Dr. J. E. Gray on Fur-Seals. 215 



thread. From this size upward I have no difficulty in finding 

 abundant examples as gradually increasing in diameter as they 

 did in length — thus furnishing a pretty strong evidence that 

 the stem grows under the influence of its own innate powers, 

 and is not, therefore, a deposit emanating from the body of the 

 monad, except, perhaps, as far as it may be nom'ished by a 

 fluid circulating within its hollow core." 

 [To be continued.] 



XXVIII. — Observations on the Fur- Seals of tJie Antarctic Seas 

 and the Cape of Good Hope, with the Description of a new 

 Species. By Dr. J. E. Geay, F.R.S., V.P.Z.S. 



FURTHEE research and additional specimens have shown that, 

 with all the attention I had bestowed on the Seals which had 

 been named Phoca falklandica^ I have some additions which 

 require to be made to my former paper. 



Capt. Abbot assin-es me that there were only three kinds of 

 Seals found in the Falkland Islands when he was there, about 

 ten years ago, — viz. (1) the Sea-Bear {Otaria juhata) ^ (2) the 

 Fur-Seal (Arctocejjhalus nigrescens), which are Eared Seals, 

 and (3) the Sea-Leopard [Stenorhynchus leptonyx)^ which is an 

 Earless Hair-Seal. 



According to Pernetty (Voy. aux iles Malouines, p. 202), 

 Sea-Lions or Sea-Elephants [Morimga elephantina) were found 

 there in his time : they may have been driven away or all 

 destroyed by the sealers ; and some other species that for- 

 merly lived in the islands may have shared the same fate. 

 If that is the case, the beautiful Fur-Seal in the British 

 Museum which I have named Arctocepthalus falklandicus is not 

 now found in the Falkland Islands, though it was received as 

 a Seal from there. On my showing Mr. Bartlett the specimen, 

 he brought me a furrier's small imperfect skin of the same 

 species, which he had purchased of a fellmonger, who assm-ed 

 him that such Fur-Seal skins were only received from the 

 arctic part of the Pacific Ocean. If this be true, the skin 

 was probably that of a young individual either of Steller's 

 Sea-Bear {Eumetopias Stelleri) or of a species allied to it, 

 which, as I mentioned in my former paper, are the only Seals 

 that have such a close, soft, elastic fur. 



The statement that the Museum specimen of Arctocephalus 

 falklandicus was not a Falkland but a northern species renders 

 it necessary that fm-ther research should be made to determine 

 the two specimens in the Museum of Science and Art at Edin- 

 burgh, which were, according to Mr. R. Hamilton, conveyed to 



