448 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



head above; a second and broader one encircles the hinder part 

 of the body a short distance from the tail ; while from this there 

 runs forward on each side a branch, the two uniting ventrally 

 and forward, then each forming a wide circle about the fore 

 shoulder. In the female the bands are less marked. The skull 

 has six upper and four lower incisors; cheek teeth, except the 

 first, double-rooted and conical, with sometimes a slight 

 accessory cusp. The adult male may attain a length of 6.5 feet. 



The general range of the ribbon seal is from the Kurile 

 Islands and Okhotsk Sea northward along the coasts of Kam- 

 chatka and in Bering Sea to Bering Straits. It is rarely seen 

 among the Aleutian Islands, but on the Alaskan coasts it is 

 most frequently found south of the Yukon Delta and from 

 Cape Nome to Bering Straits. Little is recorded of its habits, 

 but it is apparently only to a slight extent gregarious. Usually 

 only single ones are seen, rarely several together. True (1884a) 

 has figured and described the skeleton on the basis of specimens 

 four in all obtained in 1880 for the United States National 

 Museum at Plover Bay, eastern Siberia; he mentions also 

 specimens from Cape Romanzof and Cape Prince of Wales in 

 the same institution. The same author (True, in Jordan and 

 others, 1899) mentions one taken 84 miles west of St. Pauls 

 Island in 1896, whence he concludes that it may be an occa- 

 sional visitor to the Pribilofs. A. M. Bailey and Hendee (1926) 

 state that these seals are rare at Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, 

 "although a few are seen and one or two are usually killed each 

 year." During their stay there they saw but two in the course 

 of the spring hunt, both well out on the ice. In a later note 

 Dr. Bailey (1928) reports a remarkable migration of these and 

 the spotted seals (Phoca mtulina richardii) at Cape Prince of 

 Wales. The latter species is very common there in the lagoons, 

 while the ribbon seal is considered even by the Eskimos as 

 very rare. When caught in these lagoons by an early freeze 

 the seals left the lagoons and made a journey overland and 

 over ice to reach the sea. 



Although in Pallas's time the ribbon seal was apparently 

 found in small numbers among the Kurile Islands, it is at 

 present rare among the Commander Islands and adjacent seas 

 (Barabash-Nikiforov, 1938). Even Scammon (1874) regarded 

 it as scarce in Alaskan waters, but his mention of seeing a group 

 ashore at Point Reyes, California, is clearly an error. 



