120 MAMMALIA. 
PexaGus, Fred. Cuv. 
Four incisors also, above and below, but their grinders are ob- 
tuse cones, with a slightly marked heel before and behind. There 
is one of them in the Mediterranean. 
Ph. monachus, Gm.; Buff. Supp. VI, pl. xiii.(1) (The Monk.) 
From ten to twelve feet in length, of a blackish brown, with a 
white belly. It is particularly found among the Grecian and 
Adriatic Islands, and is, most probably, the species best known 
to the ancients. 
STreMMarTopus, Fred. Cuy. 
Four superior incisors, and two inferior; grinders compressed, 
slightly trilobate, supported by thick roots. Such is the 
Ph. cristata, Gm.; Phoca leonina, Fabr.; Eged. Groenl. pl. 
vi;{Dekay, New York Lyc. I, pl. vii. (The Hooded Seal.) 
Seven or eight feet long; a piece of Joose skin on the head, 
which can be inflated at the pleasure of the animal, and is 
drawn. over the eyes when it is menaced, at which times the 
nostrils also are inflated like bladders. From the arctic 
ocean.(2) 
Finally, the Macroruinus, Fr. Cuv., has the incisors of the pre- 
ceding, obtuse conical molars, and the muzzle resembling a short 
movable proboscis or snout. The largest seal known is of this 
subgenus ; the 
Ph. leonina, L.; Sea-Lion of Anson; Sea-Wolf of Pernetty, 
&c. Peron’s Voy. I, xxxii. (The Elephant Seal.) From twenty 
to twenty-five feet in length; brown, the muzzle of the male 
terminated by a wrinkled snout, which becomes inflated when 
the animalis angry. It is common in the southern latitudes of | 
the Pacific Ocean, at the Terra-del-Fuego, New Zealand, Chili, 
&c. It constitutes an important object of the fisheries, on ac- 
count of the oil in which it abounds. The 
Orariss, Péron. Seals with external ears 
Are worthy of being formed into a separate genus; because, inde- 
pendently of the projecting external ears, the four superior middle 
incisors have a double cutting edge, a circumstance hitherto un- 
(1) It is the same individual described by Hermann, Soc. des Nat. de Berl. 
TV, xii, xiii, under the name of monarchus. 
(2) The mechanism by which this inflation is effected is not yet well under- 
stood. See Dekay and Ludlow, Annals of the New York Lyceum, Vol. I, pp. 94 
and 99. : 
