January 14, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



35 



identify him, as he probably has a variety of both. 

 He claimed to be on his way to Albany. 



Perhaps if he can be exposed all along the line, he 

 may soon be rendered harmless. F. W. Staebnee. 



Westfield, Mass., Jan. 8. 



The West Indian seal. 



Mr. Henry L. Ward, a son of Prof. Henry A. 

 "Ward of Rochester, N.Y., has recently returned 

 from a special trip to the Gulf of Mexico in search of 

 the little-known West Indian seal, Monachus tropi- 

 calis, bringing "ndth him a good series of skins and 

 skeletons, including those of both sexes and a suck- 

 ling. Professor Ward, who has been on the alert for 

 several years for this, iintil recently, almost mythical 

 species, on learning of the probable locality of a 

 small colony of them, promptly organized, with his 

 usual energy in such matters, an expedition to pro- 

 cure specimens, in which enterprise he was joined by 

 Mr. Fernando Ferrari-Perez, naturalist of the Mexi- 

 can geographical and exploring commission, who, 

 "wdth Mr. Ward, procured a schooner at CamiDeachy 

 for a trip to the three little keys north-west of Yuca- 

 tan known as The Triangles (Los Triangulos). Ow- 

 ing to bad weather, they had but three days at the 

 keys, but their efforts were well rewarded; and the 

 West Indian seal is now in a fair way to be soon rejj- 

 resented in several of our leading museums. The 

 only specimens hitherto known to be extant in col- 

 lections are the one recently acquired by the U. S. 

 national museum (see Science, iii. 752), and the im- 

 perfect skin Mdthout skull jjresented many years ago 

 by Mr. P. H. Gosse to the British museum. So little 

 was known of the sj^ecies until recently, that even its 

 generic relations were in doubt, its reference to the 

 genus Monachus having been regarded as provis- 

 ional. 



The material obtained by Mr. Ward, at much risk 

 and expense, having been kindly placed in my hands 

 for description, I am able to throw some further light 

 upon this interesting species. Its cranial as well as 

 external characters show it to be unquestionably ref- 

 erable to the genus Monachus. The color of the 

 animal proves to vary miich with age. The young 

 are at first wholly intense black, remaining of this 

 color doubtless during their first year. As they be- 

 come older, the color changes to lighter ; the dorsal 

 surface becomes grayish black, through a slight gray 

 tipping to the black hairs, shading on the sides of 

 the body into the yellowish white of the ventral sur- 

 face. The front and sides of the muzzle, and the 

 edges of the lower lip, become yellowish brown; the 

 whiskers change from black or blackish to yellowish 

 white, a few only of the shorter ones remaining 

 dark, either wholly or only at the base. In the 

 younger animals the whiskers are not only much 

 darker than in the adult, btit much longer and 

 heavier. 



The skull is depressed, broad, and heavy. In 

 general proportions it differs from that of Phoca 

 vitulina in the longer, more sloping, and much 

 broader ante-orbital portion, and the miich greater 

 thickness of the inter-orbital region, and the auditory 

 bullae are less swollen and relatively much smaller. 

 The dentition is very heavy, the length of the largest 

 molars being 16 mm., with a breadth of 10 mm. The 

 molars are crowded, set somewhat obliqiiely to the 

 axis of the jaw ; the second, third, and foiirth have 

 one small accessory cusp before, and two behind, the 

 larger or principal one. These are well marked in 



the younger or middle-aged specimens, but become 

 worn and even wholly obliterated in old age. Gray's 

 description of the dentition of the Mediterranean 

 species (M. albiventer) applies in every particular to 

 that of the present species. 



The nails of the fore-feet are large and strong, the 

 largest being from three-fourths of an inch to an inch 

 in length ; those of the hind-feet are rudimentary, 

 being reduced to miniite horny points, scarcely vis- 

 ible excejDt on close examination. 



The flat skin of the full-grown male measures about 

 seven feet in a straight line from the end of the nose 

 to the point of the tail, the free portion of which 

 latter has a length of three inches. The adult female 

 has a length of about six feet. 



Mr. Ward obtained a young one only a few days 

 old, and found nearly ripe foetuses in several of the 

 females taken. This would indicate that the young 

 are born in December. 



The Triangles are about a hundred and fifty miles 

 from the Alacrane Reefs, where the species was 

 found in abundance by Dampier about two hundred 

 years ago. Small colonies doubtless still exist on the 

 uninhabited reefs and keys of the Gulf of Mexico 

 and Caribbean Sea. It has been met with off the 

 coasts of Cuba and Jamaica, and has been reported 

 as an occasional visitor to the Bahamas and the 

 Florida Keys. 



Mr. Ward calls my attention to the fact that Co- 

 lumbus not only met with it in the West Indian 

 waters, but that his sailors killed these seals for food, 

 nearly four hundred years ago. It is therefore a 

 remarkable fact that the first discovered American 

 seal shoiild be the latest one to become known satis- 

 factorily to science. 



The present notice is preliminary to a more elabo- 

 rate account of the species now in preparation, which 

 will be illustrated with plates of its osteological and 

 external characters. The American museum of nat- 

 ural history of this city has secured skins of an adult 

 male, an adult female, and a young example, and 

 a fine adult male skeleton, which will soon be mount- 

 ed for exhibition. J. A. Allen. 



New York, Jan. 6. 



Early forms of writing. 



Your remarks {Science, viii. No. 202) on Dr. Brin- 

 ton's paper relating to the early modes of writing 

 must form my excuse for this note. 



I have made some discoveries, since the publica- 

 tion of my ' Notes on certain Maya and Mexican 

 manuscripts,' which seem to confirm Dr. Brinton's 

 opinion that the mode of writing which he designates 

 the ' ikonomatic system ' was practised to some ex- 

 tent by the Maya scribes, — a fact I had noticed 

 previous to seeing his paper. For example : I find 

 on plate xvii. of the Codex Troano the name of a 

 bird (Kuch, in Maya) designated by a compound 

 hieroglyph consisting of two parts, one of which is 

 Landa's letter-character Ku, the other the symbol for 

 the cardinal point west, or Chikin (according to 

 Rosny). The name of another bird (the quetzal or 

 Kukuitz) is denoted simply by a duplication of 

 Landa's Ku. A few other characters formed in the 

 same way have been discovered. But, so far as de- 

 termined, most of the characters are symbolic, where 

 the object intended is designated by a single char- 

 acteristic, the head being the part or feature usually 

 selected to represent persons and animals. For ex- 



