June, 1901. urj 



A NOTE ON A BEAKED WHALE, 



MksopIvOdon Hectori, Gray. 

 by professor r. j. anderson, m.d. 



There is in the Museum of the Queen's College, Galway, a 

 skeleton of a Beaked Whale. The nippers are, however, 

 wanting. The vertebrae are C. 7 (3 fused), D. 10, L,. 11, 

 C. 17 + ? Seven ribs have two heads; there are seven 

 hypaxial (chevron bones) remaining, and four holes in the 

 sternum. The length is twelve feet four inches, the head 

 being two feet six and a half inches long (the entire length 

 before cleaning was fourteen feet). One conical slightly- 

 edged tooth remains in the right mandibular socket, which is 

 one inch long from before back, and.three-eighth inch wide ; 

 the tooth fills the socket anteriorly, and projects forwards. 

 There are no other teeth in the mandible behind this tooth, 

 but a marked seam-like groove runs back from the large 

 socket for the distance of one foot, that is for nearly half the 

 length of the lower jaw, which is twenty-five inches long. The 

 premaxilla would count twenty-four inches, allowing for a 

 portion which is wanting. The lower jaw-symphysis is five 

 inches long. The eburnated premaxillae reaching upwards 

 enclose at the sides, and partially above, the rostral groove or 

 canal, in which the vomer and mesethmoid cartilage appear. 

 The roof of the groove is incomplete above for the breadth of 

 a quarter — one inch. The vertical measurement of the groove 

 or antrum is two inches at a distance of two inches in front of 

 nares, one inch at eight inches in front of nares, and a quarter 

 inch at a distance of fourteen inches. Transverse measure- 

 ment is one and a quarter inches near the nares, and a half 

 inch at a point fifteen inches further forwards. The opening 

 is one quarter of an inch wide at fourteen inches in front of 

 the nares. Premaxillae are directed upwards, backwards, 

 upwards, and then forwards. The nasals are deeply grooved 

 or hollowed in front. The distance from the anterior end of 

 the frontal to the tip of the tooth is twenty inches. It is 

 eleven and a half inches from the outer edge of one maxilla to 

 the outer edge of the other. The nasal bones, which are not 

 united, differ in size ; the right is somewhat larger (longer, 



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