102 Dr. J. E. Gray on the Fur- and Hair-Seals | 
two Fur-Seals for which the “ fishery” is chiefly established. 
Capt. Abbot says that the Fur-Seals of the Falkland Islands 
are of various colours—some grey, others blackish. There are 
in the British Museum two most distinct species of Fur-Seal 
from the Falklands, which must be of very different value,— 
one the Otaria falklandica of Shaw, and the other O. nigrescens. 
_ All the five species of Sea-Bears or Hared Seals found in 
South America have been called O. falklandica. I will 
proceed to distinguish them. } 
I. Pennant describes the ‘‘ Falkland-Island Seal,” from a spe- 
cimen 4 feet long, in the museum of the Royal Society, thus :— 
‘¢ Hair short, cinereous, tipped with dirty white ;” “ grinders 
conoid, with a small process on one side near the base.” It is 
to this description that Dr. Shaw applied the name of Phoca 
falklandica (Gen. Zool. i. 256). This agrees with a speci- 
men in the Museum in all particulars. It certainly is not the 
dark blackish-brown Seal which I have described as the Arcto- 
cephalus nigrescens, and which Dr. Peters calls O. falklandica. 
A specimen of a Seal about 3 feet long has been in the 
British Museum for several years. It was obtained from a 
dealer as a Fur-Seal from the Falkland Islands. This skin is 
mentioned in the ‘ Catalogue of Seals in the British Museum,’ 
at page 43, as Arctocephalus falklandicus, or “ the skin of an 
adult female without skull,” believing that it was similar to 
the specimen of the Falkland Seal that was in the Leverian 
Museum, described by Pennant as above quoted, to which 
description Shaw appended the name of Phoca falklandica. 
Mr. R. Hamilton, in the ‘Annals of Natural History’ for 
1838, vol. ii. p. 81, t.4, gives a history of the Fur-Seal of 
commerce and an account of the catching of them. He depo- 
sited two female specimens of this Seal in the Museum of the 
University of Edinburgh. He says the two specimens are 
nearly late in every respect, and describes them thus :—“‘ The 
hair is very soft, smooth, and compact, of a brownish-black 
colour towards the roots and a greyish-white towards the tips; 
it extends considerably beyond the fur, and gives the general 
colouring to the hide. The fur itself is uniform brownish 
white above, and of a somewhat deep brown colour beneath, 
and is quite wanting on the extremities. The colour of the 
body is of a uniform whitish grey above, passing gradually 
underneath into a reddish-white colour, which is deepest in the 
abdominal region.’’ This is certainly the Falkland Seal of 
Pennant. Capt. Weddell says that the males of the Fur-Seals 
are much larger than the females, an adult male measuring 
63 feet, and the female not more than 34 feet in length. 
