gray's accounts. 717 



"2. Cystophora antillarum. West Indian Hooded Seal. 



''Skull, face broad. The outer upper cutting teeth and the canines 

 broad, strongly keeled on each side and longitudinally plaited within. 

 Fur grey brown, lips and beneath yellow. 

 ''Cystophora antillarum, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1849, 93. 

 " Inhab. West Indies. 



"rt. Stnfted specimen. West Indies, Jamaica. Mr. Gosse's collection. 

 "&. Skull of a very young specimen. The face is broader than the 

 skull of C. cristata of the same size. The crowns (*f the teeth are 

 plaited and tubercular. The 4th grinder has only a single root, 

 the 5th has two. West Indies, Jamaica. Mr. Gosse's collection. 

 "Specimen described. Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1849, 9.3."* 



These descrii)tions were repeated, verhatim, by Gray in 1866, 

 in his " Catalogue of Seals and Whales in the British Museum" 

 (pp. 20, 43), without additional remark, but in his account of 

 the genus Monachus (ibid., p. 18) he says : "As the other sub- 

 tropical Seal, Phoca tropicalis (Gray, Cat. Seals B. M. 28), from 

 Jamaica, described from an imperfect skin without a skull, has 

 similar small smooth whiskers [as Monachus albiventer], it may 

 very i)robably, when its skull has been examined, be found to 

 belong to this genus, which will then prove to be a subtropical 

 form of the family."! It appears, however, that in the mean- 

 time a figure of the Cystophora antillarum had appeared in an 

 "inedited" plate in the "Zoology of the Erebus and Terror," | 

 at least such is here so cited by Gray, but whether the skull or 

 the external characters are represented is not stated. 



It will be noticed that in the above descrijitions no measure- 

 ments are given, nor any indication of size, nor is the structure 

 of the hind feet referred to, not so much as to state whether 

 they are or are not provided with nails. The only further infor- 

 mation Dr. Gray has vouchsafed to us, based on his own obser- 

 vations, is contained in his " Hand List of Seals," etc., pub- 

 lished in 1874, where he says under Cystophora antillarum (p. 

 18): "Animal, stuffed, young male? 1005 a. Skull, young, 



* Cat. Seals Brit. Mus., 1850, p. 38. 



t These remarks appeared originally twelve yeafs l)efore in his description 

 of his genus Helioplwca (Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1854, j). 44), and hence the 

 comparison of the whiskers was hrst made with his Heliophoca allantica, 

 which he later (1866) referred to Monachus albiventer. Heliophoca was charac- 

 terized as having the " cutting teeth f ," but this seems to have been a typo- 

 graphical error for }, as with this correction the whole description of the 

 genus Heliophoca was in 1866 introduced under Monachus. 



X On this, as on many other occasions, I have to lament the absence from 

 all the libraries of this vicinity of the part of this work treating of the mam- 

 mals. 



