GENERAL HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE. 697 



The Gra Siiil of Linne's " Fauna Suecica also appears to relate 

 to the present species. Olafsen, in his "Reise (lurch Island," 

 published in 1772, repeatedly refers to it under the names "Ut- 

 Selur" and " Wetrar-Selur", giving quite a full account of its 

 habits. Although he omits all mention of its size and external 

 characters, his description of its habits, particularly of its re- 

 sorting to low islands and rocky shores in November, to bring 

 forth its young, seems to identify his Ut-Selurwith the present 

 species. Furthermore, the Ut-Selur of the Icelanders has been 

 determined by Hallgrimsson to be the Phoca grypus of Fabri- 

 cius, which the latter referred doubtfully to his Phoca hispida. 



Although Schreber's "Der grosse Seehund" is referred by 

 nearly all writers to the Bearded Seal, it is compounded of two 

 spocies, the diagnosis being based on the " Utsuk" of Cranz, and 

 hence on the Bearded Seal, while his account of its habits is 

 derived from Olafsen, and relates entirely to the Ut-Selur of 

 that author, and consequently to Halichcerus grypus. 



The Gray Seal received its first systematic name at the hands 

 of Fabricius in 1791, who briefly referred to it under the name 

 Phoca grypus* and gave a good figure of its skull. t Fabri- 

 cius's name appears to have for a long time escaped the notice 

 of subsequent writers, it being conspicuously absent from the 

 works of compilers down to about 1835. In the meantime the 

 species was again brought to light by Mlsson, who, in 1820, re- 

 named it Halichcerus griseus. Lesson, in 1827, also mentioned 

 it under this name, as did Fischer in 1829. Lichtenstein, in 

 1822, seems to be the first to recall the Fabrician name, modi- 

 fied, however, to gryphus. Thienemann described the species in 

 1824 as an inhabitant of Iceland, under the name Phoca hali- 

 chcerus, and at the same time added a nominal species based on 

 the young, which he designated as Phoca scopulicola. In 1850 

 Hornschuch and Schilling, after an examination of a series of 

 fifty skulls collected in the East Sea, arrived 'at the conclusion 



* By many writers, as shown in the ahove table of synonymy, this name 

 is rendered gryphus, but, as first pointed out by Nilsson in 18*27, and since 

 restated by several German authors, the correct orthography is grypus, or 

 crooked-nosed, the Danish name, as given by Fabricius, being "Krumsnude- 

 de Sael. (See also on this point Lilljeborg, Fauna Sveriges och Norges, i, 

 1874, p. 711, footnote.) 



t The original skull (lacking the lower jaw) figured by Fabricius is doubt- 

 less still extant in the Museum of Lund, for as late as 1841 Hallgrimsson 

 stated that through the kindness of Professor Reinhardt he had had the op- 

 portunity of comparing with it a SKull of the Ut-Selur he obtained in Ice- 

 land. 



