“The bones of the pectoral limb of the Fur-Seal of commerce differ from those of the Sea-lion.”—_Murie_, P. Z. S. 1869, p. 109. See Lecomte’s account of the habits of these animals, P. Z. S. 1869, p. 106. The British Museum contains the skin and skull of a large blackish Eared Seal, nearly 6 feet long, that was purchased of a dealer as “a Fur-Seal from the Falkland Islands;” but, as the dealers seem always to give that as the habitat for all seal-skins with a distinct under-coat that come into their possession, I have quoted the habitat with doubt. When occupied in describing the Seals of the southern hemisphere for the ‘Voyage of the Erebus and Terror,’ I named the Seal _Arctocephalus nigrescens_, and had the skull figured under that name; but the plate has not yet been published, though copies of it have been given to Dr. Peters and other zoologists. In the ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society’ for 1859, pp. 109, 360, and in the ‘Catalogue of Seals and Whales,’ I described the skull of this species. There is also in the Museum a skull of a younger animal of the same species. Capt. Abbott, in 1866, sent to the British Museum a large and a small Seal from the Falkland Islands. The large one was examined and determined to be the southern Sea-lion (_Otaria jubata_). The small one, nearly 3 feet long, was very similar in external appearance; and as the teeth, which could be seen without extracting the skull, showed that it was a young animal, it was regarded as the young of the Sea-lion, and it was stuffed without extracting the skull, and labelled as such. This specimen has been examined by several zoologists, among the rest by Dr. Peters, when engaged with his paper on Eared Seals, and has passed unchallenged until this time, thus showing how difficult it is to distinguish these animals by their external characters alone. Capt. Abbott, who is now residing in England, informed me that the smaller specimen was the Fur-Seal of the Falkland Islands, that it grows to about half as long again as the specimen sent, and that the old males are grey from the tips of the hairs. I have therefore had the skull extracted from the specimen; and there is no doubt that it is quite distinct from the Sea-lion (_Otaria jubata_); and, on more careful examination of the skin, I have little doubt, from the colour and the character of the fur, that it is a young specimen of the Seal that I described as _Arctocephalus nigrescens_. It is interesting as confirming the accuracy of the habitat that I received with that specimen, and which until this time I considered doubtful, as Pennant and others describe the Falkland Island Fur-Seal as grey, and white beneath. Dr. Peters, on the authority of this habitat (which I have always quoted with doubt), has given the name of _Arctophoca falklandica_ to the animal and skull on which I had established my _Arctocephalus nigrescens_.