ALLEN: mammalia: phocid^. 91 



is not met with in the ice-pack. It ranges, however, very far south, 

 being found, he says, "in great numbers on the coast of South Victoria 

 Land, and is the species most commonly met with in Ross's Sea. At 

 almost the farthest southern point reached by the SoiitJiern Ooss Expe- 

 dition these seals were numerous, and even in a piece of water south of 

 the edge of the Great Barrier, which apparently communicated under ice 

 with the sea, a number of them were found. . . . 



"Weddell's Seal was the only species found breeding in any consider- 

 able numbers by the Southern Cross Expedition. Some dead young 

 seals were found buried in guano at Camp Ridley on Cape Adare, but 

 apparently no Weddell's Seals breed there now, though in Robertson 

 Bay, close by, a large number of them were breeding, and many young 

 were born." The date of the birth of the young is given as September. 



The species was first named by Lesson in 1826, his account being based 

 entirely on the description (by Professor Jameson) and drawing published 

 by Captain Weddell, the previous year, in his " Voyage towards the South 

 Pole " (p. 22). Professor Jameson's description is as follows : " Leopar- 

 dine seal, the neck long and tapering ; the head small ; the body pale- 

 greyish above, yellowish below, and back spotted with pale white. This 

 species to be referred to the division Stenorhinque, of F. Cuvier ; the 

 teeth, however, do not quite agree with those of his Phoque Septonyx 

 [sic], nor with those of Sir E. Home, in pi. xxix of the Philosophical 

 Transactions for 1822." 



Yet Lesson, believing that it had small ears which had been omitted 

 by error in the drawing, referred it to the genus Otaria, but afterwards 

 (1827) to the genus StenorJiynciis. Weddell brought home an "excellent 

 specimen," which he presented to the Edinburgh Royal Museum, and 

 which was later described in Dr. Robert Hamilton's "Amphibious Car- 

 nivora " (Jardine's Naturalist's Library, Vol. VI, 1839, pp. 183-187, pi. 

 xii). This specimen evidently came from the South Orkneys (latitude 

 60° 37' S.), where Captain Weddell says his men killed quite a number 

 of the animals, and that he saw others off the South Shetlands. This 

 specimen, according to Barrett-Hamilton (/. c.) is now in the new 

 Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art. 



Gray, in 1837, gave the first intelligible description of the species, from 

 two specimens, skins and skulls, obtained by Captain Fitzroy at the mouth 

 of the Santa Cruz River, on the coast of Patagonia, but he gave the 



