1869.] DR. J. MURIE ON THE SEALS OF THE FALKLANDS. 101 
Otariide, which hitherto have been indefinite, receive elucidation, 
even from the imperfect supply now furnished. 
The skins were preserved in a salted condition, the bones roughly 
dried. They have been compared and identified with those in the 
British Museum. 
The total number of animals to which the specimens belong is 
sixteen: they comprise but two species, namely, the Otaria jubata, 
Foster, and Otaria nigrescens (Arctocephalus nigrescens, Gray). 
Of these, fifteen belong to the first, and but one to the second 
species. 
I. OTARIA JUBATA. 
1. Skin and cranium (tolerably perfect) of an adult male, but not 
aged, Sea-lion, technically called by the traders a ‘“ Bull;’’ shot at 
Kelp Island, one of the eastern islets of the group of the Falkland 
Islands. 
Lecomte states that there were altogether about 40 Seals com- 
posing the herd of which this male was a member. Another, much 
larger and maned male was wounded by a shot at the same time, 
but it managed to escape. 
The above skin, in its present moist condition, measures 96 inches 
from the muzzle to the posterior end of the hind flippers as they 
are thrown backwards ; fromthe muzzle to the tip of tail 73 inches ; 
from point to point of the outstretched fore flippers 763 inches. 
The pelage on the back and belly is worn and rubbed off, the ani- 
mal evidently having been just shedding its coat when slain. There 
is a very slight tendency to development of a mane, the longish hairs 
here being of a brindled yellow-and-brown shade. The throat is 
lighter-coloured and with shorter hairs; but towards the mandible 
they are longer, darker, and beard-like. The upper surface of 
the head, almost as far as the nose, is of a light or yellowish-. 
brown shade; the two cheeks dark brown; the muzzle black. 
The fresh undercoat of shorter hairs (not the underwool) all along 
the back inclines to a yellowish grey. The long and partially abraded 
hairs in scattered patches are dull brown, which becomes slightly 
redder and richer in tint at the buttocks and posterior tibial regions. 
This same hue is apparently the original one previous to the shedding 
of the outer coat ; it is well seen in the axille. The belly, with very 
short and finely set hair, is of a brownish yellow. The flippers are 
black where bare of hair. 
The skull is a good representative of the species during middle 
life—that is, before the extraordinary high occipito-parietal and longi- 
tudinal parieto-frontal crests peculiar to very old age are developed. 
These elevations have just commenced to show themselves in a raised 
narrow plate of bone. The surface of the cranium is altogether rough. 
The palate is broad, and but moderately deep (see fig. 1, p. 103). 
The teeth exhibit a most remarkable condition, and such as I have 
only witnessed (and that but slight in comparison) in one other spe- 
cimen of the genus. Not only the whole of the smaller-sized molars 
and premolars, but also the great canines of both upper and lower 
