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



Cuvier (Ossein. Fossiles, v. p. 220) describes an Eared Seal, 

 purchased of M. Hauville, of Havre, as coming from the Falk- 

 land Islands, thus : — " Elle est longue de quatre pieds deux 

 pouces, d'un cendrd en dessous, blanchatre aux flancs et sous la 

 poitrine, une bande d'un brun rouge r^gne le long du dessous du 

 ventre et une bande nou-atre va transversalement d'une na- 

 geoire k I'autre." It has been called Otaria HauviUu (Lesson, 

 Diet. Class, xiii. 425) and Phoca Hauvillii (Fischer, Syn. 

 Mamm. 254) . Cuvier adds that this specimen has been indicated 

 by M. de Blainville (Journ, de Phys. xci. p. 298) under the 

 name of Otarie de Peron. This animal is probably the same 

 as the one mentioned by Pennant, and in the British Museum. 

 The streaks on the lower part of the body were probably only 

 an accidental or individual variation. The specimen in the 

 British Museum is uniform white below, without any indica- 

 tion of a longitudinal streak or cross band. 



II. The Bi-itish Museum contains the skin and skull of a large 

 blackish Eared Seal, nearly 6 feet long, that was pm'chased 

 of a dealer as " a Fur-Seal from the Falkland Islands ;" but, 

 as the dealers seem always to give that as the habitat for all 

 the seal-skins with a distinct under-coat that come into their 

 possession, I have quoted the habitat with doubt. When oc- 

 cupied in describing the Seals of the southern hemisphere for 

 the ' Voyage of the Erebus and Terror,' I named this Seal 

 ArctocejDhalus nigrescens, and had the skull figured mider that 

 name ; but the plate has not yet been published, though copies 

 of it have been given to Dr. Peters and other zoologists. In 

 the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1859, pp. 109, 

 360, and in the ^ Catalogue of Seals and Whales,' I described 

 the skull of this species. There is also in the Museum a skull 

 of a younger animal of the same species. 



Capt. Abbot, in 1866, sent to the British Museum a large 

 and a small Seal from the Falkland Islands. The large one 

 was examined and determined to be the Southern Sea-Lion 

 {Otaria juhata). The small one, nearly three feet long, was 

 very similar in external appearance ; and as the teeth, which 

 could be seen without extracting the skull, showed that it was 

 a young animal, it was regarded as the young of the Sea-Lion, 

 and it was stuffed without extracting the skull, and labelled as 

 such. This specimen has been examined by several zoologists, 

 among the rest by Dr. Peters, when engaged with his paper on 

 Eared Seals, and has passed unchallenged until this time, thus 

 showing how difficult it is to distinguish these animals by their 

 external characters alone. Capt. Abbot, who is now residing 

 in England, informed me that the smaller specimen was the 



