1895.J OW THE STRUCTURE AND HABITS OE THE SE^V-OTTER. 421 



Erinaceus lihycus, Hempr. & Ehr. Symb. Phys. Decas ii. 1832 ; 

 Dobson, Monogr. p. 16 (nee syn.). 



Erinaceus hypomdas, Brandt \ Bull. Ac. St. Petersb. 1836, p. 32. 



Erinaceus plaiyotis, Simdevall ^, Vet.-Ak. Handl. Stockholm, 

 (1841) 1842, p. 232. 



Erinaceus cegyptius, Geoffroy ', Euppell, Mus. Senck. iii. 1845, 

 p. 159. 



Erinaceus frontalis, Dobson (nee E. frontalis, A. Smith), Monogr. 

 p. 18. 



Erinaceus Irachydactylus, Tristram (not Wagner), Survey o£ 

 Western Palestine, 1884, p. 25 ; Hart, Fauna & Flora of Sinai 

 Petra, &c. 1891, p. 238, pi. i. fig. 2. 



Distribution. Lower Egypt ; Sinaitic Peninsula ; Palestine ; 

 Cyprus ; Turkey in Asia to Kirghis Steppes. 



In Africa it is confined to Lower Egypt. 



3. Note on the Structvire and Habits of the Sea-Otter 

 {Latax lutris). By R. Lydekker. 



[Received April 9, 1895.] 



Through the kindness of Mr. J. Cole Hartland, of Yokohama, I 

 have received the following notes on the structure and habits of 

 the Sea-Otter made by Mr. H. J. Snow, who for the last twenty 

 years has been engaged in hunting these animals and fur-seals in 

 the Kurile Islands. As they somewhat revolutionize the current 

 ideas as to the position of the hind limbs, I think they are decidedly 

 worth laying before the Society. 



Commenting on a reproduction of Wood's well-known figiu'e 

 given on page 98 of the second volume of ' The Eoyal Natural 

 History,' Mr, Hartland writes me that " The fore limbs are much 

 shorter than represented, and when on shore the chest, as far as 

 the end of the breast-bone, has the appearance of almost touching 

 the ground. The abdomen is raised considerably from the ground 

 and the hind flippers are doubled back, the Sea-Otter being 

 incapable of placing its hind flippers in the position represented in 

 the drawing. It occurred to Mr. Snow that the illustration may 

 have been taken from a specimen shot by himself and set up by 

 Ward of Eochester, New York, photos of which I enclose. The 

 attitude of this specimen is quite misleading, and not at all that 

 assumed by the animal when on shore. Mr. Snow has had several 

 opportunities of getting good observations of these animals when on 

 shore — on one occasion he saw some 20 or more on a rocky point 



^ Prof. Biichuer has been so good as to inform me that the spines on the 

 head of the type are not divided into two lateral groups by an area destitute of 

 spines, and that the spines are distributed quite as in E. auritus. 



^ I am indebted to Prof. F. A Smith, of Stockholm, for the information that 

 in the type there is no bare area on the mesial line of the head, and also for 

 the opportunity to examine some of the spines oi' Sundevall's specimen. 



^ This name is taken from the unpublished Catalogue of Mammals in the 

 Paris Museum, by (Etienne) Geoifroy St.-Hilaire. 



