REPORT ON THE CETACEA. 27 



Ziphius cavirostris, Cuvier. 



In November 1872 Dr Hector read before the Philosophical Society of Wellington, 

 New Zealand, a memoir On the Whales and Dolphins of the New Zealand Seas.^ In it 

 he described and figured by the name of Eiyiodon chathamiensis, or goosebeak whale, a 

 skuU collected by' Mr H. Travers at the Chatham Islands. He expresses the opinion that 

 it is possible this animal may be identical with Eiyiodon austraUs from Buenos Ayres 

 described by Burmeister, and states that except in the upward curve of the beak and the 

 less development of the vomerine callosity, the skull resembles the Petrorhynchus capensis 

 of Gray. He further mentions that the rostrum of an individual of this species, and having 

 a less upward curve, found at Lyall Bay, near Wellington, is in the Colonial Museum. 



In a memoir which I had previously read before the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh in 

 May 1872,^ I advanced facts and arguments to prove that the Cetacea which had been 

 described by the several generic names of Epiodon and Petroi-hynchus should be referred 

 to the Cuvierian genus Ziphius, of which Ziphius cavirostris was the type species, and I 

 further expressed the opinion that the exotic s^jecimens which had been named Zvp)hius 

 indicus, Van Beneden, Petrorhynchus cajjensis, Gray, and Epiodon australe, Burmeister, 

 should be ranked, along with the several European specimens named in that memoir, 

 as examples of the Ziphius cavirostris. 



When a box arrived from the Challenger in 1875 containing a skull and lower jaw 

 marked Epiodon chathamiensis, Hector,^ which had been presented to the collection by 

 the Colonial Museum, Wellington, I examined it with great interest, and compared it 

 with the cranium of the Ziphius cavirostris from the Shetland Islands in the Anatomical 

 Museum of the University of Edinburgh. The skull was, unfortunately, not perfect, as 

 the occipital and sphenoid bones, in the region of the basis cranii and foramen magnum, 

 the pterygoid bones and temporals were broken away, but the beak, the great pra^uasal 

 fossa, the anterior nares and the summit of the cranium, which are the most distinctive 

 parts of the skull, were preserved. There is no need for me to give a detailed description 

 of this cranium, but it will be sufficient for my present purpose if I compare what there 

 is of it with the skull of the Shetland specimen, described at length in my memoir, and 

 point out wherein they correspond or disagree. 



The skull, like the Shetland specimen, was evidently from an old animal, as the cranial 

 sutures were to a large extent obliterated, the bones were massive and weighty, and the 

 teeth were shed from the mandible, their sockets, as in the Shetland specimen, being- 

 occupied by a growth of bone. Owing to the occipital end of the skuU having been so 

 much injured, I am unable to give the entire length of the cranium, but several other 

 measurements showed that it was on a somewhat larger scale than the Shetland skull. 



1 Trans. New Zealand Institute, vol. v. 



^ On the Occurrence of Ziphius cavirostns in the Shetland Seas, and a comparison of its Skull w-ith that of Sowerhy's 

 Whale {Mesoplodon sowerhyi), Trans. Eoy. Soo. Edin., vol. xxvi. 



2 Dr Hector writes to me that this specimen wa^s got near Wellington. He has now had a good many specimens 

 through his hands. This Cetacean, he says, is common in the New Zealand seas, though rarely captiu'ed or cast ashore. 



