Maniinalia. 19 



is, in fact, highly incorrect, and would in many respects apply rather 

 to the True Leopard-Seal (OamorJiimis leptonyx) than to the present 

 species. Mystified by this and by the use of the name Sea-Leopard, 

 Dr. J. E. Gray, although at first recognising the distinctness of the 

 new species, was afterwards for a time induced to believe that 

 the name Otaria iveddellii had actually been applied to a specimen 

 of Ogmorhinus leptonyx. He subsequently convinced himself by an 

 examination of the teeth of the type specimen that this opinion was 

 not correct. I am fortunately able to support Gray in his second 

 opinion. 



Tor the first intelligible description of Weddell's Seal, science 

 is indebted to Gray. This was based upon two specimens (skins, 

 with skulls) sent home by Captain Fitzroy, E.N., from the 

 river Santa Cruz, in about latitude 50° South, on the east coast of 

 Patagonia. Mr. Albert has recently recorded a specimen from Juan 

 Fernandez. Later a skin and two skulls were brought home by the 

 Antarctic Expedition of 1839-1843, which (although not precisely 

 lalielled) were doubtless obtained on the Antarctic pack-ice. The 

 skull of another specimen, shot at Betsy Cove, Kerguelen, on the 

 9th of January, 1874, by the members of the ' Challenger ' * Expedition, 

 formed the subject of an elaborate account by Sir W. Turner, and is 

 now in the Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh. 

 The bones of this Seal were found abundantly by the members of 

 the expedition, together with those of the Elephant-Seal, on the 

 sandy beach of Heard Island. The species for long remained so 

 poorly represented in collections, that an imperfect skull, brought 

 home by a sealing ship, and presented by Mr. E. M. Martin in 1897, 

 of which the exact origin is unknown, only brought the number of 

 the specimens in the Natural History Museum to four. 



The specimens brought home by the ' Bclgica ' and ' Southern Cross ' 

 were therefore very welcome additions to our list. The species was 

 found by the former expedition, both on the pack-ice as well as in 

 the Straits of Gerlache in the Palmer Archipelago ; by the latter in 

 many places in Victoria Land. 



Although so little known, Weddell's Seal is probably of wide 

 distribution, and, except where its numbers have been reduced by the 

 sealers, of frequent occurrence. It is not quite certain whether the 

 herd of four hundred alluded to by Moseley as occupying a station 

 at Swain's Island, a small outlier of Kerguelen, belonged to this 

 species or to the True Leopard-Seal, especially as he mentions having 



^ See narrative of the Vuyage of the ' Challenger,^ pp. 355 and 373. 



c 2 



