678 HISTRIOPHOCA FASCIATA RIBBON SEAL. 



wise around the base of the anterior extremities, and a separa/te 

 light band that crosses the hinder part of the body. In con- 

 sequence of the wide departure of the pattern of coloration in 

 Siemaschko's figure from his own examples, von Schrenck is left 

 in doubt as to whether the figure is really a true copy from 

 nature. 



The single specimen I have examined (Nat. Mus. No. 9311, Cape 

 Romanzoff, W. H. Dall), a flat skin, lacking the flippers and 

 the facial portion, agrees with von Schrenck's figure in respect 

 to the form and size of the neck-band, but there is a far greater 

 preponderance of light color, which occupies rather more than 

 half the entire surface. Only the posterior sixth of the body is 

 black, and the dark area of the back is very much more re- 

 stricted, and diiters somewhat in outline. In this specimen 

 the breadth of the dark dorsal portion occupies scarcely more 

 than one-third of the whole width of the skin, the light portion 

 on either side nearly equalling it in breadth. It widens over 

 the neck and sends down a lateral branch on each side, the 

 two meeting on the breast. It is contracted over the shoulders, 

 behind which it again expands, and at its posterior border 

 sends down a very narrow branch from the right side to the 

 middle of the belly ; its fellow on the opposite side is nearly 

 obsolete, forming merely a broken chain- of small dusky spots. 

 There is hence in this example a wide departure from the speci- 

 mens described by von Schrenck, while the want of symmetry 

 in the two posterior branches of the dorsal spot, and the rela- 

 tively nearly equal amount of light and dark color, lead one 

 to apprehend a much wider range of individual variation in 

 coloration than von Schrenck apparently suspected, and that 

 after all Siemaschko's figure merely represents a variation in 

 the opposite direction from that here indicated, or an unusual 

 extension of the dark color at the expense of the lighter mark- 

 ings. 



SIZE. Yon Schrenck states that this animal is reported to 

 sometimes attain the length of 6J feet. He gives the length 

 of a full-grown male as 5 feet 6J inches (1683 mm.), and that of a 

 full-grown female as 5 feet 3 inches (1GOO mm.), based on Wosnes- 

 sen ski's specimens obtained in Kamtschatka, which his hunters 

 informed him were not of the largest size. In other words, it 

 appears to be a Seal of the medium size, or about as large as 

 Phoca groenlandica. 



