On the Phocidee of the Greenland Seas. 393 
bluish colour on the back, while on the breast and belly it 
is of a dark silvery hue. 
Young seals retain this appearance throughout the sum- 
mer, and are termed " blue-backs/' The next and last stage 
is into the mature coats of the male and female adult. Three 
summers will be nearly the time requ.ired for these changes. 
The " saddleback" has a wide distribution, influenced greatly 
by the nature and distribution of the ice, and performs a 
migration north in the spring, and south in the winter. 
Dr Wallace gave numerous additional details regarding its 
natural history, from personal observations in the Greenland 
seas during the year 1860. 
2. Phoca leonina, 0. Fab. (The " Bladdernose" of the English sealers.) 
No sealers, as far as he was aware, had ever seen such a 
seal as that described by Otho Fabricius in his " Fauna 
Grsenlandica," viz., with a straight line of brown on its back, 
as that author describes this seal in its second year. Crantz 
and Fabricius disagree regarding the localities which it fre- 
quents ; the one affirming that it is found mostly on great ice 
islands, where it sleeps in an unguarded manner, while the 
other states that it delights in the high seas, visiting the 
land in April, May, and June. Both authors are correct, 
though not in any exclusive sense. The "Bladdernose" is 
found all over the Greenland seas from Iceland to Spitzbergen 
and Nova Zembla. 
3. PJioca hispida, Mull. (Phoca foetida, 0. F sib. NetsiJc of 
Greenlanders.) 
The smallest seal in the Greenland sea. It is chiefly seen, 
and taken as a curiosity, by the whalers, who call it the 
" Floe-rat," as it is always found on floes of ice, or quietly 
swimming about in the floe waters. 
They appear to be confined to high latitudes, and espe- 
cially to the parallels of 76° and 77° north latitude in the 
Greenland and Spitzbergen seas, and it is in those latitudes 
that the whalers find them. 
4. Dr Wallace described a fourth species of seal, wdiich 
forms a considerable source of the Greenland seal fishery, 
