19 



the seals and drive them up the beach to some convenient spot, as a 

 small nook, or naturally formed inclosure : this accomplished, one or 

 two men go in to the attack, while the others remain engaged in pre- 

 venting outbreaks. As soon as a sufficient number have been slain to 

 erect a wall of the dead, then all hands rush in to the general massacre. 



To so great an extent was this indiscriminate killing carried, that in 

 two years (1814, 1815) no less than 400,000 skins were obtained from 

 Penantipod, or Antipodes Island, alone, and necessarily collected in so 

 hasty a manner that very many of them were but imperfectly cured. 

 The ship " Pegasus" took home 100,000 of these in bulk, and on her 

 arrival in London, the skins, having heated during the voyage, had to 

 be dug out of the hold, and were sold as manure a sad and reckless 

 waste of life. 



Mr. Morris confirms Sir George Simpson and Mr. Musgrave in their 

 account of the affection of the mother for her offspring : " At the time 

 of the slaughter the female utters most piteous cries, alternately 

 looking at you imploringly then at her young one" ; such are his words. 



ABCTOCEPHAITJS G-EATII. Gray's Falkland Island Seal. 



Synonym Arctocephalus Falklandicu*. Gray, B. M. C. 1866, p. 65 ; 

 Suppl. 1871, p. 25. 



" Grey, under-fur red; young blackish; length 4 feet, 1 " "the fur very 

 soft, elastic ; the nose, cheeks, temples, throat, chest, sides, and under- 

 side of the body, yellowish white. It is easily known from all other 

 fur-seals in the British Museum by the evenness, shortness, closeness, 

 and elasticity of the fur, and the length of the under-fur. The fur is 

 soft enough to wear as a rich fur without the removal of the longer 

 hairs, which are always removed in the other fur-seals." 2 



This is clearly a species distinct from the common Southern fur-seal, 

 and even from the two specimens of the Falkland Island sea-bear in 

 the Edinburgh Museum, with whom it is compared; "t^e fur" of the 

 latter " being considerably darker and harsher 2 " distinctive qualities 

 well and tersely defined. 



The specific name Falklcvndicus having been appropriated almost by 

 general consent for another animal, I beg to substitute that of Grayii. 



ABCTOCEPHALUS ETTLOPHTJS. Top-knot Seal of Patagonia. 

 Mr. Morris informs me that during his sealing voyages he occasionally 

 met with a fur-seal, which he and those connected with him in the trade 

 readily recognised as a distinct kind by the diminutive size of the adult 

 animal ; by a top-knot of hair on the crown of the head ; and by the 

 soft, beautiful under-fur, unlike in colour to, and much more valuable 

 for articles of ladies' wear than that of any other fur-seal they were in 

 the habit of capturing. 



1 B. M. C., p. 55. 

 3 Suppl., p. 26. 



