654 DR. J. E. GRAY ON SEA-BEARS. [May 21, 



in an octavo volume under the title of ' Forster's Descriptio Ani- 

 malium' (p. 64). 



Forster sent copies of the figures and notes of the animal to Buffon, 

 which were engraved and the notes published in the sixth volume of 

 the ' Supplement' of his ' Natural History ' (p. 336, tab. xlvii.) under 

 the name Ours marin, under which name Buffon combined the 

 Arctic and Antarctic Sea-bears, or Ours marin. 



Lesson, in his compilation on Seals, called the species Otaria 

 forsteri (Diction. Class. d'Hist. Nat. vol. xiii. p. 421) ; and Fischer 

 notices it in his 'Synopsis' as Phoca forsteri (p. 250), and, curiously 

 enough, adds, " Annon potius generi Enhydris adnumeranda?" 



Not being able to see any specimen or skull of this species so 

 that I could identify it with my species in the British Museum, and 

 Forster's description of the skull and teeth only showing that it was a 

 species of Arctocephalus, I recorded it under the name Arctocephalus 

 forsteri in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' for 1868 

 (i. p. 219), and in the 'Supplement to the Catalogue of Seals and 

 Whales,' published in 1871. 



Dr. Hector, after my repeated inquiry for the New-Zealand Sea- 

 bear, was so fortunate as to kill several specimens of this animal, and 

 has most kindly sent to the British Museum an adult skull of those 

 which he had procured. He observes in a letter which I have just 

 received : — " I have since received another skull from the Auckland 

 Islands [the most southern island of the New-Zealand group], of a 

 very young individual ; the characters are all the same, except that 

 the palate is not so much contracted posteriorly ; but the form and 

 position of the posterior aperture is maintained ; in my paper as pub- 

 lished in our 'Transactions' [of the New Zealand Institute] I have 

 suggested that the head (skull) is A. cinereus." He has since sent 

 me two plates, one giving three views of the adult skull, and three 

 of what he calls the very young skull. One is an Arctocephalus, 

 and the other a Gypsophoca. 



I have compared the adult skull sent by Dr. Hector with the figure 

 of the skull of the adult male in Quoy and Gaimard's ' Voyage de 

 l'Astrolabe,' 1824, tab. 13. figs. 1 and 2; and I believe that they 

 represent the same species, though there is a slight difference in the 

 position of the grinders as compared with the skull, which has the 

 front edge of the fourth grinder even with the back part of the large 

 aperture in front of the zygomatic arch, whilst in the figure the front 

 edge of the fifth grinder appears to be in this situation ; but this may 

 only be a want of accuracy on the part of the artist. I have little 

 doubt that Quoy's animal from Port Western and the New-Zealand 

 one are the same ; but it is a matter of doubt if the animal figured by 

 Quoy is the Otaria cinerea of Desmarest's 'Mammalia,' pp. 251, 

 348, from Peron and Lesueur's ' Voyage,' tab. ii. p. 75, who re- 

 ceived it from Kangaroo Island ; for I am not aware that Peron 

 brought home any specimen. It is certainly not the same as Arc- 

 tocephalus (Gypsophoca) cinerea in the British-Museum catalogue, 

 described from Mr. Macgillivray's specimens. 



The New-Zealand skull is very like the skull of the Southern Fur- 



