ae 2 ei a E S n RUE a SERT 
^ 
REVIEWS. 683 
the walruses. Their affinities, as they appear to me, may be indicated as 
follows 
OTARIADZ, 
‘t RoSMARIDJE, 
PHOCIDÆ. 
* The evidences of the superiority of the Otariade over the Phocide, 
consist mainly in that modification of their general structure, and especi- 
ally of the pelvis and posterior extremities, by means of which they have 
freer use of their limbs, and are able to move on land with considerable 
rapidity; the Phocide, on the other hand, move with great difficulty when 
out of the water. But the higher rank of the former is also indicated by 
their semi-terrestrial habits, the scrotal position of the testes, and in the 
nearer approach in general features to the terrestrial Carnivores, especi- 
i la. Most of these 
zoology are often very ambiguous terms. So far as Mr. Allen means the 
generalized, by high, and by lower, the more modified types, we perfectly 
agree with him, for the Otariids seem indubitably to be the least removed 
in structure from that stock which has diverged from the old feral stem 
and culminated into the existing Pennipeds; nearly equally plain does the 
evidence appear that the Walrus is in general a type which possesses 
re of the primitive characters of the stock than do the Phocids, al- 
i ch a 
in this sense, as an abstract question, we have no objection to the employ- 
ment of the term low, for there seem to be too many proofs of the exist- 
ence of such cases doubt. But Mr. Allen leaves us in uncertainty as 
species and subordination, or, with the many, interprets appearances as 
indicative of facts. In the former case there would be no basis for argu- 
ment, but if we still call low, iu comparison with the gressorial carnivores, 
the Pinnipeds and the whales, believing in their evolution from the same 
stock as the former, it is only because we connect, with adaptation for 
