742 GENUS MACRORHINUS. 



settlers along the coast of Newfoundland. As already stated, 

 the hood of the male affords such a i^rotection to its owner as 

 to render the animal so pro\ided very hard to kill with the 

 ordinary seal-club, or even with a heavy load of shot ; and they 

 are, furthermore, "at times very savage, and it requires great 

 dexterity on the part of the seal-hunters to keep from being 

 bitten". 



Genus MACRORHINUS, F. Cuvier. 



Macrorhine lMacrorhinus'\, F. Cuvier, M6m. du Mus., xi, 1824, 200, pi. xiii. 



Type and sole species, Phoca prohoscidea, P^ron. 

 Macrorhinus, F. Cuvier, Diet. Sci. Nat., xxxix, 1826, 552; ibid, lix, 1829, 464. 

 Macrorhyna, Gray, Griffitli's An. King., i, 1827, 180 ("misprint'', Gray). 

 Mirounga, Gray, Griffith's An. King., v, 1827, 179 (in part). 

 Ehinophora, Wagler, Nat. Syst. Amph., 1830, 27. 

 Cystoplwra, Nilsson (in part), 1837, and of various later authors. 

 Morunga, Gray, List Ost. Spec. Brit. If us., 1847, 33. 



Dental characters as in Cystophora. Basi sphenoid and basi- 

 occii^ital bones deeply arched and the interbullar space narrow. 

 Hind feet deeply bilobed, with the claws rudimentary. Males 

 with an elongated tubular proboscis. 



The genus Macrorhinus was founded by F. Cuvier in 1824 on 

 the Proboscis Seal {Phoca prohoscidea, Peron) or the Elephant 

 Seal of the Southern Seas, which, until within the last fifteen 

 years, was supi^osed to be sole representative of the genus. In 

 1866 a second species was described by Dr. Gill from the coast 

 of California, thus adding this remarkable genus to the I^Jorth 

 American fauna. As already shown {anted, p. 723), Macro- 

 rhinus agrees closely with Cystophora in dental and cranial 

 characters, the skull being an exaggerated form of that of 

 Cystophora, while it differs from the latter in the form of the 

 nasal appendage of the males, in the form of the hind limbs, 

 and in the relative size of the fore and hind limbs. 



A prominent synonym of Macrorhinus is Gray's barbarous 

 term Mirounga, proposed in 1827 for both this species and Cys- 

 tophora cristata, but changed in 1847 to Morunga and restricted 

 to the Elephant Seal of the Southern Seas. Although uniformly 

 adopted by Gray, and by those who follow Gray as authority, 

 it is clearly antedated, even in its first form, by three years by 

 Macrorhinus of F. Cuvier, although Gray's incorrect citation of 

 F. Cuvier at 1827 makes them apparently synchronous.* 



* It may be here noted that Gray persistently gives the date of the eleventh 

 volume of the "Memoirs du Museum" containing F. Cuvier's paper, "De 

 quelqne esp^ces de Phoques et des groupes g6n6riques entre lesquels ils se 



