C82 PROF. OWEN ON THE GENUS DINORNIS. [June 4, 



fighting, biting large pieces out of each other's hide, and sometimes 

 killing the females. At this time they become an easy prey to man, 

 as they will stand and be killed without trying to get away. 



"The Lioness has her first pup at three years of age, never more 

 than one at a time, and comes up to have intercourse with the Lion 

 at two, and as soon as the pup is born ; at no other time but the 

 breeding-season do they have sexual intercourse. They suckle their 

 young five months before they are taken to sea, by which time the 

 pup has shed its first hair. Before the mother takes her pup to fish 

 she has to ballast it, and I have seen a Lioness trying for hours to 

 make her pup swallow small stones at the water's edge. 



"The female keeps her pup with her until two or three weeks 

 before the next breeding-season, when she drives it from her. About 

 this time the yearlings will be found some few miles from the old 

 rookery. 



"The Sea-lions must live to a great age, for where a rookery was 

 broken up by the American sealers forty years ago, I myself have 

 seen a few old Lions haul up year after year, waiting in vain for the 

 females that were killed years before. This proves that they never, 

 unless they are very much worried, leave altogether the place where 

 they were born. 



" The Lions stay as long as two months on shore during the 

 breeding-season without going into the water. During that time 

 their fat gives them sufficient nourishment. After the season is over 

 some of them are so thin and weak that they are but just able to 

 crawl into the water. I have killed them in this state, and not one 

 particle of stone have 1 found in them. 



"Only in one case have I seen a boat attacked by a Lion, and that 

 was when a harpoon was stuck in it. As soon as a check was given 

 to the line he sprang at the boat, seized the gunwale with his teeth, 

 and tore nearly the whole length of it off one side. 



"The Fur-Seal, which I call the 'Sea-fox,' is a much more cunning 

 and sharper Seal than any other I have seen. It has a sharper nose, 

 larger ears, and is quicker in its movements than the Common Seal. 

 They generally breed on some isolated rock, a month earlier than 

 the Common Seal, and finish shedding their old hair in March ; their 

 habits are the same as the Lions as regards pupping, intercourse, &c. 



"I have seen them, when men have been stationed on their 

 rookery to shoot them as they come up, produce their pup in the 

 water, take it in their mouth before it could drown, and place it on the 

 rock, and then swim away until dark, when they return to suckle it. 



"The male Fur-Seal (which we call a Wig), although it is much 

 smaller than the Sea-lion, yet when they fight (which often happens 

 in the breeding-season) is always the victor." 



Prof. Owen, F.R.S., read the nineteenth of his series of memoirs 

 on the extinct birds of the genus Di/iornis. This portion contained 

 the description of a femur, indicative of a new genus of large wingless 

 birds allied to Dromceus, and proposed to be called Dromornis austra- 



