. Catalogue of seals and whales in the ... Museum. . 30 . rnociD^. previous experience—that each species of Seal has a limited, indeed I may say a very well-definod and very limited, geographical dis- tribution. Though the species are veiy ditficult to distinguish by their external characters, yet the skeleton, and especially the skull, affords -well-marked and very definite characters. M. Lepechin described a Phoca oceanica (Act. Petrop. 1777, 259. t. 6 & 7), which has been considered the same as Pagopliihis Grcen- landicus, as abimdaut on the ice aroimd Nova Zembla. It would be desirable
. Catalogue of seals and whales in the ... Museum. . 30 . rnociD^. previous experience—that each species of Seal has a limited, indeed I may say a very well-definod and very limited, geographical dis- tribution. Though the species are veiy ditficult to distinguish by their external characters, yet the skeleton, and especially the skull, affords -well-marked and very definite characters. M. Lepechin described a Phoca oceanica (Act. Petrop. 1777, 259. t. 6 & 7), which has been considered the same as Pagopliihis Grcen- landicus, as abimdaut on the ice aroimd Nova Zembla. It would be desirable to see the skull of a specimen from that locality, and thus discover which species extends itself so far north as those islands. Phoca oceanica, in its young and old state of fur, resembles Pcujo- phUiis Grcenlanclicus; but unfortunately we have only a very limited knowledge of the external appearance of this new Seal {Halicyon Bichanli) from Yancouver's Island. The study of a large series of specimens of several species of Seals shows that the form of the lower jaw, though hitherto little attended to by zoologists, affords a very good character for the dis- tinction of the species.—Gray, P. Z. S. 1864, 28. 1. Halicyon Richardi, sp. nov. Fur pale brown; when young, darker. Halicyon Richardi, Gray, Proc. Zool. Sac. 1864, 28. Phoca Grcenlandica, Middendorff, Heise in den amse7-stett N. mid O. Sibiriens, i. 222. luhab. Eraser's Eiver and Vancouver's Island. Mr. Charles B. Wood, Surgeon of ' Hecate,' has veiy kindly sent to the British Museum, along with other interesting specimens from the north-western part of North America, the skeleton of a Seal from Eraser's Eiver, and the skull of a Seal obtained on the west coast of Vancouver's Island. The skuU was prociu-ed from the natives, who were towing the animal alongside of their canoe. They refused to part with the entire animal, but were at length induced to sell the head. The examination of the skulls shows that the tw
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