BEAKED WHALES 211 



allies or progenitors." Since the words just quoted 

 were written (in the year 1871) more has been dis- 

 covered and written about this group of Cetaceans ; 

 but they still remain a group or family that requires 

 much further study before they are as well known 

 as some other families of Cetaceans. Their rarity is 

 emphasised by the fact that almost every individual 

 seen or captured has received a different name. 

 Berardius is only known by three specimens, Meso- 

 plodon grayi by two or three. The late Mr. P. H. 

 Gosse thus wrote of a mysterious " Delphinorhyn- 

 chus " ( = Mesoplodon) observed by himself in the 

 Atlantic : " During my voyage to Jamaica, when in 

 lat. 19 N., and long, from 46 to 48 W., the ship 

 was surrounded for seventeen continuous hours with 

 a troop of whales, of a species which is certainly 

 undescribed. I had ample opportunity for examina- 

 tion, and found that it was a Delpkinorkynckus, 

 thirty feet in length, black above and white beneath, 

 with the swimming paws white on the under surface, 

 and isolated by the surrounding black of the upper 

 parts a very remarkable character. This could not 

 have been the Toothless whale of Havre, and there 

 is no other with which it can be confounded. Here, 

 then, is a whale of large size, occurring in great 

 numbers in the North Atlantic, which on no other 

 occasion has fallen under scientific observation." The 

 Toothless whale of Havre, it may be remarked, named 

 Aodon dalei, seems to be merely a toothless, probably 

 aged, example of Mesoplodon bidens. 



Apart from Hyperoodon, which has been long 



