statement is repeated by Mr Scoresby; who adds, "It often returns the attacks of its assailants, and, being defended by its hood from the stunning effect of a blow upon the nose, sometimes inflicts severe wounds on the person by whom he is attacked;" a characteristic this which we have heard feelingly descanted upon by some who have been engaged in its capture in the Greenland seas.

In an economic point of view, we believe that this is one of the species which is most extensively made an object of pursuit, both in the Greenland seas and in Davis' Straits; and that, together with the Rough Seal, it is brought in by much the greatest numbers to this country. The natives of the regions it habitually frequents greatly esteem it. The skins of the young are converted into the most elegant dresses for the women, and are therefore highly valued; their great boats are covered with the skins of the aged, as also their houses; the teeth are used to head their hunting spears, and the stomachs are converted into fishing buoys.

We conclude this account of the Cristata in the words of M. de Blainville :-"We cannot readily conceive how any one could confound the projecting vesicular tubercle of which Fabricius speaks, with that modification of skin into which an animal can bury its head as in a monk's hood, and which we should naturally suppose would be found on the back of the head."

• Arctic Regions, vol. i. p. 511.

THE MITRED OR HOODED SEAL.

Phoca Mitrata.-CAMPER.

PLATE XV.

Phoca Mitrata, Camp. De Blainville. The Capuchin Seal, Cuv.

THE designation of Mitred Seal appears to have been first applied by Camper, and a cranium with this label was found in his museum, in 1811, by Baron Cuvier. This specimen was supposed to have been procured in the Northern Ocean. Soon after making this observation, Cuvier received from Mr Milbert of New York a young animal of this genus, from which a skeleton was prepared, and which was found perfectly to correspond with Camper's specimen. The locality of its capture was not indicated. It has probably been from these materials that the plate in the Pl. de Dict. des Scien. Nat., of which ours is a copy, has been prepared, though this is not expressly stated. The learned author of the work here referred to has certainly been unfortunate in making this animal identical with the Crested Seal.

This specimen was only three and a half feet

long when it reached France, and, on removing it from the liquor in which it had been transported, it appeared whitish, except on the back and legs, where it was of a slate brown hue, with a whitish reflection produced by the points of the hairs, their base being brown, as well as the wool which covers their roots. After it was dry, its native oil gave it a decided yellow tinge. Its nails are large and whitish at the ends; its whiskers fine, short, and simple. The osteology of the cranium is very different from that of the Common Seal, as may be seen by comparing the wood-cuts on pages 128 and 196. Cuvier adds, "Upon the cranium and neck of this animal there is a very singular structure, which may explain what has been said concerning a kind of hood which it erects and swells up at pleasure. This structure is composed of numerous vessels, forming a tolerably thick net-work, which may contain a great quantity of blood, and which causes the region of the neck, and all over the shoulders, to appear more swollen than in most Seals. This structure is more minutely referred to by De Blainville in these words- Mr Milbert sent to the Jardin des Plantes the skin of a Seal to which the head was attached, and which presented a singular peculiarity. Close to the occiput and the attachment of the neck, the skin was separated from the adjacent flesh by a considerable mass of vessels, or, in other words, by a sort of erectile tissue; an appearance which leads us to think that the skin in this region was susceptible of reflection, and, conse

*

quently, of covering the head more or less, as far perhaps at the eyes, as is said of the Capuchin Seal.'

The dimensions, the habits, and even the locality of this singular species, seem to be nearly unknown; the only gleanings we have detected being the following." One species," says Crantz, "has a thick folded skin upon its forehead, which it can draw down over its eyes, like a cap, to defend them against the storms, waves, stones, and sand; it has a short, thick, black wool under its white hair, which gives it a beautiful grey colour."† Again, "In that subgenus," says Mr Swainson, "named Mirounga by Mr Grey, one species has the power of bringing forward a fold of skin, placed on the forehead in such a way as to cover the eyes when the animal is threatened."§ And, once more, in the words of Lesson, "The Fur Seal of Patagonia has a bump behind its head."||

Journal de Physique, t. xci.) p. 289.

t Hist. of Greenland, vol. i. 125.

Are not sub-genera sometimes made too precipitately? Miouroung is a name given by the aborigines of N. Holland to the Proboscis Seal; and, accordingly, it is made a synonym of that animal by Desmarest, and, we believe, Peron. "The fold

of the skin on the forehead, so as to cover the eyes," however applicable to the Mitrata, can never, with any propriety, be applied to the Miouroung of Desmarest; and why interfere with his nomenclature?

§ Classif. of Quadr. p. 118.

Dict. Class. d'Hist. Nat. t. xi. p. 33.

207

GENUS MACRORHINUS.

THE cranium of the Genus Macrorhinus differs very much from that of other Seals, as do also the teeth, whose formulary is 1.1.530.

2.1.5

The incisors are hooked like the canine, but are much smaller; the canine are very strong tusks, and the molars have simple fangs, and present this singular appearance that their crowns are smaller than their roots; they appear like a nipple on the round base which supports them.

M. de Blainville has given an interesting account of this cranium, from which we make a few extracts. "It is a foot and a half long, and the largest we have examined. The sagittooccipital crest is raised into a sort of pyramid like that of the Rhinoceros. But that in which it differs from all others is its exhibiting a structure capable of sustaining a prolongation from the nostrils. In truth, the forehead is extremely prominent, somewhat like that of the Elephant, and probably for an analogous purpose. The nasal bones are very short, and those of the muzzle are longer than in any other kind of Seal, since they form from their anterior extremity to the border of the orbit more than two-fifths of the total length of the head; and this muzzle is nearly formed entirely of the maxillaries: the space between these bones is entirely hollow, which leaves an enormous nasal opening.*

Lib. supra cit.