GENERAL HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE. GG^ 



to a large Seal occurring in the North Pacific, " quse magnitudinc 

 Tanruui superat", and which he says the Kamtschatdales 

 called "Lachtak". He speaks of it as being the largest of the 

 Seals of those waters. It later formed the ''Phoca maxima^ 

 Steller" of authors, but Steller himself did not originate this 

 phraseology. It is also the basis of the Phoca lachtak of Des- 

 marest. These references have been very generally identified 

 with the present species. Crauz, in 1765, referred to it, but* 

 without really describing it, under the name Uksuk. Yet the 

 little he had to say about it serves to render it certain that the 

 Uksuk is the Phoca barhata of the later systematic writers, it 

 being still known in Greenland under that name (now commonly 

 spelled "Oo-sook"), just as the Pacific representatives of the 

 species are still known under the native name Laktak. 



Fabricius was the first to give it a systematic designation, 

 he calling it, in 1776 (in inedited notes in Mliller's "Zoologicae 

 Danise Prodrom\is"), Phoca barbata, but the name was unac- 

 comijanied by a description. He cites, however, its Icelandic 

 and Greenlandic names "Gramselr" and "Urksuk," by which 

 the species is still known in those countries. Four years later 

 (in his "Fauna Groenlandica") he fully described the Urksuk 

 of Greenland under the name Phoca barbata, when the species 

 became first fairly characterized. In the meantime Erxleben 

 (in 1777) had adopted the name for a large species of Seal, 

 under which designation he cited not only the Uksuk of Cranz, 

 the Gramseb? of Iceland, the Phoca barbata of Mliller's "Pro- 

 dromus", and the Laktak of Kamtschatka, but also the Long- 

 bodied Seal of Parsons, together with the various names that 

 had been based upon these, either individually or collectively. 

 As he arranged his references chronologically, the first names 

 mentioned are the Long-bodied Seal of Parsons, and the Lach- 

 tak, or ^^ Phoca niaxima^\ of Steller. His brief diagnosis is 

 evidently based on Cranz's account of the Uksuk. 



The name barbata is usually ascribed toMliller, 1776, in whose 

 work it first appeared, but rigid constructionists may claim that 

 date as untenable, since no description accompanied the name. 

 In this case it would fall to Erxleben, 1777, who gave of it a 

 brief technical descrij)tion, and further established it by a full 

 and correct citation of its synonymy. 



Almost simultaneously with the appearance of Erxleben's 

 work the species was again indicated by Lepechin (in 1778), 

 under the name Phoca leporina, based on the young from the 



