B.M.
Fur very short, close-pressed, black, varied with close, small, often confluent, white spots; underside of the neck with a few scattered white hairs; belly red-brown (nearly bay); hairs short, thick, of one colour to the base; under-fur none, except a very few hairs on the crown of the head. Skull unknown.
Arctocephalus? nivosus, Ann. & Mag, N. H. 1868, i. p. 219.
Inhab. Cape of Good Hope. B.M.
Length of skin nearly 8 feet; but stretched and flattened.
Dr. Murie (P. Z. S. 1869, p. 108) says that this is only a variety, seasonal, sexual, or of a different age from the specimens hitherto obtained.
Mr. Allen adopts this view, never having seen the specimen, but changes the phrase into “a previously known species” (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. ii. p. 18); but neither of them mentions the species to which he refers it.
But surely Mr. Allen does not mean that it is only a variety of the skins which were received with it from the Cape of Good Hope; for, if that were the case, the species would belong to one of his subfamilies, and the variety to the other.
In the form and length of the hair it is very different from Arctocephalus antarcticus; and it is almost destitute of under-fur, except on the crown of the head.