1887] Notes on the Life-Fistory of Monachus Tropicalis. 263 
the north still held it at two hundred dollars. It was difficult to 
glean any exact data from the inhabitants; but I am inclined to 
believe that the seal is quite uncommon on the coast. The high 
price asked for the young one, and the fact that it was here placed 
on exhibition and afterwards taken to Progresso for the same 
purpose, would seem to confirm this. 
About forty years ago, I am told, a vessel was wrecked at the 
Triangles, the captain and a negro, the only survivors, living 
upon seals and birds for six months before effecting their escape. 
Mr. W. B. Alexander, of Plymouth, Mass., writes me, under date 
of February 9, 1887, “In the spring of 1856 I was with Captain 
Lucas at the Triangles for a load of Mexican guano. I only saw 
two seals while there, which left the island in a hurry, so I can 
give you no information from personal knowledge, although there 
must have been great numbers there, by the skeletons, poor hides, 
etc. ; and some one must have carried on an extensive business in 
that line, for we made a grand bonfire of perhaps a hundred 
barrels of the remains.” 
Mr. F. A. Lucas writes me from the United States National 
Museum, February 2, 1887, “In the spring of 1856 my mother 
was at the Triangles, where my father, A. H. Lucas, had gone in 
the bark ‘ Edwin,’ of Charlestown, Mass., to seek guano. The 
young boobies were in downy plumage, and this is why I call it 
spring. My mother remembers seeing seals on the rocks, and 
seal-bones were found on the island.” 
Mr. Gosse, “ A Naturalist’s Sojourn in Jamaica,” says that this 
seal has crimson irides, that “the hair prevails everywhere ex- 
cept on the palms of the flippers, which are bare,” and “the 
color of the body is an intense uniform black.” The first two 
points are evidently mistakes. The third is characteristic only of 
very young specimens of Monachus. Perhaps it is Gray’s Cysto- 
phora antillarum, a species concerning which I am very sceptical. 
But color seems to be a great stumbling-block with many. 
Mr. H. W. Elliott, usually so exact in description, in Science, vol. 
iv. pp. 752, 753, describes the specimen now in the National 
useum as “ intense ebony-black,” while Messrs. True and Lucas, 
in Smithsonian Report, 1884, Part II., p. 332,in describing the 
same specimen, say, “In our specimen the hairs of the back and 
hind flippers appear light at the tips, as if faded by age; but are 
dark sepia color or nearly black, except at the extremity.” 
