662 ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS^BEAEDED SEAL. 



Generax History and Noimenclature. The early his- 

 tory of the Bearded Seal is pecttliaxly involved, owing in part 

 to the vagueness of the early references. The first notice of 

 the species that can be fixed with any degree of certainty is 

 Dr. James Parsons's account, published in 1744, of the ''Phoca,^ 

 Vitulus marinus, or Sea-Calf, shewed at Charing-Cross, in Feb., 

 1742-3 ", * which, if any reliance ca,n be placed on the figure, 

 declared by Dr. Parsons to be drawn from life and to have been 

 pronounced by all who saw it to be an excellent likeness, and 

 the characters given in the text, must be unquestionably the 

 present species. Dr. Parsons says it was a female, and very 

 young, "though Seven Feet and half in Length, haviog scarcely 

 any Teeth, and having Four Holes regularly placed about the 

 navel, as appears by the Figure, which in time become PapUlK.''^ 

 The figure shows the middle finger of the fore-flipper to be the 

 longest, the others regularly decreasing in length on each side, 

 while the hind-flippers terminate squarely, with all the digits 

 of nearly equal size. As this is the only species of Seal found 

 in the northern seas which has four mammte, and the flippers 

 of the form here indicated, the identity of the sjfecies seems 

 beyond question. The size, moreover, corresponds with that 

 of old females of the present species. Its " having scarcely any 

 Teeth" is another strong point in favor of its being the Bearded 

 Seal, since it is well known that in old, or even middle-aged, 

 examples of this species the molar teeth are so much worn 

 down that only the fangs of the greater part of the molars 

 remain, and even these may be in part lacking, while on the 

 other hand no other Seal of this size could show this feature, 

 either from immaturity or attrition due to old age. The 

 identity of Parsons's Long-bodied Sealt with the Bearded Seal 

 {Phoca harhata, auct.) was almost universally conceded till 

 1837, when, from an examination of what was supposed to be 

 Dr. Parsons's original specimen, Messrs. Bell and Ball declared 

 it to he Halichoerus grypus. Mr. Bell says, "For many years 

 there has been deposited in the British Museum a large speci- 

 men of Seal, which has always been considered as the Phoca 

 harbata. It was previously in the possession of Mr. Donovan, 



* Phil. Trans, for the year 1742-1743 (1744), p. 383, pi. i. 



t It should be stated that this name was first used by Dr. Parsons for this 

 Seal in a subsequent reference to the same specimen published in 1753 (Phil. 

 Trans., vol. xlrii, p. 121), iu which the habitat is given as the coast of 

 Cornwall and the Isle of Wight. 



