618 PHOCA FCETIDA RINGED SEAL. 



adopted, it appears to me that, on the whole, preference should 

 be given to hivpida, on account of priority 5 for although the 

 earliest descriptions under this name are very meagre and in- 

 accurate, they are avowedly founded on the Neitsek of Cranz, 

 the appellation by which this Seal is known to the Greenland ers 

 to this day, according to Mr. E. Brown,* and are therefore in- 

 tended for this species, and especially because Fabricius, in 

 1790 [1791], definitely adopted the name, withdrawing that of 

 fcetida. I am further strengthened in this opinion," he con- 

 tinues, " by finding that those eminent Danish naturalists Steen- 

 strupt and Keinhardtf both use hispida when speaking of this 

 Seal." As regards use, although good authorities have adopted 

 hispida, by far the greater number of writers, including equally 

 eminent authorities, among them Lilljeborg and Collett among 

 recent Scandinavian writers, adopt fcetida. The question is cer- 

 tainly pretty evenly balanced. Granting, however, that the in- 

 troduction of the two names was practically simultaneous, and 

 that fcetida, as first given, was unaccompanied by a description, 

 while hispida had this backing, it is admitted that neither the 

 description nor the figure is of any value in determining what 

 species was intended, and that the Greenland name ^eitsek is 

 the only clew to what was meant. Just this clew, backed by the 

 best authority Fabricius himself we have also in the case of 

 fcetida, while the first real description (in "Fauna Grcenland- 

 ica," 1780) of the species was given under this name, and eleven 

 years before the species was recognizably described under the 

 name hispida (by Fabricius in 1791). Fabricius gave as his 

 reasons for withdrawing the uame/eefaY7 and adopting hispida 

 that the latter was not only an appropriate name but also the 

 oldest, although he ascribes the name hispida to Erxleben. It 

 would seem, however, that he really adopted the name from Pen- 

 nant, considering Pennant's name " Bough Seal" a strict equiva- 

 lent of Phoca hispida.^ The name fcetida appears certainly to 

 be most characteristic. 



* " 'On the Seals of Greenland/ P. Z. S., 1868, p. 414." 



t" ' Melketandssettet hos Remmesseleu, Svartsiden, og Fjordsaeleu (Phoca 

 larbata, O. Fabr., Ph. gronlandica, O. Fabr., og Ph. hispida, Schr.)/ Vid. 

 Medd. f. d. Naturh. Forening, 1860. Kjobh. 1861, s. 251-261." 



J " ' Om Klapmydsens uiodte Norge og dens Melketandsaet/ Naturh. Foren. 

 Vidensk. Meddelelser, 1864." 



As being of interest in this connection I submit the following rendering 

 of Fabricius's opening paragraph of his history of the Fiordsjel : "This, next 

 to the Black-side, is the species which is most numerously met with in Green- 

 land. 1 give to it the Danish name Fiordstel, because it keeps mostly in the 



