53 



HA RD WICKE >S S CIE NCE - G O SSI P. 



The measurements in the recent state of the animal 

 were — 



From centre of fold of spiracle to each eye, 10 in. 



From same point to extremity of upper jaw, 22 in. 



From commissure of lips to extremity of upper jaw, 



13J in- 

 From same to extremity of lower jaw, 14 in. 



On the lower surface of the integuments corre- 

 sponding to the space between the rami of the lower 

 jaw, was a well-defined angle, formed by two de- 

 pressed lines, or furrows, each ten inches long. 

 These lines converged to an apex in front, while 

 their extremities behind were seven inches apart. 

 The acute angle thus defined corresponded, I say, 

 externally with an almost equal internal angle, formed 

 by the convergence of the lower jawbones, and giving 

 accommodation to the deep pouch of the pharynx, as 

 shown in my illustration With the kind assistance of 

 my friend, Mr. R. Conway Hickson, whose finely- 

 placed residence at Fermoyle is in the immediate 

 vicinity of the scene of capture, the remains of the 

 head were rescued from the destroyers and conveyed 

 to Carthgregory, a neighbouring village, where scien- 

 tific appliances are scarcely more numerous than 

 "strawberries grown in the sea." However, under 

 unfavourable circumstances four or five photographic 

 illustrations were obtained from it — riot artistic, cer- 

 tainly, but affording correct ideas, for the first time, 

 I believe, of the physiognomy of the curious creature. 

 Eagerly, as you may suppose, and at once, I con- 

 sulted the few authorities within my reach, and found 

 that this remarkable cetacean had not been pre- 

 viously recognised as a visitant of the Irish coast, 

 nor of Great Britain, save once before, in 1 790. In 

 Jardine's "Naturalists' Library" it is described and 

 figured as Diodon Sowerbii, but the Plate there 

 given has little resemblance to the animal, and none 

 as regards the beak, its most conspicuous peculiarity. 

 It is described, though not figured, in the " English 

 Cyclopaedia, as "Ziphius Sowerbii," and that is 

 now its recognised appellation. 



The genus "Ziphius" is remarkable chiefly for 

 its elongated jaws, which extend to, at least, a length 

 of fourteen inches from the commissure of the lips, 

 and form a beak or snout of great solidity and 

 strength. The upper fits into the lower as a cylinder 

 into a semi-cylinder. Before the lower jaws con- 

 verge to form this semi-cylinder, and posterior to the 

 point where the front of the pharyngeal pouch is 

 attached to the bone, one stout pyramidal tooth is 

 inserted in a deep socket on each side of the lower 

 jaw ; thus the tooth is nine or ten inches from the 

 extremity of the beak. The soft parts on the upper 

 jaw are notched on each side for the reception of the 

 high projecting tooth ; these teeth are believed to be 

 characteristic of the male. Though found in the Scotch 

 and Irish animals, there are a few specimens in Con- 

 tinental museums from which they are absent ; this 

 absence was supposed by some to indicate difference 



of species, by others to be merely a sexual distinction. 

 The genus Ziphius is comparatively new to Natural 

 History. Nothing was known of it till some fossil 

 remains were sent from Holland and from the south 

 of France to Cuvier, who, not being then aware of 

 any existing cetacean with similar beak, supposed 

 the remains to belong to an extinct genus. The dis- 

 covery in Scotland, in 1 790, proved that this supposi- 

 tion was erroneous, and a very few living specimens 

 met with since have shown that Ziphius does exist in 

 modern seas. Still they are extremely rare, and an 

 unmutilated specimen would be of great anatomical 

 interest, and its skeleton a desideratum in any museum. 



In 1870, after a lapse of six years, it was my fortune, 

 alone of all men, I believe, to meet with a second 

 Ziphius, about five or six miles from the site of the 

 first capture. This time the animal came in near 

 Brandon Pier, a very interesting and well-known 

 fishing-station, worthy of more remark than would 

 be relevant here. 



Before I saw it, it had been treated like its prede- 

 cessor ; its flesh had been cut into a thousand pieces 

 by the greedy peasantry, and its bones unscientific- 

 ally sawn and broken. I snatched a portion of its jaw 

 from a dog's mouth, and disinterred parts of the split 

 skull from a dungheap ; and I dragged some portion 

 of the skeleton, as well as part of the stomach which 

 pigs had not torn, from the ebbing tide. The intes- 

 tines generally were so mangled as to be useless for 

 anatomical purposes ; nor could any part of the solid 

 viscera be obtained. An irregular hole, whose largest 

 diameter may have been an inch, had been made in 

 one compartment of the stomach, which I had taken 

 from the tide-covered sand, and this compartment 

 was completely filled with sand. I do not think it 

 probable, or even possible, that the sand could have 

 entered through the accidental aperture while for a 

 short time under water. I cannot offer any explana- 

 tion of hozv or why it was there ; but who will affirm, 

 in our total ignorance of the habits of the animal, 

 that he did not swallow it during life, impelled by 

 some unaccountable physiological necessity, or per- 

 haps from -depraved appetite, the result of disease ? 

 I opened what seemed to be a second compartment 

 of the stomach, when more than a pint of bile rushed 

 out. Anatomists have denied a gall-bladder to zoo- 

 phagous cetaceans, but what was this ? — or is ziphius 

 not zoophagous ? Nothing but sand and bile existed 

 in these viscera ; I was much pressed for time, and 

 could not examine more closely into the matter, but 

 sent both stomach and bile to Dublin to competent 

 investigators. 



Ziphius No. 2 was about seventeen or eighteen feet 

 long, and was first observed on the beach at high 

 water, in great uneasiness, floundering, and, of course, 

 working a cavity in the sand, in which it remained 

 when the tide had ebbed. When first approached 

 by its butchers it was seen to open its cylindrical 

 jaws in a portentous way, and to close them with an 



