220 Zoological Society : — 



fish or Squad, or even Sepia, is intended to represent the Linnean 

 genus Sepia, not the genus as now restricted, and is synonymous 

 with the class Cephalopoda : at least that must be the case in the 

 whale now under consideration ; for if the beaks belonged to Deca- 

 podous Cephalopods either of the genus Loligo or Sepia, there 

 would no doubt be some remains of the dorsal shell of the Sepia, or 

 of the dorsal glade of the Loligo and its allied genera, found inter- 

 mixed with the beaks. 



The articles sent were certainly the horny beaks of a Cephalopod, 

 and appear to be those of the common Octopus, or Sea Spider. 



It is very curious that these beaks should form such a mass, as 

 this indicates that they must be very abundant in some parts of the 

 sea, and proves that they must form at least a large portion of the 

 food of this animal. I have never seen the Octopus in large numbers 

 either at sea, in the nets of the fishermen, or thrown up on the coast ; 

 yet that they are abundant somewhere these beaks are a sufficient 

 proof. 



The beaks sent me by Mr. Beardsworth all appear to belong to a 

 single species ; but he informs me there were some of a larger size 

 intermixed with them when they were first taken out of the stomach, 

 but they were selected and taken away by the bystanders. As there 

 are only an upper and a lower beak to each fish, and they are of a 

 small size, it would require many thousand animals to make up a 

 half-bushel of them. 



The measurement of the younger Cetacean, as given by Mr. 

 Beardsworth's account, is interesting as showing its large size while 

 yet in company with its mother, and proving that Dr. Knox's ob- 

 servation, that the fretus of the Porpoise is half the length (that is 

 one-fourth of the size) of the parent before it is born, and that the 

 young appear to attain their full size very rapidly, is probably equally 

 true in the genus Hyperoodon. 



It is to be observed that both the female from Whitstable and 

 the female from Weston-super-Mare have the dorsal fin on the hinder 

 part of the back, about two-thirds the distance from the liead, as in 

 Hunter's figure of the Bottle-nose (Phil. Trans, vol. Ixxvii. t. 19), 

 and not in the middle of the back, as in the Bottle-head or Flounder' s- 

 head described and figured by Dale in his History of Harwich, p. 4 11 . 

 t. 149. 



In my Monograph on Whales, published in the * Zoology of the 

 Erebus and Terror,' I described and figured a species of Hyperoodon 

 from the skull of an animal which had been caught at the Orkneys, 

 under the name of Hyperoodon latifrons, on account of the great 

 height and very great thickness of the reflexed part of the maxillary 

 bones, which form the crest in front of the blowers. 



Professor Eschricht considers that this species is founded on the 

 skull of an adult male of the common species (which he calls Hyper- 

 oodon butzl'opf), because the specimen of the animal with this kind 

 of skull which he received from Faroe was of that sex. 



The following facts I think will dispel such an idea : — first, I think 

 I can prove that males and females have been seen and preserved of 



