GENUS HISTRIOPHOCA. 675 



tives of Auioor Land and Saghalien Island for the same pur- 

 poses as Mr. Kumlien notes in respect to the Esquimaux of 

 Cumberland Sound. Owing- to its scarcity it has no great com- 

 mercial importance, though sometimes taken by the sealers of 

 the Spitzbergen sealing-grounds. Rink states that the whole 

 annual catch of this species in Greenland hardly amounts to 

 1,000. 



GENUS HISTRIOPHOCA, Gill 



Histrioplioca, GILL, Am. Nat., vii, 1873, 179. (Type, " Phoca fasdata, Shaw, 

 or P. equestris, Pallas.' 7 ) 



Cranial characters unknown. Incisors, fff ; C., ^j M., |f|. 

 Incisors conical, cylindrical, directed slightly backward. Mo- 

 lars, except the first, 2-rooted, placed somewhat apart, with 

 simple crowns directed backward. Sexual differences in color 

 strongly marked. Males, dark brown, varied with narrow 

 bands of white. Females, light brown, with the white bands 

 obsolete. 



According to von Schrenck, on whose authority the above 

 characters are given , the molar teeth, except the first, are 2-rooted, 

 as in Phoca and Erignathus, but the crowns resemble those of 

 the corresponding teeth in Haliclicerus, being simple and slightly 

 curved backward. The middle molars (third and fourth) and 

 sometimes the others, both above and below, show a minute 

 point or accessory cusp at the base of the principal one, both 

 in front of it and behind it, but this is a variable feature, not 

 only as respects the number of teeth thus furnished, but in 

 some specimens these minute accessory cusps may be wholly 

 lacking. As the characters of the skull have not been as yet 

 either figured or described, further comparison with other gen- 

 eric types becomes impracticable. 



The genus Histriophoca was proposed for the present species 

 by Dr. Gill in 1873, but has not been fully characterized. Dr. 

 Gill's diagnosis is as follows: "The structural (and especially 

 dental) characters of this species, according to Von Schrenck, 

 indicate a generic distinction from all the familiar forms of the 

 subfamily Phocincv. The molars, except the first, are two-rooted, 

 as in the typical Phocincc, but in external form are simply conic, 

 or have rudimentary cusps, thus resembling Haliclicerm. This 

 genus may be called Histriophoca." Taking into account the 

 peculiar pattern of coloration, ar.d the conic, double-rooted 



