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XV. 
ZOOLOGY: 
SEALS. 
By G. E. H. Barrert-Hamixron, B.A. F.Z.S. 
(Copied from the British Museum Report on the voyage of the Southern Cross, by 
permission of the Director of the Natural History Museum). 
WHEN it is considered how frequently sealing and whaling vessels 
have visited the Antarctic and how heavy has been the toll levied 
upon the marine mammalia of those regions, it is astounding how 
little is really known of these animals. Leaving out of the question 
the Sea Elephant (Macrorhinus), whose valuable commercial pro- 
perties made it the object of a pursuit so keen that it seems to have 
been well-nigh wiped out of existence, we find four species of true 
seals represented in collections from the Antarctic. These are the 
Crab-eating or White Seal (Lobodon carcinophagus), Weddell’s Seal, 
or the False Sea Leopard (Leplonychotes weddellt), the Sea Leopard 
(Ogmorhinus leptonyx), and Ross’ Seal (Ommatophoca rossi). All 
these are at home on the pack-ice of the extreme South Polar regions, 
probably at all portions of its area, a habitat for the occurrence in 
which either of the Sea Elephant or of any species of Eared Seal we 
have, I believe, no evidence. Three of them are not confined to the 
pack-ice, but have been found elsewhere. The single exception is 
Ross’ Seal. No other species has ever been brought from the 
Antarctic, and it is highly unlikely, in spite of certain statements to 
the contrary, that any remarkably new form of mammalian life, at 
least among the Pinnipeds, remains there undiscovered. 
Of these four species the earliest to attract the attention of 
zoologists, and perhaps the best known to science at the present 
day, is the Sea Leopard, a species which was first recognised as 
distinct by de Blainville in 1820. In 1822 appeared the first notice 
of Weddell’s Seal in the shape of a short description by Professor 
Jameson in ‘Weddell’s Voyage to the South Pole,’ to be followed 
by its correct description in binomial terms by Lesson in 1826. 
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