60 University of California Publications in Geology [ VoL - 13 



available for study from the uppermost horizon of the Santa Margarita 

 deposits near the railroad station of Humphreys, California. 



Thus far our information regarding the occurrence of otarids in 

 Pliocene beds of the Pacific coast has been very meager. McCoy 68 

 has proposed the name Arctocephalus williamsi for a skull from 

 deposits in Australia to which he assigns the Pliocene age, but Allen 69 

 is inclined toward the view, judging from McCoy's description and 

 figures, that it does not differ materially from a female skull of 

 Zalophus lobatus. A pinniped of a rather unusual appearance, was 

 studied by True 70 and described as Pontoleon magnus (= Pontolis 

 magnus). The skull was found in a sandstone bluff, which forms 

 part of the Empire beds, at the south end of Coos Bay, Oregon. More 

 recently a nodule, containing a flipper of an otarid, has been collected 

 in the Fernando beds of Soledad Canon in the vicinity of Humphreys, 

 California. This specimen is no doubt very closely related to the 

 genus Pontolis, possibly the same form as True described, since the 

 skeleton is unknown. 



Evidence is still lacking to prove that the distribution of the 

 Otariidae formerly embraced the marine waters of Europe. There 

 are, however, one or two authentic otarids whose discovery was 

 attended with such peculiar circumstances that much controversy 

 has taken place over them. The most puzzling one of these otarids 

 is the skull in the Geological Institute of Vienna which may have 

 been found in the bed of the Danube River. Van Beneden 71 stated 

 that the skull was not a fossil. Lately, Toula 72 has reexamined this 

 same skull and has stated that it is certainly a fossil. Neverthe- 

 less, it still remains to be proven just where this skull was found. 

 There is also the skull mentioned by Gervais 73 which was found by 

 Professor Valenciennes on the sea beach in the Gulf of Gascogny in 

 the Department of Landes, France. The living sea lion, Etimetopias 

 byronia, does not range northward in the Atlantic Ocean beyond the 

 Rio de la Plata, of Brazil, while in the Pacific Ocean it formerly 

 occurred as far north as the Galapagos Islands. 



68 McCoy, F., Prodromus of the Palaeontology of Victoria, decade 5. Geol. 

 Surv. of Victoria, Melbourne, pp. 7-9, pis. 41-42. 1877. 

 es Allen, J. A., op. cit., p. 770. 



-o True, P. W., Smithson. Misc. Coll. (quar. issue), vol. 48, pt. 1, p. 48. 1905. 

 Prof. Paper No. 59, U. S. Geol. Surv., pp. 144-147, pis. 21-23. Washington, D. C, 

 1909. 



"i Van Beneden, P. J., op. cit., p. 57. 



f2 Toula, F., Beitrage z. Palaont. u. Geol. Osterreich-Ungarns u. d. Orients, 

 vol. 11, pp. 51-52. 1898. 



73 Gervais, P., Bull. Geol. Soc. France (2), vol. 10, p. 311 (footnote). 1852-53. 



