122 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: ZOOLOGY. 



of Fur Seals, by the slenderness and declivity of the rostral portion of the 

 skull and the much more elongated and relatively narrower general form 

 of the entire skull. The cranial differences between these two groups 

 are, however, not nearly so great as those which separate Otaria from 

 Eitmetopias and ZalopJius. Dr. Peters, in his last synopsis of the Eared 

 Seals, referred all of the Fur Seals to the genus Arctocephalus, and placed 

 all the Hair Seals, except Otaria byronia, in the genus Etanetopias, thus 

 recognizing only three genera of Otaries — Otaria, Eitmetopias and Arc- 

 tocepJialtis. 



The number of species of Arctocephalus, as well as their nomenclature, 

 has been a subject much in dispute, owing to lack of sufficient material to 

 determine the status of the supposed species, and to the unsatisfactory 

 basis of many of the earlier names. Peters, in 1877, recognized seven 

 species of southern Fur Seals, but several of them rest on very unsatis- 

 factory evidence. In 1892 M considered that six were fairly entitled to 

 recognition ; another, ArctocepJialns tcwusendi Merriam, had not then been 

 described. They are, adding the latter, as follows : 



1. Arctocephalus toivnsendi Merriam. Guadalupe Island, off Lower 

 California. 



2. Arctocephalus philippii (Peters). Islands of Juan Fernandez and 

 Mas a Fuera, and probably adjacent coast and islands of western South 

 America. 



3. Arctocephalus australis (Zimm.). Falkland Islands, Straits of Ma- 

 gellan, and probably South Georgian Islands. 



4. Arctocephalus antarcticus (Thunb.). West coast of South Africa 

 and adjacent islands. 



5. Arctocephalus gazella (Peters). Kerguelen Island, and St. Paul and 

 Amsterdam Islands, and probably the Crozet Islands. 



6. Arctocephalus forsteri (Lesson). Coasts of New Zealand, Australia 

 and Tasmania, and the islands to the southward and eastw^ard. 



Very little new light has since been thrown upon the subject, as regards 

 the number and exact definition of the species. Facts of considerable im- 

 portance having an indirect bearing on the matter have been developed 

 through the Fur Seal Investigations of the seal herds in Bering Sea and 

 the North Pacific ; it having been established that the several herds which 

 frequent respectively for breeding purposes the Pribilof Islands, the Kurile 



' Proc. Fur Seal Arbitration, Vol. II, Appendix to Case of U. S., I, 1892, pp. 373-375. 



