i9o7[ Notes on the Skeleton of a White Whale. 



2Is 



3 



D. leucas. Beddard.in his " Book of Whales," published in 1900, 

 says that " both Sir W. Flower and Mr. True concur in allowing 

 but one species of White Whale " (D, leucas), and it certainly 

 seems most likely that the names Delphinus Vermontanus and 

 Beluga Vermontana will have to be added to its already rather 

 lengthy synonymy. 



On the 5th of September, 1906, a skeleton, which is obviously 

 that of a very young individual of this same White Whale or 

 Beluga, was found by Mr. Patrick Cannon, while digging a well 

 on his farm, on lot 21 of the nth concession of Pakenham, Lan 

 ark Co., Ont. The Rev. J. R. H. Warren, of the village of 

 Pakenham, informs the writer that this skeleton was embedded 

 in blue clay, fourteen feet below the surface, and that only a por- 

 tion of it was dug out. In digging the well, he adds, some depth 

 of blue clay was first bored through, then a mixture of clay and 

 shells, in which the skeleton was found, was struck, and the ex- 

 cavation ended in more blue clay. The well has since been 

 incased or lined with stone, and now contains a considerable depth 

 of water, so that it may be somewhat difficult to dig out the re- 

 mainder of the skeleton. 



The bones that have been exhumed so far, from this excav. 

 ation, with samples of the mixture of clay and shells in which they 

 were found, have been kindly lent to the writer by Mr. Cannon- 

 The former consist of a nearly perfect skull (with only a few of the 

 teeth missing) and one of the tympanic bones, with most of the 

 cervical vertebrae and three of the dorsals with some of their 

 epiphyses. Or, as interpreted more definitely by Mr. L. M. Lambe, 

 ot the skull, the left tympanic, the atlas, axis, third, fourth and 

 fifth cervical vertebrae, and the second, third and fourth dorsal, 

 with some of their epiphyses. 



Apart from their obvious immaturity, this Pakenham skull, 

 and the vertebrae immediately adjoining thereto, seem to be essen- 

 tially similar to the corresponding parts of the skeleton of the 

 Beluga from the Cornwall pleistocene, and of that of a recent 

 specimen ot the White Whale, from Metis, in the Museum of the 

 Survey. 



The discovery of this skeleton at Pakenham is of special 





