Led 
? CETACEA. 37 
1. M. Cuvier’s Rorqual de la Méditerranée is founded on the 
kull of a whale described by Lacepéde (Cetac. t. 5-7) which 
as stranded near the Isle of Marguerite in 1797. Lacepéde 
_ gives the followmg measurements: viz. length, 60 feet ; length to 
he pectoral, 14 feet 6 inches; from thence to dorsal, 10 feet 
9 inches ; and from dorsal to caudal, 8 feet 9 inches : but there 
must be some mistake, as this makes only 34 feet. The pectoral 
was 5 feet long, and all black. Cuvier (Oss. Foss. t. 26. f. 5) re- 
_ presents the head of this specimen. M. F. Cuvier regards this 
, aecomen as the type of his B. musculus (Cetac. 334). 
F. Cuvier’s Cetacea refers to the Mediterranean Rorqual 
(B. musculus), a male whale described by M. Companyo, which 
‘was cast ashore near St. Cyprien. It was 25,060 metres (82 feet) 
entire length; the head 5,038 metres (16 feet) ; length of pec- 
- toral 2,010 (13 feet). It had 7 cervical, 14 dorsal, 15 lumbar, 
and about 25 caudal vertebree, in all 61. It was dark grey, with 
_ the throat and the sides of the pectoral white, the belly blue and 
_ white banded, pectoral greyish. Professor Eschricht belives this 
to be the species I have named Physalus antiquorum. The 
skeleton was at Lyons in 1835. 
_ M. Van Beneden found by examinmg an ear-bone brought 
_ from Iceland by M. Quoy, that it belonged to the Rorqual de la 
“Méditerranée of Cuvier (see Ann. Sci. Nat. n. s. vi. 159). 
{ Albers (Icon. Anat. 1822, t. 1) figures, under the name of 
Balena Boops, the skeleton ‘of a whale cast ashore at Vegisack 
near Bremen, in 1669. The length was 29 feet ; length of pectoral 
fin 3, width of tail 9. Camper (Cetac. 74. t. su 12) figures the 
- skull of this specimen. Cuvier says he compared this skull with 
the one from St. Marguerite’s, figured by Lacepéde, and could 
see no difference between them.  Albers’s figures would lead to 
_ the idea that the lower jaw was scarcely wider than the upper ; 
this is corrected by Camper. Professor Eschricht considers 
_ Albers’s specimen the same as Hunter’s B. rostrata ; but it agrees 
with the whales of this genus m having 34 and 35 lumbar and 
_ caudal vertebree. 
12. Balena rostrata, Rudolphi, Berl. Abhand. 1820, t. 1-4. 
—__ Rorqual du Nord, Cuvier, Oss. Foss. v. 564. t. 26. f. 6, copied 
£" from Rudolphi. 
Baleenoptera laticeps, Gray, Zool. Ereb. & Terror, 20, from 
; Rudolphi. 
: Black, beneath white; upper jaws wide, in the skull only 
aon: as long as the width of their base in front of the orbits, the 
lower ones slightly curved and scarcely wider than the edge of 
-_ * 
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