FUR SEALS OP GUADALUPE, GALAPAGOS, AND LOBOS ISLANDS. 271 



DESCRIPTION OF THE GUADALUPE SEAL. 



The following description of the Guadalupe seal {ArctocepJialus townsendi) as a 

 new species, is by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, and was published in the Proceedings of the 

 Biological Society of Washington for 1897, pages 175 to 178 : 



Recently I have compared the skulls collected at Guadalupe by Mr. Townsend with a series of 

 skulls of Arctoceplialvs australis or pMllipi from the Galapagos Islands, also collected by Mr. Townsend, 

 and find the two to be very distinct species. In view of these facts it seems particularly appropriate 

 that the new species should bear Mr. Townsend's name, which I take pleasure in bestowing upon it. 



The material on which the new species is based consists of four skulls picked up on the beach. 

 One of these, the type, is an adult male whicji has lost the teeth and lower jaw. Another is a young 

 adult female with both jaws and all the teeth. The remaining two are very imperfect, lacking both 

 the jaws and face. 



The species seems doomed to speedy extermination and so far as known no museum in the world 

 has a single specimen. It is hoped that our National Museum will be able to secure complete 

 specimens before it is too late. 



Arctocephalus tov^nsendi sp. nov. Guadalupe fur seal. 



Type locality. — Guadalupe Island, off Lower California. Type No. 83617, <? ad., U. S. National 

 Museum. Collected on the beach on west side of Guadalupe May 22, 1892, by C. H. Townsend. 



Cranial charaetera. — Contrasted with skulls of Arctooephalus (austraUs or plMUpi) from the Gala- 

 pagos Islands, skulls of A. townsendi differ in somewhat smaller size; much shorter rostrum; shorter 

 nasals; larger and more freely open incisive foramina; heavier and shorter ascending branches of 

 premaxillae, which do not push . backward along, the. nasals as in austraUs; smaller, flatter, and 

 smoother audital bullae; much uarrrower and more deeply excavated palate; narrower postpalatal 

 notch; broader and heavier ju gals; broader zygomatic processes of maxillae, Which are expanded to 

 form a broad floor under the anterior half of the orbit; larger, broader, and more rounded anterior 

 nares in the male, and absence of sagittal crest between frontals. 



The most important characters are the exceedingly narrow and excavated palate, flat audital 

 bullae, short and thick ascending arm of premaxilla, and broadly expanded zygomatic root of maxilla, 

 forming a floor under the anterior half of the orbit. There are also tooth characters : the first upper 

 molar (fifth molariform tooth) is mainly posterior to plane of anterior root of zygoma; both upper 

 true molars are double rooted, and the last upper premolar is incompletely double rooted. 



In the female of townsendi the narrow and deeply excavated form of the palate is even more 

 emphasized than in the male, and the postorbital constriction is very much narrower than in the 

 female of australis. 



Measurements of male sTcull of Arctocephalus townsendi (the type). 



Mm. 



Greatest basal length (gnathion to occipital condyles) 256 



Basal length (gnathion to basion) 243 



Basilar length of Hensel (basion to incisors) 233 



Palatine length (gnathion to postpalatal notch) 120 



Postpalatal length (postpalatal notch to basion) 125 



Zygomatic breadth 151 



Lateral series of teeth (canine to last molar inclusive) .'. 88 



Distance between canines 22.5 



Distance between third pair of molariform teeth 22. 5 



Breadth (anteroposterior) of zygomatic root of maxilla between inferior lip 

 of antorbital foramen and orbit 21 



