4 SEALS. 



brary/ which contains a carefully compiled account of these 

 animals, and some original figures from the specimens in the 

 Edinburgh and Liverpool Museums: but unfortunately, Mr. 

 Stewart, the draughtsman, has been more intent on giving them 

 an artistic effect than on attending to their zoological characters. 

 Thus, some which should have no claws on their hind-feet, have 

 large ones, and sometimes one too many for any beast ; and the 

 toe-membranes of all the Eared Seals or Otaries are represented 

 as hairy instead of bald. The same author has given an account 

 of the Fur Seal in the ' Annals of Natural History,' which he 

 considers as different from the Sea Bear of Forster and other 

 South- Sea navigators : according to Dr. Hooker, the Fur Seals 

 rarely exceed 3 or 4 feet in length. 



Seamen have long divided the Seals, on account of the great 

 difference in their form, into the Earless and Eared Seals. Buf- 

 fon adopted the division ; and Peron, in his account of Baudin's 

 voyage (ii. 37), gave the name of Otaria to the Eared Seals. 

 Cuvier and most naturalists have adopted this name. 



In the { Medical Repository ' for 1821, p. 302, I considered 

 the Seals as forming an Order named Amphibia, containing two 

 families : Phocadce for Phoca and Otaria, and Trichecida for 

 Trichecus. 



Dr. Fleming, in 1822, placed the Otters (Lutra), Sea Otters 

 (Enhydra), the Seals (Phoca), Ursine Seals (Otaria), and Walrus 

 (Trichecus), in a single group which he called Palmata. Phil. 

 Zool. ii. 187- 



In the 'Annals of Philosophy' for 1825, I considered the 

 genera Phoca and Trichecus as each forming a family, and pro- 

 posed to divide the Seals thus: I. Grinders many-rooted -, ears 

 none; nose simple. 1. Stenorhynchina, Pelagios and Stenorhyn- 

 chus. 2. Phocina, Phoca. II. Grinders with simple roots, or with 

 divided roots, and with distinct ears. 3. Enhydrina, Enhydra. 

 4. Otariina, Otaria and Platyrhynchus. 5. Stemmatopina, Stem- 

 matopus and Macrorhinus. 



M. F. Cuvier, in 1825, in the Dents des Mammiferes, 118, 

 divides the Seals into those which have many roots to the grinders, 

 including P. velutina, P. leptonyx, and P. mitrata, and those 

 with simple-rooted grinders, as P. ursina and P. proboscidea. 

 In 1829, in the article ZOOLOGIE in the Diet. Sci. Nat. lix. 367, 

 he divides them into 1 . Les Phoques proprement dit, including 

 the genera Callocephalus, Stenorhynchus, Pelagius, Stemmato- 

 pus, Macrorhinus, Arctocephalus and Platyrhynchus, and 2. Les 

 Morses, for the genus Trichecus. In a paper on the genus, in 

 Mem. Mus. xi. 1827, 208, he proposed to divide them into the 

 following subgenera placed in three sections : 



