OTARIWsE 



595 



others, from the coasts of Australia and various islands scattered 

 over the southern hemisphere. These have been grouped by some 

 zoologists into many genera, founded upon very trivial modifica- 

 tions of teeth and skull. In a recent memoir Mr. Beddard l con- 

 cludes that if the genus be split up at all, it should be divided into 

 Otaria, containing only 0. jubata (with its numerous synonyms), and 

 Arctocephalus, comprising all the other species. The latter group is 

 distinguished by the more narrow and pointed nose, the longer ears, 

 the palate not excavated nor truncated posteriorly, the presence of 



FIG. 272. The Patagoniau Sea-Lion (Otaria jubata). From Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1866, p. 80. 



a hook-like process to the pterygoids, and by the posterior border 

 of the nasals extending behind the zygoma. 



The following account of 0. ursina in the Prybiloff Islands is 

 taken, with slight verbal alteration, from Nordenskiold's Voyage of 

 the Vega : " The Sea-Bears are found year after year during summer 

 at certain parts of the coast, known as ' rookeries,' where, collected 

 in hundreds of thousands, they pass several months without the 

 least food. The males or ' bulls ' come first to the place, most of them 

 in the month of May or in the beginning of June. The most 

 violent conflicts, often Avith a deadly issue for one of the parties, 

 now arise regarding the space of about a hundred square feet 

 which each bull -seal considers necessary for his home. The 



1 "On the structure of Hooker's Sea-Lion (ArctocepJialus hookeri)," Trans. 

 Zool. Soc. vol. xii. p. 369 (1890). 



