GENERAL HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE. 617 



Seal called Ut-Selur by the Icelanders proves to be Halichcerus 

 grypus. It thus happens that the first technical name of the 

 species, as well as some of its earliest vernacular names, relates 

 in part to the Gray Seal. At about the same time (certainly 

 not earlier) it was described by Schreber in the third part of his 

 " Saugthiere" as Der rauhe Seehund, his description being based 

 entirely on Cranz's and Pennant's. No Latin name is given in 

 the text, but on the plate appears the name Phoca hispida. The 

 date of the publication of the fasciculus containing Schreber's 

 descript ; on and figure cannot be definitely determined, but con- 

 temporary evidence indicates that it must have appeared during 

 the year 1776,* as it is cited by Erxleben in a work published 

 the following year, who adopts Phoca hispida for the name of 

 the species. But Erxleben's first reference is to the "Long- 

 necked Seal" of Parsons, whose diagnosis of which Erxleben 

 cites in full. The Long-necked Seal, however, is some indeter- 

 minable species of Otary. But all of Erxleben's other refer- 

 ences, with one exception (for here u Utselr"is again cited), 

 are pertinent, and his diagnosis is evidently based on the Neitsek 

 of Cranz. 



Three years later (1780), Fabricius, in his " Fauna Grcenland- 

 ica," gave the first adequate description of the species, under 

 the name Phoca fcetida, and quoted Phoca hispida as a synonym. 

 Eleven years later (1791), in his celebrated memoir on the Green- 

 laud Seals, he reverts to the name hispida, conceding it priority, 

 but on what ground is not apparent. The case is thus a peculiar 

 one, and has already received attention at the hands of numer- 

 ous writers, the matter having been quite recently very fully 

 discussed by Professor Flower, t Although Flower favors the 

 adoption of hispida, he admits that u There is nothing either in 

 Schreber's description or figure to identify the species j and it 

 has since been thought (as by A. Wagner in his continuation 

 of Schreber's work, 1846) [*] to refer to a totally distinct animal, 

 viz, Halichcerus grypus." He says, further, "Although it may 

 still be a matter of opinion which of these names ought to be 



* The date on the title-page of the "Dritter Theil" is 1778 ; the two pre- 

 ceding parts are both dated 1775. The Seals occupy the first pages of the 

 third part. 



t Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1871, pp. 507-510. 



[* Gray, apparently following Wagner, referred, both in 1850 and in 1866, 

 Schreber's Phoca hispida to Halichoerus grypus, while at the same time he re- 

 ferred Lesson's Phoca schrebein, avowedly = Phoca hispida. Schreber, to his Cal- 

 locephalits fwtidiis !] 



