42 INTRODUCTION. 



the respected author of The History of British 

 Quadrupeds, in 1 836-7, remarks " There is not, I 

 believe, a single group among the whole of the Mam- 

 miferous class, which is at present so indistinctly 

 known, and of which the species are so much con- 

 founded, as the Seals." 



How far we have succeeded in elucidating the 

 subject must be left to the judgment of others. To 

 a few facts, however, concerning our plates, we 

 shall take the liberty of adverting. Our volume 

 is, we believe, the vehicle of delineating, for the 

 first time, four of the most important species of the 

 group. These are the animal which we regard as the 

 Bearded Seal, (No. 5 ;) the one which, on high 

 authority, we have been led to understand is the fe- 

 male Sea- Elephant, (No. 17 ;) that one which we 

 have called the Sea- Lion of Pernetty, (No. 19 ;) and 

 the Fur-Seal of Commerce, (No. 25 ;) to which we 

 may add, that the Sea- Leopard (No. 12) has not, so 

 far as we know, appeared in any work on Natural 

 History. The drawings of these five are in fact ori- 

 ginal, four being taken from specimens in the Royal 

 Museum of the Edinburgh University, and for infor- 

 mation regarding which, we are proud to acknow- 

 ledge our obligations to the distinguished Professor 

 of Natural History; whilst the remaining one has 

 been derived from the splendid specimen which graces 

 the Liverpool Museum, and for further details con- 

 cerning which we must refer to the body of the 

 work. Besides these, there are ten other species, 

 taken from French, Russian, and American autho- 



