188 ANATOMY OF MEGAPTERA LONGIMANA. 



As Dr Gray's New Zealand species is founded on only one 

 specimen, and that of the ear-bone only, it is evident that 

 further observations are required on the form of this part of the 

 skull of the Megaptera of the Greenland seas and of other seas. 

 It has to be determined whether the supposed specific differ- 

 ence, remarkable as it is, may not be a matter of age, or of 

 non-union of the two parts from which this portion of the ear- 

 bone is developed, or of variation within the same species, or 

 possibly of the mutilation of the thinner part in detaching the 

 bone. But should this wing-like expansion of the periotic bone 

 prove to be diagnostic of the Megaptera of the South Pacific, 

 then it must be held that we have here a specimen of the 

 Megaptera longimana of New Zealand migrated thus far north- 

 wards. 



PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH. 



