1 42 LIFE OF FLOWER 



while in a second, and much more important communica- 

 tion, he gave notes on the skeletons of whales preserved 

 in the museums of Holland and Belgium which he had 

 recently visited. Two of these he described as 

 indicating apparently new species ; although their right 

 to distinction was not maintained. In the same year 

 he described two skulls of grampuses from Tasmania, 

 which were regarded as representing a new species, 

 under the name of Orca meridional^ ; a further note on 

 these being added in the Society's Proceedings for 1865, 

 when the species was transferred to the genus Pseudorca. 

 Later still it was found that the supposed species was 

 inseparable from the typical P. crassidens; named by 

 Owen many years previously on the evidence of a 

 skeleton from the Lincolnshire Fens. In another note 

 published the same year in the same journal he showed 

 that one of the whales named by him in 1864 was 

 identical with the one now known as Balteonoptera sibbaldi ; 

 while a second paper described a specimen of the fin- 

 whale commonly known as B. musculus. A further 

 note on the synonymy of B. sibbaldi appeared in the 

 Proceedings for 1 868. 



Reverting to earlier publications, in 1 866 the Royal 

 Society of London issued a volume containing transla- 

 tions by Flower of certain very important memoirs on 

 Cetacea by Professors Eschricht, Reinhardt, and Lillje- 

 borg. As these were written in a language understood 

 by comparatively few Englishmen, the translation was 

 a distinct benefit to "cetology" in this country. 



Between the years 1869 and 1878 inclusive, six very 

 important memoirs on whales (including in that term 

 porpoises, dolphins, etc.) from Flower's pen appeared 



