MONACHUS. ARCTOCEPHALUS. 543 
509. tropicalis (Phoca), Gray, Cat. Seals, Brit. Mus., 1850, p. 28. 
West INnpDIAN SEAL. 
Type locality. Island of Jamaica. 
Geogr. Distr. Formerly from islands off coast of Yucatan, Mexico, 
to Bay of Honduras and eastward to Jamaica, Cuba, Florida Keys 
and the Bahamas. At present found only on some Keys north of 
Cuba and on some scattered islands between Cuba and Yucatan. 
Genl. Char. Whiskers long, flexible; pelage short, stiff; well 
developed nails on anterior digits; small on those of the pes; muzzle 
elongated, depressed; soles and palms naked. 
Color. Above brown tinged with gray; sides lighter, grading 
into yellowish white on the under parts; edge of under lip, front and 
sides of muzzle yellowish white; limbs brown tinged with gray. 
Measurements. Total length (nose to end of hind limbs), 2390; 
length of manus, 300; of pes, 320. 
The Fur Seals are best known by the northern animals whose 
skin has such a high commercial value and whose rockeries or breeding 
places on the St. George and St. Paul islands of the Pribilof group, 
are familiar to so many. On a few places like the Guadalupe Island 
off the coast of Lower California, the Gallapagos Islands, and sundry 
others about the coasts of Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, a few 
members of the once great herds of the Southern Fur Seal may still 
remain, but they seem to be rapidly decreasing in numbers, and 
recent expeditions have failed to find any living individuals on some 
of the islands mentioned above, and have been able to bring back only 
skulls or parts of skeletons. Like other animals whose fur has a high 
commercial value, the prospect that these animals have for surviving 
the rapacity of man is but slight. 
10%. Arctocephalus. Sea-bears. 
Smoe lt deeds Nek 22) a= 
i GS Se Oe OO 
Te 4 — 
mEctocephalus’ F. Cuv., Dist. Sciew® Nat., xxxiIx, 1826, p. 554. 
Type Phoca ursina Linneus. 
Halarctus Gill, Proc. Essex Inst., v, 1866, p. 7. 
Arctophoca Peters, Monatsb. Preuss. Ak. Wiss. Berl., 1866, p. 
D7 Og maka basen G;. 
Euotaria Gray, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d Ser., xv11, 1866, p. 236. 
Gypsophoca Gray, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 3d Ser., xviii, 1866, p. 
236. 
Skull: slender, with facial portion elongate. 
