﻿200 Transactions. — Zoology. 



lighter colour of our small female seal (whicli is particularly noticeable about 

 the bead). 2nd. The more slender jDroportions of the head in the same 

 specimen. And 3rd. The bristles of both specimens, which are not black 

 like those of Dr. Hector's seals. In our male specimen the bristles are 

 yellowish white, and in the female the majority of them are so, some of the 

 longer ones varying by being black for about two inches from the base. It 

 should be stated that the condition of the teeth in om* male specimen, and its 

 general appearance when it reached him, led Mr. Purdie to the conclusion that 

 it was a comparatively aged seal. The lengths of the canines from their 

 apparent bases upwaixls are, in the male 1-1 inch, and in the female only 

 •6 inch. 



It is singular that there should be any doubt about the scientific name of 

 an animal which has been known so long, and appears to be so common on 

 the New Zealand coast. The reason of this, no doubt, lies in the fact that so 

 few specimens of these bulky mammals reach Europe that various species are 

 confused with one another by naturalists, who have necessarily to trust to the 

 descriptions given by casual and unscientific observers. On carefully com- 

 paring such authorities as we have access to here, I have come to the conclusion 

 that what we are in the habit of calling the Fur Seal of New Zealand is most 

 certainly that described by Forster as the Sea Bear or Ursine Seal. Forster 

 accompanied Captain Cook on his second voyage, and it was in Dusky Bay 

 that he first saw these seals. He tells us that they were afterwards met with, 

 of much larger size, at New Year's Island, in Staten Land. The males seen 

 there "being eight or nine feet long, and thick in proportion." Subsequently 

 he speaks of the same animal as found in New Georgia, and it ajjpears to have 

 been taken for granted that this was the Sea Bear seen by Dampier at Juan 

 Fernandez, and by others at the Gallapagos. He appears to have believed 

 this seal to be identical with the Sea Bear of the Northern Pacific and 

 Behring Straits, Ewmdopias Stelleri, which had been described by Steller. 

 There can be no doubt now that the animals are distinct. Di-. Hector's 

 examination of the skull is decisive on that point. It is also open to question 

 whether naturalists have been right in supposing the Sea Bear, which Forster 

 found on the New Zealand Coast a,nd in Staten Land, to be the same as that 

 seen by other voyagers elsewhere. 



Peron, a most careful and indefatigable naturalist, who accompanied the 

 French exploring expedition to the southern seas in the first years of this 

 century, says, " we are convinced that under the name Sea Bear there really 

 exist more than twenty seals which differ from each other in all their minute 

 characteristic points."* Subsequent researches lead to the conviction that this 



* "Ann. des Mus. d'Hist. Nat," t. XV., p. 293. 



