266 Dr. J. E. Gray on Sea-hears. 



vol. iii. p. 113. The name is clianged to A. scJnstiqjerua by 

 Dr. Giinther in the ^ Zoological Eecord ' for 1868, p. 20. It 

 is evidently the skull of a half-grown animal, with all its 

 teeth developed, but with the sutures of the bones still appa- 

 rent. It agrees in every respect with Avhat I should expect to 

 be the form and structure of the skull of Arctocejyhahcs Dela- 

 landii from the Cape ; but unfortunately the two skulls of that 

 Sea-bear from the Cape which are in the British Museum are 

 from old animals ; and the specimen figured by Cuvier, Oss. 

 Foss. V. 220, t. 18. f. 5, is also adult. It differs from the 

 skulls of the two adult specimens of that species in the British 

 Museum in the hinder nasal aperture being much extended 

 forwards and gradually tapering to a point in front, which 

 reaches to the transverse palato-maxillary suture. This pecu- 

 liarity in the form of the palate, which Prof. Turner has not 

 observed in any other seal-skull, seems to have induced him 

 to regard it as a distinct species. 



From the examination I have made of the skulls of seals 

 in the Museum and other collections, I am induced to believe 

 that it is an individual abnormality ofArctoce^yhalus Delalandii. 

 I have observed a similar malformation in the palates of two 

 other species. I was myself misled by their structure to regard 

 a skull with such a deformity as a distinct species before I met 

 with the other examples. 



At one time I thought that it might be a peculiarity of the 

 young state, as it had up to that time only been observed in 

 skulls of half-grown animals. I have observed it in half- 

 grown specimens oi Eiiotaria nigrescens] but the skulls of the 

 very young specimens of this seal in the British Museum have 

 the front edge of the hinder nasal opening truncated and 

 slightly arched in form, with well-developed square palatine 

 bones united by a straight central suture, just as in the adult, 

 but broader and straighter. 



It was this observation that induced me to return to my 

 original opinion, that the skull which I had at first regarded as 

 a young* skull of ArctocepTialus monteriensis (Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 ]859), and then as a separate s])ecies under the name of 

 A. californianus (Cat. Seals and Whales, p. 51), was only a 

 monstrosity of ^. monteriensis^ as I did in the Ann. & Mag. 

 Nat. Hist.- 1866, xviii. p. 232; and I am now induced to 

 believe that Arctocephalus scMsthyperoes is only an imper- 

 fectly developed skull of Arctocephalus Delalandii^ or, as it 

 ought to be called, A. antarctica. 



Dr. J. R. Forster, in Cook's Voyage in 1775, observed the 

 Eared Seal at the Cape of Good Hope, and called it Phoca 

 ursina. Believing it to be the same as the Sea-bear he had 



