DR. J. MURIE ON THE ANATOMY OF THE SEA-LION. 537 
tip of the pinna is naked. If hairs had once been there in the specimen under consi- 
deration, these must have been very effectually abraded ; for both ears showed the same 
absence of them. 
Rolled together scrollwise, as the ear usually appears, the concavity of the auricle or 
concha is barely, if at all, shown. When, however, its anterior and posterior borders, 
or what represents the helix (/, fig. 13), are drawn apart, the concha (c) is disclosed ; 
and this has a deep narrow median sulcus running through it. The helical surface is 
bare, and has a minutely punctated or glandular appearance. The surface of the concha 
is also hairless. Antihelix, tragus, antitragus, and lobule may be said to be wanting; 
or at least no clear division or prominence in the parts indicates their presence. 
The external auditory canal is narrow, and only admitted a fine probe, which passed 
up or inwards 0-4 of an inch from the conchal opening. 
10. Muzzle, Nostrils, and Whiskers—When the Otaria takes a long and deep 
inspiration the nostrils widely dilate, by the superior, but more particularly by their 
inferior lips being dragged downwards and backwards. This movement is produced 
through the contraction of the powerful naso-facial muscles described hereafter, p. 542. 
At such moments of distention the anterior nares present an egg-shape, taken from 
before backwards; but it is noticeable that they are more narrowed at the outer opening 
than within. ‘This unequal distensibility of the parts is in some measure owing to the 
formation of the nasal cartilages. 
When the nostrils are contracted and closed, the external apertures form a kind of 
V-shaped figure, each line or limb, however, having a trend or curve inwards, while the 
angle does not approach perfectly close. The apparent continuation of the lines of 
the nasal apertures below into what is really the median sulcus of the upper lip, has 
a resemblance to an inverted broad arrow. ‘This cleft of the muzzle, however, is only 
produced by the prominence of the anterior portion of the facial muscles, and is not a 
perfect separation into a right and a left half. 
The nose, so to speak, is somewhat pyriform when viewed in front, bare of hair, 
roughish, and of a very dark brown colour—indeed, almost shaded into a black. The 
anterior free margin of the septum narium has a median sulcus, which is 1-8 inch long. 
On a transverse and perpendicular section of the nasal region being made, somewhere 
about an inch or so from the front, the skin and superficial tissues having meantime been 
removed, the following appearance is presented (Pl. LXX. fig. 18), The cartilage of 
the septum (se), a longish, strong, narrow rod, is thicker below than above. The upper 
lateral cartilages (w./.c) expand in an arched form outwards, leaving beneath them two 
transversely flask-shaped openings, the inner ends of which are below narrowed by an 
upward projecting nipple, the inward fold of the circumambient cartilaginous arch. 
The flask-shaped openings already mentioned are continued down on either side of 
the septum, widening below. In the middle they are nearly obliterated by the close 
approximation of the cartilaginous edges. 
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