316 ON THE EXTERNAL CHARACTERS AND 



225 2 ' 54> NOTES ON THE EXTERNAL CHARACTERS AND 

 ANATOMY OF THE CALIFORNIAN SEA-LION 

 (OTARIA GILLESPII}* 



(Plates IX.-XI.) 



Or late years numerous specimens of the Calif ornian Sea-lion (Otaria 

 yillespii)-^ have been brought alive to Europe and exhibited in the Zoo- 

 logical Gardens and Aquaria of England and the Continent. A pair, the 

 male of which has lately died, lived long at the Brighton Aquarium, and 

 on two occasions bred, one of the cubs being now a fine adolescent male. 

 Another pair were received in the year 1877 at the Southport Aquarium. 

 Of these the female was killed accidentally some fifteen months ago, as 

 already noticed in the Society's ' Proceedings ' (1879, p. 460). Unfor- 

 tunately no further use seems to have been made of her body, though 

 the skull was exhibited at one of the Society's meetings, and determined 

 by Prof. Flower as belonging to this species (1. c. p. 551). The male 

 did not long survive his partner, but, gradually pining away, died last 

 spring. Mr. C. L. Jackson, the Superintendent of the Aquarium, having 

 forwarded this animal after its death to Prof. Flower, our President, 

 being at that time much occupied with other duties, was kind enough to 

 hand it over to me for examination and dissection. 



Till within a few weeks ago our knowledge of the Californian Sea-lion 

 was extremely limited, all that was known about it being contained in 

 Mr. J. A. Allen's account of the species in his article on the " Eared 

 Seals " (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. ii. pp. 69-73, 1870-71). At that time 

 his only materials, as regards the present animal, were two skulls and a 

 skeleton ; and for his description of the skin he had to depend upon 

 Schlegel's (i. e. Temminck's) account of Otaria stelleri in the * Fauna 

 Japonica,' which at that time, following Dr. Peters's identification, he 

 regarded as being in reality 0. gillespii. 



* Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. xi. part vii. pp. 225-231, Pis. XLYIII.-L. (1882). Read 

 April 5, 1881. 



t Mr. J. A. Allen, in the second of his valuable memoirs mentioned below, uses the 

 name Zalopkns californianus for the present species. I am not yet prepared to split 

 up the, in many ways, very natural genus Otaria into several genera, founded, as these 

 are, almost entirely upon cranial characters. As regards the genus Zalophus, it may 

 be noted that Mr. O. Thomas has lately noticed a skull of Otaria jubata with the same 

 number of molars as are supposed to characterize that genus (P. Z. S. 1881, p. 4). 



As regards the specific name, the Otaria californiana of Lesson was based, as Mr. 

 Allen states, on a drawing published by Choris in 1822, which is called by Mr. Allen 

 himself "a rather poor figure," and has hitherto been referred to 0. stelleri. As 

 there can be no doubt as to the species intended by MacBain's name gillespii, and as 

 that name, too, has hitherto been used by nearly all writers on the subject, I think it 

 will be better to retain it. 



