OCR Text |
Show 602 MR. J. W. CLARK ON EARED SEALS. [Dec. 7, the first half of their length, and to have a yellowish tip. The yellow extends further down the hair on the nape of the neck than elsewhere, giving a brindled appearance to that part. On the under surface of the body the hair is reddish brown. At the base of the hair is a dense growth of short delicate fur, of the same colour as the base of the hairs. In a second specimen, rather older, which has been stuffed and set up in the British Museum, there are slight differences of colouring observable. The brindled appearance of the hair, caused by the hairs being tipped with white, extends all over the back and sides. The reddish brown extends over the underside of the body, and up the chest, where it gradually shades off into a pale chestnut. A space above and behind the mouth, and round the ear, is pale yellow. and there is a patch of dark grey beneath the eye. Ears light brown, black within. Fur on hands and feet dark brown, lighter near the body. The dark brown is shot with bright bay on the feet; and there is a dash of the same, edged with yellow, behind the hands. Shorter whiskers black, hinder and longer ones white. The "manus" (Plate LXX.) is of the form with which we are familiar in other Otaries ; and the naked portion bears the same relation to that covered with hairs as in Otaria jubata (I. c. pl. 67). The inner edge, however, is very different. There are only three rounded projections of cartilage, corresponding to digits I. II. III. ; and in the interspaces of digits I. and II., and II. and III., there is a second, less prominent projection. Beyond digit III. the limb is bounded only by a wavy edge. The movable portions of the digits and the intervening cartilages are much striated and folded. The palmar surface is puckered into large folds, which are crossed by smaller ones, so as to present a number of lozenge-shaped elevations, more or less regular. At the proximal end, these folds are minutely striated with sinuous cuticular elevations. There are indications of nails on the first four digits; on the last the nail is represented by a minute depression, hardly bigger than a pin's point. The "pes" (Plate LXXI.) has its upper surface covered with hair, which extends down the back of each digit quite to the nails, the intervening spaces and the terminal cartilages being quite bare. The "pollex" is closely united to the next digit by the intervening cartilage; between the others the cartilage is very elastic, aud admits of considerable movement. The under surface, like that of the hand, is broken into irregular folds, and is similarly striated at its proximal end. The three middle digits have nails |- of an inch long. These are quite rudimentary on the first and fifth. The nails fail to reach the free edge of the cartilage by about their own length. The distance between the end of the nails on the " pes " and the free edge of the cartilages varies, no doubt, in each species. In O. ursina, to judge from Allen's figure (Harvard Bulletin, ii. plate ii. figs. 11 & 12) the distance is 5 inches ; in O. stelleri (ibid, plate i. figs. 6 & 7) it is barely 1 inch. In the "manus" of O. ursina only the first two digits are marked by projections in the cartilage; and even |