leporinay, of which Lepechin's i Phoca leporina 7 and 

 Schreber's 'sibirische Seehund' are cited as synonyms.] 



" 3. Atarpiak or atarpek, 'the smallest species of Seal, not ex- 

 ceeding the size of the hand, of a whitish color, and a blackish 

 spot of the form of a half-moon on each side of the body.' This 

 description does not correspond to the meaning of the word, 

 which is < the Brown Seal'. [This in the < Skrivter' (1. c. p. 169) 

 appears as the i Mende Art, Atarpiak', without a Latin name or 

 synonyms.] Hr. Fleischer thinks that it is only a myth, as is 



"4. Kongesteriak [not mentioned in the i Skrivter'], which 

 has, < according to the description given by the natives, some 

 resemblance to the Sea-ape described by Mr. Heller '. This is 

 one of the northern myths." * 



In 1792 appeared Kerr's "Animal Kingdom", the title-page 

 of which states it to be "A translation of that part of the Sys- 

 tema Naturae, as lately published by Professor Gmelin of Gcet- 

 tingen, together with numerous additions from more recent 

 zoological writers and illustrated with copper plates." In this 

 work (pp. 121-128) nineteen species appear under the generic 

 name Phoca, with five additional varieties, among which we find 

 the real origin of quite a number of names currently attributed 

 to much later authors. The species and varieties here enumer- 

 ated are the following, the new names being distinguished by 

 the use of thick type: 1. Phoca ursina; 2. P. leonina (=Bot- 



*Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1868, p. 360; Man. Nat. Hist., etc., Greenland, 

 pp. 31,32. 



Misc. Pub. No. 12 28 



