478 FAMILY PHOCID^. 



(from which it is said to dififer in size), while his P. moeotica is 

 allied to Monachus albiventer, of which latter Guiscardi's Phoca 

 gaudini seems to have been the progenitor. 



In 1853, M. J. P. Van Beneden described an extinct species 

 of Seal under the name Falceophoca nysti, based mainly on speci- 

 mens from the vicinity of Anvers. In 1876 the same writer, in 

 his memoir on "Les Phoques fossiles du Bassin d'Anvers",* 

 added twelve species to those previously indicated, all from the 

 environs of Anvers, making thirteen described by him from that 

 locality. They are based usually on numerous specimens, con- 

 sisting generally of vertebrte and the bones of the limbs and 

 pelvis. They are generally more or less fragmentary, and the 

 most characteristic parts of the skeleton, as the cranium and 

 dentition, are not represented. These species were redescribed 

 in greater detail the following year, and illustrated with a splen- 

 did suite of plates, in which the more important specimens were 

 figured of the size of nature, several views being given of each, t 

 Five are from the Upper Miocene, and eight from the Pliocene. 

 None of them depart very widely from existing types, although 

 with one exception all are referred to extinct genera. One {Me- 

 sotaria ambigua), Professor Van Beneden thinks, presents char- 

 acters indicative of Otarian afifijiities, and that this form prob- 

 ably represented the Otaries in the Tertiary seas of Europe, but 

 neither the description nor the figures seem to me to evince such 

 an alliance. On the contrary, Mesotaria ambigua api^ears to be 

 not remotely allied to the Cystophorinw (see antea, pp. 219, 220). 

 All the other species, so far as can be judged by their frag- 

 mentary remains, exhibit affinities, more or less remote, with 

 one or another of the species still existing in the European seas. 

 The extinct species of this family considered by Van Beneden as 

 fairly entitled to recognition, are the following :t 



1. Mesotaria ambigua, Van Beneden. Anvers. Pliocene. Allied to Cys- 



tophora cristata, or at least referable in all probability to the Cyato- 

 phoriiKB. 



2. Palaeophoca nysti, Van Beneden. Elsloo ; Boltringen ; Anvers. Plio- 



cene. Allied to Monachus albiventer. 



3. Pristiophoca occitana, Gervais. Central France. Allied to Monachus 



albiventer. 



* Bull, de FAcad. roy. de Belgiqne 2">, s6r. 1, xli, No. 4, April, 1876. 



t Descrijitions des ossements fossiles des Environs d'Anvers, folio, 1877, 

 with an Atlas of eighteen plate8.= Ann. dn Mus. roy. d'Hist. nat. de Bel- 

 giqne, tome i, prem. part. 



t The authority for the localities, geological age, and affinities (except in 

 the case of Mesotaria) is M. Van Beneden. 



