95 
MEETINGS OF SECTIONS, 
ZOOLOGICAL SECTION. 
The Meeting of this Section took place on Thursday, November 12th.— 
Mr. William Sanders, F.R.S., President of the Society, in the chair. 
After the transaction of the ordinary business of the Section, 
Mr. Adolph Leipner gave an account of the Seals in the Museum of the 
Bristol Institution. He stated that by reason of the scattered information 
respecting these animals, and the very imperfect diagnosis, especially as 
regards the differential characters, he found considerable difficulty in 
identifying, more particularly the lately acquired specimens from Newfound- 
land. The specimen, which hitherto had been the only representative of 
seals in the Museum, was Halichoerus grypus, Nilson, the original of the 
drawing in " Jardine's Naturalists' Library. This seems to be the most 
frequent species on the South- West coast of England and Wales. The 
specimen which, two or three years ago, was shot at Weston-super-Mare — 
the stuffed skin and the skull of which Mr. Charles B. Dunn had kindly 
brought up for the inspection of the Members of the Section— also belonged 
to this species. Those seals which had lately been added to the Museum 
belonged to two other species, viz. Cystophora cristata, Erxl., a young 
female, without crest, four and a half feet long, and three specimens of 
Phoca barbata, Fabr. One of these three is an adult nearly eight feet long, 
the other two are young, respectively four feet seven inches and four feet 
ten inches in length. 
After Mr. Leipner had entered fully into the specific characters of these 
animals, and had given the full measurements of the most important parts, 
he made a few remarks on the various seal skulls in the collection. These 
proved to be : — four skulls of Paohophilus Grcenla?idicus, one skull of 
Cystophora cristata, and a cranium and some large canines of Trichecus 
rosmarius. 
