PHOCA. 



187 



(4) Phoca b areata. (Pho. b.) 



(Bearded Seal, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.) 



Phoca barbata, Fahricius, Fauna yrmnlaad., 1780. 

 Erignathus barbatus, Gill, Proc. Essex Inst, v., 1866 ; Allen, 

 N. Amer. Finn., 1880. 



Back grey or brown, darker on the middle, sides 

 greyish white, belly white. Length 7 to 8 feet. 

 Vertebral formula C^D^^LgS^Cd^g = 44. Post-canines 

 with distinct intervals, 

 not strongly implanted. 

 Teeth feeble. Tympanic 

 bulla swollen, rougher 

 than in other species 

 of Phoca. Hard palate 

 truncated behind, al- 

 most reaching hamulars. 

 Skull broad, orbits small, 

 interorbital region only 

 slightly compressed ; 

 nasal passages large ; 

 mandible weak, its sub- 

 condylar process large, 

 inverted, triangular, 

 continued by a ridge 

 into angle ; basi-occipital 

 not perforated. The 

 characters of the cran- 

 ium, especially those of 

 the loAver jaw, the 

 flattening of the zygo- 

 . mata, so that the cranial 

 breadth is almost the 

 same as the zygomatic, 

 the ridge along the 

 sagittal suture, the 

 broad muzzle, the long 

 narrow scapula, with- 

 out an acromion, the 

 middle digit in the 

 manus being the longest, 



the absence of an abrupt eversion of the iliac crests, 

 and the presence of four mamma? instead of two, 

 have led Messrs Gill and Allen to separate barbata 



