HYPEROODON OF HONFLEUR. 195 



that we select this instance rather because the con- 

 fusion is confined within narrow limits, than because 

 it exhibits an average degree of the entanglement in 

 which every department of this subject is involved. 



This genus was admitted upon the authority of 

 M. Baussard, an ofiicer of marine, who examined two 

 individuals, mother and cub, which were stranded 

 near the small village of Honfleur, and who with 

 laudable zeal published an account of them in the 

 Journ. de Thysique^ 1789. The circumstances on 

 which the claim of these specimens to be considered 

 generic rests, are the total want of teeth in either 

 jaw, and their having the upper jaw and palate fur- 

 nished with small unequal and hard points, which 

 were about half an inch long in the cub, and some- 

 what longer in the mother. 



Baussard's memoir appeared subsequent to Hun- 

 ter s description (Phil. Trans. 1787) of his Del- 

 phinus Bidentatus^ which was admitted as distinct 

 by Bonnaterre, Lacepede, &c. Hunter says nothing 

 of false teeth in the palate, and mentions that two 

 strong and robust teeth existed at the extremity of 

 the lower jaw. 



These then were long regarded as two species. 

 Bonnaterre, in describing the individuals examined 

 by Baussard, very imaccoimtably assigned to them 

 two teeth in the lower jaw, and he thus very natu- 

 rally misled Lacepede, Illiger, and, for a time, 

 Cuvier (Reg. Ani. 1817, i. 281). It was probably 

 when holding this opinion that Cuvier, on visiting 

 Mr. Hunter s museum in London, and examining 



