38 THE SEALS AND WALRUSES. 



As already uoticed, tbe Eared Seals are obviously divisible, by the character of the pelage, into 

 two groups, which are commercially distinguished as the "Hair Seals" and the "Fur Seals,"' which 

 are likewise respectively known as the "Sea Lions" and the "Sea Bears." The two groups have 

 nearly the same geographical distribution, and are commonly found frequenting the same shores, 

 but generally living aparr. Usually only one species of each is met with at the same localities, 

 and it is worthy of note that, with the exception of the coast of California, no naturalist has ever 

 reported the occurrence together of two species of Hair Seals or two species of Fur Seals, although 

 doubtless two species of Hair Seals exist on the islands and shores of Tasmania and Australia, as 

 -well as on the California!) coast. 



The Hair and Fur Seals are about equally and similarly represented on both sides of the 

 Equator, but they are confined almost wholly to the temperate and colder latitudes. Of the nine 

 species provisionally above recognized, two of the five Hair Seals are northern and three southern : 

 of the four Fur Seals, three are southern and one only is northern; but the three southern are closely 

 related (perhaps doubtfully distinct, at least two of them), and are evidently recent and but slightly 

 differentiated forms of a common ancestral stock. Of the two Eared Seals of largest size (E-uict<>]>inx 

 Stelleri and Otaria jubata), one is northern and the other southern, and, though differing generic-ally 

 in the structure of the skull, are very similar in external characters, and geographically are strict :\- 

 representative. Zalopltus is the only genus occurring on both sides of the Equator, but the species 

 are different in the two hemispheres. The Fur Seals of the north are the strict geographical repre- 

 sentatives of those of the south. Phocarctos Hoolteri is Australasian, and has no corresponding form 

 in the Northern Hemisphere. No species of Eared Seal is known from the North Atlantic. Several 

 of the southern species range northward into the equatorial regions, reaching the Galapagos Islands 

 and the northern shores of Australia. 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FUE SEALS IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS. They OCCU1 1 not Only 



on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the South American continent, about its southern 

 extremity, and on all the outlying islands, including not only the Falklands, the South Shetland 

 and South Georgian, but at other small islands more to the eastward, at Prince Edward's, the 

 Crozets, Kerguelen, Saint Paul, and Amsterdam, the southern and western shores of Australia, 

 Tasmania, New Zealand, and at the numerous smaller islands south of the two last named. They 

 have been found, in fact, at all the islands making up the chain of pelagic islets stretching some- 

 what interruptedly from Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands eastward to Australia and New 

 Zealand, including among others those south of the Cape ot Good Hope, so famous in the annals of 

 the seal-fishery. It has been stated by Gray and others that the Cape of Good Hope Fur Seals 

 (n-ally those of the Crozets and neighboring islands) are far inferior in commercial value to those 

 of other regions; but in tracing the history of the- sealing business I have failed to notice any 

 reference to the inferior quality of those from the last-named locality, or that there has been any 

 difference in the commercial value of the fur seal skins obtained at different localities in the 

 Southern Seas. The quality differs at the same locality, wherever the Fur Seals are found, with 

 the season of the year and age of the animals, so that skins may come not only from the Cape of 

 Good Hope, but from any other of the sealing places, that one "might feel convinced could not be 

 dressed as furs," being " without very thick underfill 1 ." 



20. THE SEA LION. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. The known range of this species, Eumetopian Stelleri (Lesson) 

 Peters, extends along the west coast of North America from the Farallono Islands, in latitude 37 

 40 7 north, to the Pribylov Islands. Its northern limit of distribution is not definitely known, but 



