672 MR. J. W. CLARK ON EARED SEALS. [Dee 7, 
much the same characters as Péron does—adding, that when the 
hair is divided “a reddish fur of no great thickness is seen’’*. 
Lastly, though the skull has some characters in common with 
that of our specimen, as the way in which the incisors and canines 
interlock, and the peg-like process at the union of the praemaxille, 
the molars are quite different. They have all three cusps each. I 
examined this skull on two successive visits to Paris last summer. It 
is marked “1539. Phoque cendrée ou ourson, Phoca cinerea ou ursina, 
adulte du Port Jackson, Nouvelle Hollande, par MM. Quoy et 
Gaimard, expédition de l’Astrolabe ete. Aotit 1827, Voy. de l’Astr. 
89. Peau a la Zoologie.” Its length is 103 inches, width 63. 
The molars, = have never been disturbed. The opening ‘of the 
palate is long and V-shaped. The whole skull bears a very close re- 
semblance to that of the type of Otaria delalandei=O. pusilla, 
from the Cape of Good Hope. The stuffed skin in the Zoological 
Museum, No. 202, is in a bad state, faded and dilapidated. It in- 
dicates an animal about 8 feet long, without under-fur. The figures 
of it in the plates of the ‘ Voyage de I’ Astrolabe’ (plates 12, 13) are 
clearly inaccurate. Plate 12 shows nails on all the digits of both 
“pes” and “manus; ” plate 13, on all those of the “ manus” and on 
four only of the “ pes” +. On the whole, therefore, I am disposed to 
think that the name O. cinerea should be restricted to this species, 
and the older name O. forsteri, given by Lesson (Dict. Class. d’His- 
toire Naturelle, xiii. 421), reserved for our animal. The name cinerea 
was applied to the latter by Dr. Gray, though he doubted whether 
it really was identical with the O. cinerea of Péron (Supplement to 
the Catalogue of Seals and Whales in the British Museum, 1871, 
p. 24; Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1866, xviii. p. 236), when describing 
as “Arctocephalus cinereus, Australian Fur-Seal,” two young skulls 
and a stuffed skin sent from North Australia by Mr. John Macgillivray 
in 1853; on which specimen he founded subsequently his genus 
Gypsophoca (P. Z. 8. 1872, p. 659). I have studied these skulls 
carefully, and feel certain that they are only the young of our animal— 
an opinion which I am glad to find is shared by Dr. Hector. The 
stuffed specimen in the British Museum is 3 feet 53 inches long. 
Pelage dark brown, nearly black above, with a dense pale brown fur 
over the whole body, thickest on the back. On the breast, a light 
yellow tip appears upon the hair, which becomes longer under the 
throat. Beneath and round the eye is a dark spot. The pale colour 
of the throat extends between eye and ear, and over the under surface 
of the body. 
This brings me to the skulls from Amsterdam Island marked e, f, 
g, 4:—e. 6% inches long, 33 wide ; f. 63 inches long, 4 wide; g. 74 
inches long, 43 wide; A. 72 inches long, 4 wide. 
Teeth normal in all except g, where the last upper molar on the 
* “On voit un feutre roux peu épais ” (Zoologie de ’Astrolabe, i. p. 90). 
t The description (Zoologie, i. p. 90) says: “Les ongles des membres anté- 
rieurs sont a peine indiqués. Ceux des postérieurs sont étroits; les trois inter- 
inédiaires sont plus saillans, et l’extérieur n’est point apparent.” 
