PHOC^NA COMMUNIS. Hi) 



the proxiiiuil ends of the premaxilhe, the nasals, and the portion of the 

 vomer visible on the palatine surface, — [ tind that no two of the East- 

 ])ort skulls agree. They can therefore scarcely be regarded as of im- 

 portance in distinguishing the species. 



In the List of the Cetacea in the British Museum,* Professor Flower 

 intiinates that the skull of P. I'owerijm is larger than any other Pho- 

 c;ena skull in that collection. In looking over our own series, I was 

 at first struck by the size of two of the sknlls of P. vomerma, but on 

 comparing M. Fischer's measurements I tind that neither of these is 

 as large as that of his specimen " P. Femelle tres adulte,^^\ nor are they 

 as large as Malm's specimen "t."| The largest skull of P. vomcrina, 

 No. 9078, from Puget Sound, is 29.3«'" long, but it does not show any 

 considerable occipital crest nor other signs of age; while, on the other 

 hand, Xo. 16G10, an adult female of P. brachycium from Cape May, 

 N. J., though only 26.G*^'" long, has the crest strongly developed. That 

 this fact is without significance, however, appears from the considera- 

 tion of two other skulls, both of which are 2G.6"" long. One of them, 

 Xo. 91G4, is from Eastport, Me,, and should represent P. hrachycium ; 

 the other, No. 9077, is from Puget Sound, and represents P. vomerina. 

 The latter has the sutures between the elements of the occipital closed, 

 while in the former they are still open. The crest also is rather more 

 jtronounced in P. vomerina. We have here, therefore, a fact exactly 

 opposed to that just presented, namely, in two skulls of equal size that 

 of P. vomerina appears to be the older, and might be presumed, there- 

 fore, to be the smaller species. It appears, therefore, that the absolute 

 size of the different stulls gives us no grounds for the distinction of 

 species. 



As regards proportions, there can be no qnestion that the girth of the 

 body of the specimen which Professor Cope called P. lineata, as coni- 

 l)ared with its length, is much less than in the specimen from Eastport, 

 w itli which he compared. But it should be held in mind that the latter 

 is only 43^ iuches long, while the type of P. lineata is 70 inches long. 

 Tlie former is evidently very yonng, since a skeleton (No. 13301, from 

 l*]asti)ort), which measures fully 4G inches, has the sutures defining the 

 liniits of the elements of the occipital still open. 



The large size of the hea;! and the thickness of the body I look upon 

 as fretal characteristics not yet outgrown. 



It is manifestly nnwise to compare the type of P. lineata, which shows 

 evidence of being adult, with so yonng an individual as the Eastport 

 specimen. Fortunately we have two other casts nearly equaling the type 

 of P. lineata in length. Of the larger of these. No Jg^'j"^, an adult female, 

 we have the entire skeleton. In the following table are compared the 



* List of the Cetacea in the lirit. Mus., 1835, p. 16. 



fFisclier, Actes Linn. Soc. Uonleanx, xxxv, 1881, p. 165. 



tK. Sveuska Vetens. Akad. Handling., new ser., ix, i, 1871, \). 75. 



