2 REVIEWS. 



porary under fur possessed by the young of Zalophus lobatus was 

 made nearly half a century ago, and though often quoted since, 

 has never yet been confirmed, so far at least as I have been able 

 to ascertain. Since such a fact, however, would be contrary to 

 analogy, to sa}~ the least, the accuracy of this observation seems 

 to require confirmation. While in the hair seals the homo- 

 logue of the under fur of the fur seals may be considered to exist 

 in the short, stiff, crisp under hairs, which are so few as only 

 to be discovered by the most careful search, at least in old males 

 of Eumetopias, and apparently also in Otaria and Zalophus, 

 they do not accord at all in their nature with the fine, soft, abun- 

 dant, silky under fur of the fur seals. The under fur of the fur 

 seals is known to vary more or less in amount with the season, 

 which variations may have given rise to the observations of Dr. 

 Peters cited by Dr. Gill. 



In regard to size, the hair seals were characterized as "large," 

 and the fur seals as " smaller." As the representatives of Otaria 

 and Eumetopias are several times larger, in respect to bulk, than 

 any of the representatives of either Callorhinus or Arctocephalus, 

 and the representatives of Zalophus are considerably larger than 

 any of the fur seals, I fail to see that the difference in size 

 "seems to be more than reduced to a mimimum and to be de- 

 graded to absolute nullity." 



In regard to form, the fur seals were described by me as being 

 " more slender" than the hair seals. This observation was based 

 upon a comparison of the skeletons of two of the leading genera 

 Eumetopias and Callorhinus and the figures arid descriptions 

 of the other species. Not only are all the bones smaller in com- 

 parison to their length in Callorhinus than in Eumetopias, but the 

 limbs are also slenderer 1 and longer in proportion to the size of 

 the body. In the comparison Dr. Gill has attempted to make, in 

 his review, of the form of Eumetopias with that of Callorhinus, in 

 order to determine whether there was any difference in form in the 

 two groups, a singularly improper basis was adopted, namely, the 

 "ratio of the skull to the length of the male skin." His rather 

 obscure comparative table serves only to represent the individual 

 variation in the specimens of the same species, as exaggerated in 

 stuffed specimens. Had he computed^the ratio the length of 

 the skull bears to that of the whole skeleton, data equally at his 

 command, instead of between the skulls and skins, his table 



