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



2. Euotarta ntgrescens^ Grray, 

 Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1866, xviii. p. 236. 



The synonymy of this species will be — 

 Arctocephabis nigrescens, Gray, Zool. Erebus and Terror, t. ; P. Z. S. 1859 



pp. 109, 3605 Cat. Seals and Whales, p. 52; Gerrard, Cat. of Bone 



p. 147. 

 Arctocephalus (Euotaria) nigrescens^ Gray, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1866. 



xviii. p. 236. 

 Otaria {Ai-ctoceiohalus ?) Falklandica, Peters, Monatsb. 1866, p. 273. 

 Otaria (Arctophoca) Falklandica, Peters, Monatsb. 1866, p. 671. 



Hob. Falkland Islands, Volunteer Rock (Capt. Abbot). 



In the first essay, Dr. Peters places PJioca falklandica^ 

 Shaw, and Otaria nigrescens together, with doubt, observing 

 that one was known from the skin and the other by the skull, 

 overlooking the fact that the name nigrescens implied that 

 I had seen the colour of the fur, which was not that given 

 by Shaw to his animal ; in his second essay. Dr. Shaw's, 

 Dr. Burmeister's, and my animal are all classed together with- 

 out any doubt. 



The skull of Capt. Abbot's Fur-Seal from the Falkland 

 Islands shows that it was a very young animal, which had 

 only developed its first grinders, the permanent series being 

 developed below them. The tentorium is bony and well- 

 developed. The teeth are the same in position and number 

 as they are in the adult skull ; and the upper ones, as far as 

 developed, are small and conical, except the fifth upper 

 grinder, which is largest, triangular, with a single subconical 

 lobe on the base of the hinder edge of the cone. The 

 lower canines are small, scarcely larger than the cutting- 

 teeth, which are nearly uniform in size. The lower grinders 

 are of a much larger size than the upper ones in the adult 

 skull, as if they belonged to the permanent series : they 

 are of the same form as the teeth in adult skulls ; but the 

 central cone is higher and more acute, and the anterior and 

 posterior lobes at the base of the cone are more developed and 

 acute, the lobes of the last or fifth grinder being larger and 

 rather on the inner surface of the tooth. 



The skull of Capt. Abbot's animal is evidently not the same 

 as the skull of a young Eared Seal described and figured by 

 Dr. Burmeister as the ^\.v\\oi Arctocephalus falklandicus from 

 the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, in the Ann. & Mag. Nat. 

 Hist. ser. 3. vol. xviii. p. 99, t. 9, which, from the appearance 

 of the grinders, I suspect is the young skull of Phocarctos 

 Hookeri, the Hair-Seal of the Falkland Islands. 



There is a considerable difference in the proportions of the 

 skull sent by Capt. Abbot from those of the one figured b} 



