594 CARNIVORS! 
side and not the other); all with similar characters, venerally 
uniradicular ; crown moderate, compressed, pointed, with a single 
principal cusp, and sometimes a cingulum, and more or less de- 
velopedanterior 
and — posterior 
ACCESSOTY CUSPS. 
Vertebra: C7, 
1+15, b 5.84, 
C 9-14. Head 
rounded. Eyes 
large, Pinna 
of cur small, 
narrow, and 
pointed. Neck 
: 5 lone. Skin of 
Mia, 271.—Skull of Otaria forsteri. (From Gray, Pree. Zool. Soc. & 
1872, p. 660.) all the feet ex- 
tended far be- 
yond the nails and ends of the digits, with a deeply-lobed margin. 
The nails small and often quite rudimentary, especially those of 
the first and fifth toes of both feet, the best-developed and most 
constant being the three middle claws of the hind foot, which are 
clongated, compressed, and curved. 
The Eared-Seals, commonly called Sea-Bears or Nea-Lions, are 
widely distributed, especially in the temperate regions of both 
hemispheres, though absent from the coasts of the North Atlantic. 
As might be inferred from their power of walking on all fours, 
they spend more of their time on shore, and range inland to greater 
distances, than the true Seals, especially at the breeding time, 
though they are obliged always to return to the water to seck their 
food. They are gregarious and polygamous, and the males are 
usually much larger than the females, a circumstance which has 
given rise to some of the confusion existing in the specific deter- 
mination of the various members of the genus. Some of the 
species possess, in addition to the stiff, close, hairy covering common 
to all the group, an exceedingly fine, dense, woolly under fur. The 
skins of these, when dressed and deprived of the longer harsh outer 
hairs, constitute the “sealskin” of commerce, so much valued for 
wearing apparel, which is not the product of any of the true Neals. 
The best-known species are (@. sfe/lcri, the Northern Sex Lion, the 
largest of the genus, from the North Pacilic, about 10 fect in 
length ; 0. jubata, the Patagonian or Southern Nea Lion (Fig. 272), 
from the Falkland Islands and Patagonia; 0. culiforniana, from 
California, frequently exhibited alive in menagerics in Europe ; 
O. wesind, the common Sea-Bear or Fur-Neal of the North Pacifie, the 
skins of which are imported in immense numbers from the Prybiloff 
Islands ; 0. pusilla, from the Cape of Good Hope; 0. forsteri and 
