ALLEN : MAMMALIA : OTARIID^. 



133 



Among their noted resorts, from which hundreds of thousands have been 

 taken by the sealers, are MasaFuero and Juan Fernandez Islands, the St. 

 Felix, St. Ambrose, and St. Mary's Islands, and Albemarle and other 

 islands of the Galapagos group.' Apparently they formerly bred in large 

 numbers at most of these resorts, where apparently a few are still found. 

 There are also numerous records of their capture at many points on 

 the coast of Chili, at the Chincha Islands, and in the Bay of Callao on the 

 coast of Peru. 



General Histoyy. — Under the name Phoca porcina Molina, in 1782, 

 described an eared seal, but whether it was a species of Otaria or an Arc- 

 toccphaliis it is impossible to determine. It is so very imperfectly de- 

 scribed that it must be considered as undeterminable. 



Tschudi, in his "Fauna Peruana" (1844-1846), published under the 

 name " 0{tana\ aiirita Humboldt," a drawing and a manuscript description 

 of a young eared seal from the San Lorenzo Island, in the Bay of Callao, 

 communicated to him by Humboldt. There is nothing in the descrip- 

 tion to show whether it was a hair seal [Otaria] or a fur seal [Arctoce- 

 p ha I lis). 



The first name unquestionably referable to a fur seal from the west 

 coast of South America is Otaria pliilippii Peters (1866), based on a skin 

 and skull of a young adult male from Juan Fernandez Island, of which he 

 gave a detailed description and excellent figures (natural size) of the 

 skull. At the same time he referred it to a new ^Vi\igtnw^ Arctoplioca.ow 

 the basis of its having only five teeth in the upper premolar-molar series. 

 and the palate deeply emarginate. Neither of these features was normal-, 

 the antepenultimate tooth having fallen out (a partly obliterated alveo- 

 lus is clearly shown in Peters's figure on the right side, and more than 

 the normal interval on the left side), while the great emargination of the 

 posterior border of the palate is obviously due to imperfect ossification. 

 Both these abnormalities occur with some frequency in various species of 

 the Otariidae.- 



' For some account of the slaughter of this species for its skins at Mas a Fuero, Juan Fernan- 

 dez, and Galapagos Islands see Allen, Rep. Fur Seal Arbitr., App, to Case of United States, Vol. 

 I, 1892, pp. 394-396- Also Townsend (for the Galapagos), Fur Seals and Fur Seal Islands of 

 the N. Pac. Ocean (Jordan), Part III, 1899, P- -71- 



^ Of the six skulls from Hood Island, Galapagos Archipelago, four have the molars \\ and two 

 have them 5.5, in these two instances with no indication that there were ever any more. In 

 another skull there is a supernumerary denticle between the 5th and the 6th teeth on each side. 



