193 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



SO imperfect was the specimen on which the description was founded, and 

 the animal itself was so little known, that even its generic relations were in 

 doubt, and its reference to the genus Monachus was considered provisional. 

 From thence on to the present, rumours of the existence of this Seal have 

 been not infrequent, but nothing seemed trustworthy and positive, and no 

 specimens were obtained, if we except a young skin, without bones or skull, 

 which came from Cuba to the National Museum at Washington, in 1884, 

 without any indication as to locality. It has long seemed to the writer, as 

 doubtless to many others, that the certain presence in our [i. e. American] 

 waters of so important a mammal lying jJerdu in regions which our naturalist 

 collectors are yearly visiting, was the opprobrium of American zoologists. 

 We made inquiries and collected notes from many sources, which showed 

 clearly that this Seal existed at isolated points — on small islands and keys — 

 not only in the Caribbean and among the Bahamas, but also in the Gulf of 

 Mexico. Last summer, while on a visit to the western shore of the Gulf 

 of Mexico, we were so fortunate as to "locate" this seal with much 

 certainty. This was upon the Triangles (Los Triangulos), three little 

 keys, hardly above the water-level at high tide, and lying some 100 miles 

 north-west off the CamjDeachy coast, in latitude N. 20° 50', and longitude 

 W. 92° 10'. Following this clue, my son, Mr. Henry L. Ward, last 

 December visited the Triangles in company with Senor F. Ferrari Perez, 

 naturalist of the Mexican Geographical and Exploring Expedition. His 

 hunt was highly successful, and he has during the present month returned 

 with nearly twenty specimens — skeletons and skins of all ages, from a 

 suckling to the fully adult male, seven feet in length. This ample material 

 has just been carefully studied by Prof. J. A. Allen, the well-known zoologist, 

 and author of a ' Monograph of North American Pinnipeds.' Prof. Allen 

 has given a preliminary notice of the specimens in ' Science,' January 14, 

 1887, and promises an elaborate account, with plates, in an early issue of 

 the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, New York. It 

 is a fact of rather peculiar interest that this, the first large mammal ever 

 discovered in x\merica, should, by the strange mishaps of natural-history 

 collecting, be the very last one to become known satisfactorily to science. — 

 Henry A. Ward (Rochester, New York). — In ' Nature.' 



[A second communication on the subject, from Mr. Allen, appeared in 

 'Science,' Jan. 21, 1887. Mr. Ward is mistaken in supposing that the 

 skin of the Seal, which came from Cuba to the National Museum at 

 Washington in October, 1883 (not 1884, as above stated), was without 

 bones or skull. It contained the skull and the bones of the fore and hind 

 flippers, and these have been described (with three figures of the skull) 

 by Messrs. Trew and Lucas in the Smithsonian Report for 1884, pt. ii. 

 pp. 331-3^5.— Ed.] 



