Dr. J. E. Gray on the Fur- and Hair- Seals. 99 



6. Adolias cocytina, Horsfield. 



J . A. Cocytina, Horsfield, Zoological Journal (1855), p. 67, pi. 4. 



figs. 3, 3 a. 

 ? . Alae supra velut in. A. Oopia scriptse ; minores, macuKs discaUbus 



antiearum albis fusco magis tinctis, posticarum punctiformibus. 

 Alse subtus magis ochrace^e, maculis inferioribus discalibus antiearum 



magis elongatis ; serie macularum in posticis magis ad marginem 



approximantibus ; aliter velut in A. Gopia § . 



Purchased of Mr. Stevens. Sumatra. 



XVII. — Ohservations on Sea-Bears (Otariadse), and especially 



on the Fur-Seals and Hair-Seals of the Falkland Islands 



and Southern America. By Dr. J. E. Geay, F.R.S., 



V.P.Z.S., F.L.S. &c. 

 The Sea-Bears {Otariad(e) inhabit the more temperate and 

 colder parts of the southern hemisphere, and the temperate 

 and more northern regions of the Pacific Ocean. 



Navigators, from the general external resemblance of the 

 animals, have regarded the Sea-Lion and Sea-Bear of the 

 northern and southern regions as the same animal. Pennant 

 (who paid considerable attention to Seals) and most modern 

 zoologists did the same. 



Nilsson, in his excellent Monograph of the Seals, only men- 

 tions three species of Eared Seal: — 1. Otariaj'uhata, 2. 0. ur- 

 sina, and 3. 0. australis. He believed that the first was 

 common to the Falkland Islands, Chile, Brazil, New Holland, 

 and Kamtschatka, and the second to Magellan's Straits, Pata- 

 gonia, New Holland, and the Cape. We now know that the 

 species have a very limited geographical distribution. 



When I published my ' Catalogue of the Seals in the British 

 Museum,' in 1850, I was satisfied from Steller's description 

 that the species he described from the arctic regions were dis- 

 tinct from those found in the southern seas ; and when I at 

 last succeeded in obtaining specimens and skulls from the 

 northern regions of the Pacific, I not only found that my idea 

 was confirmed, but that they did not even belong to the same 

 genera. I had the skulls of these species figured in the ^ Pro- 

 ceedings of the Zoological Society ' for 1859, and thus greatly 

 extended the knowledge of the animals. But there is yet much 

 to be learnt respecting them. We do not know the species 

 of Fur-Seal described by Forster as inhabiting the coast of 

 New Zealand. 



As a proof of how little the Eared Seals or Sea-Bears were 

 formerly understood, we have only to refer to Fischer's ' Syn- 



