U. CUVIERIUS. 105 



1. Cuvierius latirostris. 



Physalus latii'ostris, Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1804; 410-414. 



Inhab. North Sea. Skeleton of yoiing specimen in the museum 

 of the late Professor Lidth de Jeude, at Utrecht. 



" In the collection of the late Professor Lidth de Jeude, at Utrecht, 

 is a fine skeleton of a Fin-Whale. It was obtained on the coast of 

 Holland. It was from a young animal. The epiphyses were de- 

 tached from both ends of the bodies of all the vertebree between the 

 axis and the last two or three of the tail ; also from both ends of 

 the humerus and bones of the forearm. The exoccijntal, parietal, 

 and squamosal bones were non-united ; and moreover the processes 

 of the vertebraj were imperfectly ossified, as shown by the conchtion 

 of their ends, and their shortness compared with the large size of 

 the bodies of the bones. It was more advanced, however, than the 

 specimen examined at the Hague. 



^' The length of the cranium is 9' 10"; of the vertebral column, the 

 bones being placed close together, without the epiphyses, 31' 2" ; to 

 this must be added at least 5 feet for the thickness of the epiphj-ses 

 and the intervertebral spaces ; so tliat the whole animal could not 

 have been much short of 50 feet in length. The number of vertebrte 

 is C. 7, D. 15, remainder (of which 15 or 16 are lumbar) 42 = 04. 

 The column is quite complete, and ends, not in an elongated bone 

 composed of two or three centrums anchylosed, but in a small, flat, 

 circular, disk -like bone half an incli in diameter. The penultimate 

 vertebra is simple, short, rounded at the edges, and about an inch in 

 diameter. The one before this is much larger in every direction, 

 increasing rapidly at its anterior end. 



" The craniimi presents-many of the characters before attributed to 

 the genus Physalus, but with some peculiarities that I have not met 

 with in any other specimen. The n;ost remarkable of these is the 

 great width of the rostrum, which, instead of gradually and steadily 

 contracting from the base to the apex, as in P. antiquorum and the 

 members of the genera SihhaJdivs and Bcda'noptera, continues as far 

 as the middle with very little diminution of width, so that the outer 

 border is much more strongly convex in the anterior half. This is 

 occasioned by the width of the maxillary bone, which more resembles 

 that of Megaptera longimana. The great difterence of the propor- 

 tional breadth of the beak to the length of the cranium in this 

 specimen, as compared with other Fin-Whales, is seen in the Table at 

 p. 112, and in the Table of dimensions below. I may mention also 

 that the breadth of the palatine surface of the maxillary, measured 

 in a straight line, at the middle of the beak, is 16", whereas in the 

 cranium of a Common Fin-^Miale (P. antiquorum) in the Museum 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons, of almost the same length (viz. 

 9' 3"), it is biit 11 g". The na-^al bones are very broad and short, 

 raised to a ridge in the middle line, and hollowed on each side on 

 the upper surface and anterior border, though to a less extent than 

 in the common species. The orbital plate of the frontal resembles 

 in its general form that of PJn/sahis antiquorum, but is rather less 



