CHAPTER II. 



ON THE EUPHYSETES GRAYII. 



The enquiries for bones, which in my search for the pelvis of 

 the sperm whale, I lately instituted along the coast in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of Sydney, have excited such 

 interest among settlers near the sea that I trust our Australian 

 Museum is at length in possession of the nucleus of what 

 hereafter will become a classical collection of the remains of 

 cetaceous mammals. Such remains form the rarest specimens 

 to be seen in European collections ; and our immediate proxi- 

 mity to the Pacific Ocean affords to Sydney peculiar advantages 

 for assembling materials, upon which a thorough investigation 

 of this obscure department of zoology may be founded. One 

 advantage already secured by my enquiries has been the 

 discovery of a new animal, about nine or ten feet long, and 

 the lodging an almost perfect skeleton of it in our Museum. 



Mr. Brown, a gentleman residing in the neighbourhood of 

 Botany, who had kindly assisted me in my search for the 

 second sperm whale, sent me word in the month of September 

 last that a young one had been thrown ashore at Maroobrah 

 Beach, halfway between Coojee and Botany. To this place 

 I immediately proceeded, and found half buried in the sand 

 the remains of a cetacean that appeared to have been dead 

 about six weeks. The rumour since has been that such an 

 animal was about that time seen within the Heads of Port 

 Jackson, and, being taken for a young sperm, was repeatedly 

 fired at. Whether this was our animal, or such the cause of 

 its death, cannot now be ascertained. The carcass, when I 

 discovered it, had been so much devoured by native dogs and 

 other animals of prey that no part remained of the external 

 integuments except the flukes of the tail, tlie dorsal fin, the 



