35 6 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



rocks in the sound, but their visits appear to be very capricious n 



('42, p. 54)- 



Mercian) : u The harbor seal breeds regularly both in the Gulf and 

 River of St Lawrence and I have seen numbers of them in July as far 

 up the river as the Saguenay, and they are still common even within 50 

 miljs of Quebec." 



"Zadock Thompson has recorded the capture of two of them on Lake 

 Champlain ['42, p. 38J. 



" During a recent visit to Lake Champlain I was told that a seal had 

 been killed on the ice near Crown point within four or five years but was 

 unable to authenticate the statement. 



" Dr De Kay mentioned the occasional occurrence of this species on 

 Lake Ontario, many years ago, and during the past winter one was 

 killed on Onondaga lake that must have reached this remote inland 

 water by way of Lake Ontario. [Syracuse Standard, '82J. 



" I have seen many of these seals in Long Island sound chiefly about 

 the Thimble islands, and March 25, 1879, I saw one on a rock in the 

 Hudson river near Sing Sing" ('82, pp. 104-5). 



Fisher: " Almost every spring one or more seals are seen [near Sing 

 Sing] about the time the ice is breaking up in the river. On March 11, 

 1884, an adult male was secured in the cove" ('96, p. 200). 



Mearns: "The seal has been seen several times and once captured 

 in the Hudson highlands. One was shot at New Hamburg on the 

 Hudson by a Mr Wood for whom the specimen was mounted by Mr 

 James S. Buchanan, a taxidermist of Newburgh who showed me the 

 specimen and four large jars of oil which he took from it. It was shot 

 on the ice near an airhole in the rivet in midwinter 1877-78 and weighed 

 60 pounds" ('98a, p. 346). 



For other records of the harbor seal in or near New York waters see 

 Fisher '84, Merriam '84a and '84c and Syracuse Standard '82. 



Mr Helme writes, " A few harbor seals are met with each winter along 

 the rocky shores of the eastern part of Long Island. Occasionally they 

 are found in the sound." 



Cystophora cristata ( Erxleben) Hooded seal 



1777 Phoca cristata Erxleben, Syst. regn. anim. p. 590. 



1 84 1 Cystophora cristata Peters, Wiegmann's Archiv fur Naturgeschichte, 



7ter Jahrg. Bd. 1 : 326. 



1842 Stenunatopus cristatus De Kay, Zoology of New York, Mammalia, 



P- 55- 



