736 CYSTOPHORA CRISTATA HOODED SEAL. 



seen about Jan May en, and they are said to occur on the coast 

 of Finmark, and at the mouth of the White Sea. Von Baer* 

 and Schultz also state that it is rarely found not only in the 

 White Sea, but along the Tiinanschen and Mourman coasts. 

 Von Heuglin says it appears to be found in the Spitzbergen 

 waters only on the western coast of these islands,t and states 

 that they are not known to occur at Nova Zembla. He gives 

 its principal range as lying more to the westward, around Ice- 

 land and Greenland. 



It thus appears that the range of the Crested Seal is restricted 

 mainly to the Arctic waters of the North Atlantic, from Spitz- 

 bergen westward to Greenland and Baffin's Bay, and thence 

 southward to Newfoundland. Stragglers have been captured, 

 however, far to the southward of these limits, on both sides of 

 the Atlantic. Thus Gray observes : 



"A young specimen has been taken in the Eiver Orwell: at 

 the mouth of the Thames ; and at the Island of Oleron, west 

 coast of France, but I greatly doubt if it had not escaped from 

 some ship coming from North America ; there is no doubt of 

 the determination of the species. The one caught on the Eiver 

 Orwell, 29th June, 1847, is in the Museum of Ipswich, and was 

 described by Mr. W. B. Clarke, on the 14th August, 1847, in 

 4to, with a figure of the Seal and skull. The one taken on the 

 Isle d'Oleron is in the Paris Museum, and is figured, with the 

 skull, in Gervais, Zool. and Paleont, Franc., t. 42, and is called 

 Phoca Isidorei^ by Lesson, in the Kev. Zool., 1843, 256. The 

 young is very like that of Pagopliilus grcenlandicus, but is im- 

 mediately known from it by being liairy between the nostrils, 

 and by the grinders being only plated and not lobed on the 

 surface." J 



Its capture has occurred a few times on the coast of the 

 United States, as far from its usual range even as on the Euro- 

 pean coast. A large Seal is occasionally seen on the coast of 



*Bull. Acad. Imp. des Sci. de St. Pe"tersb., iii, 1838, p. 350. 



t Malmgren, writing some years earlier, says that in recent times it has 

 not been observed with certainty at Spitzbergen, though reported as occur- 

 ring there by Martens and Scoresby. Possibly, he says, during its summer 

 wanderings it may extend to the latitude of Spitzbergen. During Torell's 

 first journey to Spitzbergen a young individual was killed in the vicinity 

 of Bear Island. He says it is only exceptionally taken by the Seal hunters 

 about Jan Mayen, only a comparatively small number being captured. 

 Arch, fur Naturgeseh., 1864, p. 72. 



t J. E. Gray, Zoologist, 2d ser., vol. vii, 1872, p. 3338. 



