Dr. J. E. Gray on a new Whalebone Whale. 493 



doubled the number of species that had before been recorded as 

 found on our coast, a bone has been discovered showing most dis- 

 tinctly that a species of Whalebone Whale which had only been 

 described from an imperfect skeleton buried in the sand on the coast 

 of Sweden is also an inhabitant of our seas. 



Mr. Pengelly has kindly brought to me one of the middle cervical 

 vertebrae of a Finner Whale, which was washed ashore at Babbacombe 

 Bay, in Torbay, on the coast of Devonshire, on the 24 th of Novem- 

 ber 1861. It is so different in its form and proportions from the 

 cervical vertebrae of any of the species of British Whales which I 

 described in my paper on those animals (printed in the ' Proceedings' 

 of the Society for 1864), that I lose no time in bringing a description 

 of it before the Society ; for, as I have already observed, I consider 

 that we must treat remains of Whales as we do fossil animals — 

 describe them from a single bone, if no more can be procured, if, 

 after careful study and comparison, we are satisfied that the bone in 

 question differs in important characters from the corresponding bone 

 in the hitherto known species. 



In this case, though as yet we only know a single bone, there 

 cannot be any doubt, — 1, that the body of the vertebra differs in 

 its form and thickness from the vertebra of any Finner Whale yet 

 described ; 2, that the thickness of the lateral processes is exceed- 

 ingly different from that of those parts in any other known species ; 

 3, that the size, or rather width, of the canal of the spine, as com- 

 pared with the size of the body of the vertebra, differs from the 

 width found in any Whale yet examined. 



On comparing this vertebra with the drawing of the cervical ver- 

 tebrae of Balcenoptera robusla, described by Professor Lilljeborg in 

 his very excellent paper on the Scandinavian Whales, which he had 

 been so kind as to transmit to me, I was induced to believe that the 

 bone sent by Mr. Pengelly might belong to that species ; but, for 

 greater certainty, as I cannot read the Professor's Swedish descrip- 

 tion of the species, nor get it properly translated here, I sent a tracing 

 of the bone to Upsal, and the Professor has replied that he believes 

 that it belongs to the species he described. He has also sent me a 

 drawing of one of the cervical vertebrae of his species, which cer- 

 tainly agrees with the one from Babbacombe Bay in every particular, 

 except in being a trifle larger in all its parts. 



The addition of this animal to our marine fauna, and the pro- 

 curing of the remains of a second specimen of a species which only 

 rested on the description of an imperfect skeleton found imbedded 

 in the sand on the coast of Sweden, is important. 



In my " Notes on the Whalebone Whales, with a synopsis of the 

 species," published in the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History' 

 (vol. xiv. p. 343), I gave the reason why I thought Balcenoptera 

 robusta was probably more allied to Megaptera than to Physalus, 

 and I there proposed for that species a new subgenus, under the name 

 of Eschrichtius. The examination of the vertebra from Devon- 

 shire and the additional figures which Professor Lilljeborg has so 

 kindly sent to me confirms me in the idea that it is of a distinct 



