CHARACTERISTICS OF THE OTARIES. 



217 



EAR OF OTAKIA. (Natural size.) 

 After Mime. 



has arisen from several reasons. Sealers have long distinguished the two kinds, namely, Fur Seals 

 and Hair Seals ; but among the thousands and thousands of skins annually brought home, little 

 attention was paid to the animal from which the different skins were obtained, other than to its mere 

 market value. While skins, and occasionally skulls or skeletons, found their way into our museums, 

 seldom have these specimens been certified as belonging to one and the same individual ; and in other 

 cases they have been so mixed that identification has been little short of a riddle. Failing precision 

 with regard to skins and skulls, the anatomists have been too prone to found genera and species on im- 

 perfect data, ignoring differences of sex, age, and the like, and thus many technical divisions have been 

 introduced which we hardly think it worth while here rigidly to follow. 



The family Otariidse, or Eared Seals, was distinguished, and so named by the French naturalist 

 M. Peron early in this century, from the animals of this section 

 possessing a small scroll-like external ear, an appendage wanting in 

 the Seals generally. They moreover differ from the latter, and 

 resemble the Walrus, inasmuch as they can freely progress on all-fours 

 on land. Their skull is somewhat Beai'-like, the neck being long. 

 The fore-limbs, set well back, are tolerably free, and rest on a thin, 

 broad, but flat hand of great size, encased in a leathery-like substance. 

 The thumb is remarkably stout, and far exceeds the other fingers in 

 length, and on all the merest indications of nails are present. Each 

 finger is tipped with a long spatular cartilage, as are the toes of the hind feet, thus giving them great 

 flexibility. The hind limbs are not so loosely attached by the tail membrane as in the Walrus, and the 

 short tail is apparent close to the heels. The great toe is by far the longest and strongest, size 

 diminishing from this to the little toe. As a rule, this family are nimbler on land than is the Walrus 

 family, though both walk flat-footed in a somewhat similar fashion. The gait of the Otaries, however, 

 from the slightly greater restraint of their closer-linked hind quarters and legs, and from the 

 lengthening of their fore-flippers, is ridiculously peculiar. The fore-flippers, as Mr. Frank Buckland 

 drolly observes, remind one of Bob Ridley's shoes in a nigger performance. From the wrist they flop, 



flop, in a semicircle as right and left foot is 

 alternately raised, while the hind quarters 

 hitch, hitch, as each hind foot comes wobble, 

 wobble, under the belly, the great toes even 

 overlapping the fore-flipper. The Sea Lions 

 have long, stout, exceedingly mobile whiskers, 

 though these are by no means so profuse, 

 thick-set, or strong as in the Walrus. Their 

 skeletons differ from the latter in several 

 particulars of minor importance, the chief 

 distinctions being in the skull and dentition. 

 There are on each side three incisors in the 

 upper jaw, and two in the lower. The middle 

 ones are smallest, the upper outer ones more 



TEETH OF OTAKIA. (After ~De BlainvUle.) often very large. The canines are still larger, 



and recurved ; but though powerful, not to 

 be compared with the great tusks of the Morse. There are more commonly five teeth of the molar 

 series, of which the crowns are bluntly conical, and the roots simple. The milk-teeth are mostly shed 

 before birth. The dental formula of the Otariidae may be represented thus : Incisors, frf ; canines, \~[ ; 

 premolars, ^; molars, fEj = 36. The fore part of the skull is not so swollen out and abrupt as in the 

 j Walrus, the smaller size of the canines not requiring such space. In youth the skull is long, low, 

 I and flat, but in the old males there arise bony crests and processes, altering the shape, especially 

 I behind, so that recognition of the species is even difficult. 



As the habits of the family of the Eared Seals are in the main very similar, and seeing 

 j how difficult it is from mere outward inspection to tell one species from the other, it seems 

 ivisable to follow Mr. J. W. Clark's mode of treatment, and consider all under the single genus 

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