Tertiary.] PALAONTOLOGY OF VICTORIA. { Mammalia. 
Priate LIV, 
CETOTOLITES. 
[Cetotolites *: Tympanic Ear-bones of Whales. ] 
In 1843 Prof. Owen recognised as Ear-bones (Petro-tympanics) 
of large whales, and probably indicative of three or four species, a 
number of hard, rounded, involute, very dense bony bodies, dis- 
covered in great abundance by the Rey. Prof. Henslow in the Plio- 
cene Tertiary Red Crag at Felixstow, in Suffolk, but most probably 
derived from an older underlying Tertiary formation. As these 
are the only hard parts, capable of withstanding attrition, of the 
skeletons of most Whales, the disappearance of all the other bones 
of the skeleton, or their reduction to indeterminable fragments, 
while the hard Petro-tympanics or Ear-bones alone remained to indi- 
cate so many species, was well understood, although the fact still 
remained amongst the most striking in paleontology that so small 
a portion of such gigantic animals should have been held sufficient 
evidence of great numbers of several species being found in this 
particular spot. I was much interested on finding that a specimen 
brought to me from a deposit very nearly identical with the older 
European crag, opened at Waurn Ponds quarries, near Geelong, 
by the late Rev. Mr. Legge, of Brighton, was an Ear-bone or Tym- 
panic of a Cetacean closely allied to the commonest of those at the 
English locality ; and on requesting that attention might be drawn 
to the interest attaching to the objects if preserved, I soon had a 
considerable series apparently indicating at least three species of 
Whales probably about 40 feet long. 
Prof. Owen gave the general name Cetotolites to fossils of this 
kind in his description of the Suffolk species, but referred them to 
the genus Balena in his work on British Fossil Mammals, and 
subsequently to his genus Balenodon in his treatise on Palzon- 
tology. As, however, I do not think it is possible satisfactorily 
* Kijroc, a whale; wc, ear ; AtPos, stone. 
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