KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 40. NO. 5. 



Seals. 



? Arctocephaliis australis (Zimmermann) 1782. 



The Furseal appears to be fully extinct now on South Georgia. The latest 

 news are wholly negative. A Chilenian sailing vessel visited the coasts of this island 

 1905 and its crew spied in every corner and cove all round the island, to detect a 

 fur-seal, but in vain, the last of this unfortunate tribe is already slaughtered in 

 this region. 



In former days they were very numerous and a,t the rediscovery of the island 

 in Jan. 1775 it is reported that the coast swarmed with nursing females and their 

 young calves. But the happy days were now past. Sealing vessels soon appeared 

 on the scene. »In the year 1800 the South Georgian rookeries were attacked and 

 speedily exhausted», Dr J. A. Allén says in his interesting report about »Furseal 

 hunting in the Southern Hemisphere. » l According to the same authority 2 in a single 

 season 1800 — 1801 not less than 112,000 skins were taken, and in a few years 1,200,000 

 fur-seals were killed there. 1822 there seemed as if none was left. The hunting was 

 not profitable and ceased so that the seals could increase a little. 1874 1,450 skins 

 were taken and the following year 600. In the year 1892 135 fur-seals were killed 

 and they may have been the very last ones. 



Mirounga leonina (Linné) 1758. 



Syn: Phoca Leonina Linné 1758. 



» Elephantina Molina 1782. 



» proboscidea Péron & Lesueur 1816. 

 Macrorhinus F. Cuvier 1826. 3 

 Mirounga Ansonii Gray 1827. 

 Cystophora proboscidea Nilsson 1837* 



1 »The Fur Seals and Fur Seal Islands of the North Pacific Ocean» by D. S. Jordan etc. Part. 

 3 Washington 1899. p, 207. 



2 1. c. p. 314. 



3 Macrorhinus is the generic name which is most generally used for this animal, and F. Cuvier is 

 qnoted as author of the same. So is for instance the case in Trouessart's valuable »Catalogus Mammalium 

 and its »Quinquennale Snpplementum.» As a fact F. Cuvier used the narae »Macrorhine» in Mém. Mus. 

 d'Hist. Nat. Paris, XI, 1824, but lie did not publish the name with the latin spelling »Macrorhinus» earlier 

 than in the year 1826 in Diet. Se. Nat. t. 39. In the meantime Latreille had named a genus of Cole- 

 optera Macrorhinus in the year 1825. Macrorhinus F. Cuvier 1826 was thns preoccupied, as the word 

 »Alacrorhines cannot be interpreted but as a french nnomen triviale» for the Sea-Elephant. In snch a case 

 and according to the generally accepted international rnles of nomenclatnre there is no other way out of the 

 difficnlties than to accept the next name which happens to be Gray's peculiar Mirounga, and, although it 

 seeins deplorable, I have fonnd myself obliged to such a proceeding. 



K. Sv. Vet. Akad. Handl. Band 40. N:o 5. 2 



