472 FAMILY 



of cranium above described were found in the Shockoe Creek 

 ravine near the base of Church Hill. In the ravine at the 

 eastern extremity of the city, and in the neighborhood of the 

 penitentiary, Dr. Burton obtained several other portions of the 

 skeleton of another Seal. These consisted of an imperfect cer- 

 vical vertebra, a lumbar vertebra nearly entire, a fragment of 

 the sacrum, coccygeal vertebra, fragments of ribs, and the lower 

 extremity of a fibula. Their generic characters have been sat- 

 isfactorily made out by comparison with recent bones. 



" In figure 1, page 232, I have represented the coccygeal ver- 

 tebra which corresponds in its general characters very accurately 

 with recent bones of P. grcenlandica from the same region of the 

 vertebral column. The small size of the vertebral canal and the 

 imperfect transverse process, the wide-spread articulating pro- 

 cesses, and the blunted spinous process indicate its affinity 

 to the Seals. The fragment of a left fibula (figs. 2 and 3), pre- 

 sents at its lower extremity (fig. 3) an oblique, regularly concave 

 articulating surface on its inner face, and on its outer (figs. 2 

 and 3), an elevated ridge or crest, on either side of which is a 

 groove for the passage of a tendon." 



The specimens here described do not appear to have been pre- 

 served, or to have been seen by subsequent writers, but Pro- 

 fessor Wyman was an osteologist of too well-known proficiency 

 to admit of the supposition that these remains did not present 

 well-marked Phocine affinities. Indeed, his description and rude 

 figures of the fibula above mentioned show clearly that its affini- 

 ties were rightly interpreted. The vertebra is not so evidently 

 Phocine. Three years later the description of these remains 

 became the basis of Dr. Leidy's "Phoca wymanii", who, in pro- 

 posiug the name,* merely cited Wyman's description. In 1856 1 

 he referred to it a tooth "apparently an inferior canine from 

 the miocene deposit of Virginia." This tooth he describes as 

 being "14 lines, and about as robust in its proportions as the 

 corresponding tooth of P. barbata. The crown is 4J lines long 

 and 3J broad at base, and it presents an anterior and a posterior 

 ridge, of which the former is denticulated, and bifurcates half 

 way towards the base. The enamel is rugose, especially towards 

 the base of the crown internally; and at one or two points in 

 front presents a short inconspicuous tubercle." 



In 1867 Professor Cope referred Phoca wymani, Leidy, to 



* Ancient Fauna of Nebraska, 1853, p. 8. 

 tProc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1856, p. 265. 



