418 FAMILY PHOCID^. 



mtulina is especially designated as the type. As both genera 

 were published simultaneously, preference should be claimed for 

 CallocepJialus, as it occurs eighteen pages earlier in the paper 

 than Macrorhinns. Thus the process of elimination necessitates, 

 on the principle above implied, and in accordance with a com- 

 monly recognized rule in such cases, the restriction of Phoca to 

 Linne's Phoca leonina. This, however, seems so contrary to the 

 traditions of Phoca, which from 1735 to the present day has 

 been generally associated by the majority of writers with vitu- 

 lina and its nearest allies, that it seems an act of violence to 

 transfer it to what is logically its legitimate connection with 

 leonina, thereby making Macrorhinus a synonym of the restricted 

 genus Phoca, notwithstanding that it has been universally ac- 

 cepted for half a century for the Sea-Elephants, while P/ioc has 

 not for an equal length of time been looked uj)on as having any 

 intimate relationship with that group. In view of the tradition 

 and usage of the case it seems best to waive the technicality 

 here involved and suffer Phoca to retain its time-honored asso- 

 ciations.* 



As regards further subdivision of the Phocidm, Dr. Gray, 

 in 1866, t proposed SaUphilus as a generic name for Peale's Sa- 

 lichcerus antarcticus (= Phoca pealei. Gill), while Dr. Gill, in 

 1872,f substituted Leptonychotes for Leptonyx, Gray, (1836, nee 



* In tMs connection reference may be very properly made to Prof. Alfred 

 Newton's Paper "On the Assignation of a Type to Linnsean Genera, with 

 especial reference to the Genus Strix" (Ibis, 3d ser., vi, 1876, pp. 94-10.')), in 

 which he very reasonably maintains that, as Linu6 had no notion of a type 

 species as commonly used by modern systematists, we should make him 

 "the interpreter of his own intentions" by imagining him " put in our place 

 and called on to show which he woiild consider his type species according 

 to modern ideas." This he claims can be accomplished by giving some 

 degree of attention to the works of Linux's predecessors, which will enable 

 one to hunt down almost every name used by him, since by far the greater 

 part of Linnd's generic names were adopted by him froui preceding authors, 

 "by whom the majority were used absolutely and in a specific sense. When 

 this was the case," continues Professor Newton, "there can scarcely be a 

 reasonable doubt that Linnseus, had he known our modern practice, would 

 have designated as the type of his genus that species to which the name he 

 adojjted as generic had formerly been specifically aijplied." As regards the 

 present case, there can be no doubt that under this rule the proper type of 

 the Linnrean genus Phoca is the common small Seal of the European shores, 

 the Phoca vituUna of Linnd, and that CaUocephalns is strictly a synonym of 

 Phoca. 



tAnn. and Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. xvii, 1866, p. 446. 



t Families of Mammals, j). 70. 



