326 Miscellaneous. 



Otaria minor. The Smaller Sea-lion. 



Skull of an adult male 11 1 inches long, and 6| inches mde at the 

 condyles ; the nose dilated in front ; the palate very deep, wide, 

 broad in front, contracted behind, with the lateral processes rather 

 contracted, the sixth upper grinder behind the edge of the front of 

 the zygomatic arch ; the lower jaw 8| inches long, wide and strong, 

 contracted and flat on the sides in front, and with an elongated scar 

 behind left by the temporal muscle. 



Mab. Unknown. Received from Mr. E. Cross, 1854. 



This skull may be the same as Otaria Godeffroj/i, Peters, described 

 and figured from a specimen in the museum at Hamburg, which is 

 about the same size ; but the lower jaw is not of the same shape 

 as the lower jaw of the skuU in the Museum, the scar of the 

 large temporal muscle is broad and rounded at the end, as in the 

 jaws of the common sea-lion, and the sixth upper grinder is before 

 the back edge of the front of the zygoma ; so that I am inclined to 

 think that the Hamburg skull belongs to a small species allied to, or 

 is a small variety of, the common sea-lion (^Otaria jubata). 



Otaria pygmcea. The Pigmy Sea-lion. 



The skull of an adult (female) 9:|^ inches long, and 5| broad at 

 the condyles. 



The palate is very narrow, deep, scarcely wider behind ; the 

 sixth upper grinder is behind the hinder edge of the front of the 

 zygomatic arch. The lower jaw is comparatively slender, Q>\ inches 

 long, compressed and flat in front. 



Hah. Unknown. The specimen was received from the Zoologi- 

 cal Society in 1858. 



This skull is partly broken behind, and wants aU the grinders 

 and the greater part of the cutting-teeth. The canines are com- 

 paratively small, which makes me think that it belongs to a female ; 

 indeed I might regard it as the female belonging to the same species 

 as the skull before described, but for the peculiar form and narrow- 

 ness of the palate. 



The palates of the two sexes of the common sea-lion are of the 

 same form, though they become deep with age and those of the males 

 more contracted behind ; so that they give no authority for believing 

 that the palates of the two sexes of an allied species are so different. 



The Succession of Life in North America. By Edward D, Cope. 



The United States east of the Missouri river and the plains have 

 been free from changes of level for a much longer period than that 

 portion which lies to the west of such an imaginary line. It was 

 alternately dry and submerged during a long period in the infancy 

 of geological time, but became finally so established as to permit of 

 no further descent of level, or, at most, of slight ones only. The 

 last stages of this process of creation were witnessed at the close of 

 the Carboniferous period, when the elevations of land were wide- 

 spread, inclosing tracts of water within bars or in depressions. 



