BOTTLE-NOSE WHALE IN THE BED OF THE TYNE. 53 



nus orca^ L'Epaulard, of the French, given at fig. 4, pi. 223, 

 in Cuvier's " Ossemens Fossiles," vol. ii.. Planches. It mea- 

 sures an inch more in length than the figured cranium, being 3 ft. 

 long, and 10 inches in length. The superior maxillary bone is 

 pierced by 11 alveoli, and it appears as if another socket had 

 existed in the intermaxillary bone, so that there should have been 

 eleven or even twelve teeth on each side of the upper jaw in this 

 specimen, whereas in Cuvier's figure only ten teeth are represen- 

 ted as existing. There can be little doubt that this half skull 

 had been in some previous year brought by a whale ship, and 

 thrown overboard, since it was found opposite to the ordinary 

 berths that were used by the whalers. 



I may perhaps be excused for mentioning, in connection with 

 the above noticed Cetacea, the existence, in the Museum of the 

 Newcastle College of Medicine, of the skull of the true whale, 

 BalcBiia mysticetus. It was brought from Davis' Straits about 

 eight years ago, by Captain Warham, and was purchased 

 of him. It is tolerably perfect, and measures six feet from 

 the hindermost part of the occipital foramen to the anterior 

 end of the jaws, and three feet two inches across the occiput be- 

 tween the most projecting points. The upper maxillary, inter- 

 maxillary, and lower jaw bones, are a good deal warped from 

 their original direction by the maceration and drying, to which 

 they have been subjected, having acted on very immature osseous 

 tissue. The whalebone, or Baleen, was in situ when the skull 

 was received ; it has been preserved and refitted as well as prac- 

 ticable, to the dried and warped upper jaw ; the longest plates 

 measure about 14 inches in length. 



The skull shows distinctly the peculiarly Cetacean characters and 

 disposition of the bones, and in these agrees closely with the fig. 

 9, pi. 227, in Cuvier's " Ossemens Fossiles," vol. ii.. Planches, 

 which was taken from the skull of an adult Greenland whale in 

 the British Museum. That skull measured 20^ feet in length, 

 and represents, according to Scoresby's Table ("Account of the 

 Arctic Kegions," &c., vol. i., p. 464), a whale of about 52 feet. 

 Our specimen, according to the same authority, would appear to 



