LIFE OF FLOWER 143 



in the Transactions of the Zoological Society of London. 

 The first of these, which was published in the year first 

 mentioned, was devoted to the description of the 

 skeleton of the very interesting and then little-known 

 South American freshwater or estuarine dolphins, Inia 

 and Pontcporia. In the course of this memoir it was 

 demonstrated that, in spite of the wide distance between 

 their habitats, these dolphins and the freshwater dolphin 

 of the Ganges and certain other Indian rivers, Platanista 

 gangetica, collectively form a distinct family group 

 the Platanistidae, which exhibits many very generalised 

 features. 



In the second memoir of this series, which appeared 

 in 1869, Flower treated in an exhaustive manner of the 

 osteology of the sperm-whale, or cachalot. " The fine 

 skeleton of a young male which he procured for the 

 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons," writes 

 Professor M'Intosh in his obituary notice of Sir William, 

 " formed the basis of this important paper, and enabled 

 him to add to and correct much which had been written 

 on this subject. The description of its huge cranium 

 as a large, pointed slipper, with a high heel-piece and 

 the front trodden down, the hollow limited behind by 

 the occipital crest, continued laterally into the elevated 

 ridges of the broadly expanded maxillae, which rose 

 from the median line to the edge of the skull, instead of 

 falling away, as in most Cetaceans, must be familiar to 

 all students of the group. In this vast cavity lies the 

 ' head-matter,' composed of almost pure spermaceti." 



It was further demonstrated that the available evidence 

 pointed to the existence of only a single species of true 

 cachalot ; the small adult jaws not unfrequently seen in 



