An introduction to the study of mammals living and extinct / by William Henry Flower and Richard Lydekker.

Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introduction to the study of mammals living and extinct / by William Henry Flower and Richard Lydekker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    others, from the coasts of Australia and vax'ious islands scattered over the southern hemisphere. These have been grouped by some zoologists into many genera, founded upon very trivial modifica- tions of teeth and skull. In a recent memoir Mr. Beddard ^ con- cludes that if the genus be split up at all, it should be divided into Otaria, containing only 0. jubata (with its numerous synonyms), and Arcfocephalus, comprising all the other species. The latter group is distinguished by the more narrow and pointed nose, the longer ears, the palate not excavated nor truncated posteriorly, the presence of Fig. 272.—The Patagouian Sea-Lion {Otaria jiibata). From Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1866, p. SO. a hook-like process to the pterygoids, and by the posterior border of the nasals extending behind the zygoma. The following account of 0. ursina in the Prybiloff Islands is taken, with slight verbal alteration, from Nordenskiold's Voyage of the Vzga : The Sea-Bears are found year after year during summer at certain parts of the coast, known as 'rookeries,' where, collected m hundreds of thousands, they pass several months without the least food. The males or ' bulls ' come first to the place, most of them in the month of May or in the beginning of June. The most violent conflicts, often with a deadly issue for one of the parties, now arise regarding the space of about a hundred square feet which each bull-seal considers necessary for his home. The 1 Ou the structure of Hooker'.s Sea-Lion {Ardocephahcs hookcri) Trans Zool. Soc. vol. xii. p. 369 (1890).