4G2 Mr. Selby on the Great Seal of the Farn Islands. 



LIII. — Observations on the Great Seal of the Farn Islands, 

 showing it to be the Halichaerus griseus, Nilss., and not the 

 Phoca barbata. By P. J. Selby, Esq., F.L.S., &c, &c. 



The Rev. L. Jenyns, in his valuable £ Manual of British Ver- 

 tebrate Animals/ and Mr. Bell, in his 6 History of British Qua- 

 drupeds/ having quoted my name as an authority for the 

 occurrence of the Phoca barbata upon the coast of Northum- 

 berland, I consider it incumbent upon me, now that I feel 

 satisfied of having mistaken the species, to make known, 

 through the medium of the ' Annals/ that the Seal, which I 

 had supposed to be the Phoca barbata, proves upon further 

 investigation to belong to a different generic division of the 

 group, and is the Halichaerus griseus of Nilsson, and of Bell's 

 6 British Quadrupeds/ At the time my notice of the Great 

 Seal inhabiting the immediate vicinity of the Farn Islands 

 first appeared, and which is to be found in the concluding- 

 paragraph of a descriptive Catalogue of the Birds that inhabit 

 and breed upon that group of islands, published in 1826, in 

 the second volume of the c Zoological Journal/ the natural 

 history of this curious but interesting group of Mammals had 

 been but little attended to by any of our own naturalists, and 

 in consequence the species inhabiting our coasts were imper- 

 fectly known and ill-defined, the Seals of a smaller size going 

 under the title of Phoca vitulina, and the larger under the ge- 

 neral name of the Great Seal. 



At this period the generic divisions of the group were only 

 beginning to undergo that necessary revision which a more 

 intimate knowledge of the peculiar characters of the species 

 required, and which has been so ably effected by the labours 

 of Baron Cuvier, his brother M. F. Cuvier, and Professor 

 Nilsson of Lund. The characters of the genus Halichcerus 

 were consequently at that time unknown to me ; and not being 

 in possession of the crania of any other species of Seals, except 

 that of P. vitulina, wherewith to compare that of the Farn 

 Island species, I concluded, from the great size of the latter, 

 together with Pennant's notice of the " Great Seal" sometimes 

 met with at the Orkneys, and considered by subsequent writers 

 as the P. barbata, and again, from the Farn animal agreeing 

 with the specimen deposited in the British Museum, and long- 

 considered as the P. barbata, that it belonged to the same 

 species ; and as such it was accordingly named in the short 

 notice to which I have referred. My attention was, however, 

 again directed to this animal, in consequence of what took 

 place at the Meeting of the British Association held at Bris- 

 tol, where Professor Nilsson, who was present, identified the 



