22 



paper currency, and alluded especially to the recent very 

 valuable addition of some one hundred and fifty speci- 

 mens of the currency of the colonies of New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, and also of the 

 United States issue. Many of these specimens are very 

 rare and interesting. 



Mr. F. W. Putnam gave an account of the Blackfish 

 shot in Salem harbor in October last by Capt. Charles 

 Osgood, and now on exhibition. He also exhibited a 

 stereoscopic view of the animal, and stated that a large 

 photograph was to be taken. 



Unless this species proves on comparison to be the 

 European Globiocephalus melas, it will be known under 

 the name of G. intermedins , given it by Dr. Harlan,* who 

 first described the American animal from a specimen cap- 

 tured in our harbor in September, 1823. Dr. Harlan's 

 specimen was sixteen and one-half feet in length, and his 

 description applies to the present specimen, though the 

 figure which he gives is very poor and would mislead in 

 several particulars. 



Mr. Putnam then gave an account of the several fam- 

 ilies of cetaceans and the general structure of the order, 

 and stated that while the blackfish was more closely 

 united to the grampus and dolphins than to the large and 

 true whales, yet, in the general acceptance of the term, 

 the blackfish was a whale. He then gave the following 

 notes, taken soon after the specimen was captured. 



Head very blunt. A slight protuberance of the upper 

 jaw beyond a line dropped from the top of head, which is 

 slightly rounded. Line of back to the dorsal fin, straight ; 

 posterior to the fin the outline is slightly descending to 



♦Journal Academy Nutunil Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. vi, part i, p. 51, pi. 1, 

 3 (1820). 



