54 Zoological Society : — 



mature plumage, and the sex cannot yet be determined. It is placed 

 in a large wire compartment with the Talegallas or Brush-Turkeys, 

 and it appears to enjoy their society very much. Whether their com- 

 pany reconciles it to confinement I cannot say ; but, at all events, it 

 feeds well and thrives, and displays a great amount of activity for a 

 great part of the day, running about the cage incessantly, scratching 

 the ground. It feeds on the larva of the Tettigonia or " Locust " of 

 the colonists, meat chopped very small, slugs, and worms. This 

 bird was captured at Broughton's Pass, Illawarra district. Should 

 we be fortunate enough to keep it alive till the time of the departure 

 of the • La Hogue,' it will be sent to the Zoological Society under 

 Mr. Broughton's care, when it will have every chance of reaching 

 England alive." 



February 14, 1865.— Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S., in the Chair. 



The Secretary read the following letter, addressed by Dr. H. Bur- 

 meister, of Buenos Ayres (Foreign Member), to Dr. J. E. Gray, con- 

 taining the description of a new species of Whale, proposed to be 

 called Baltenoptera patachonica, together with some particulars as 

 to specimens of certain other Cetacea in the Museum of Buenos 

 Ayres. 



Dr. Gray stated, in reference to the new Whale, that it was of 

 much interest as being the first well-described Fin- Whale from the 

 southern hemisphere. Dr. Gray considered it evidently a typical 

 species of the genus Physalus, distinguishable from all the northern 

 species by the shortness of the lateral rings compared with the dia- 

 meter of the bodies of the cervical vertebrae. 



" Buenos Ayres, 22nd December, 1864. 



*' I now send you drawings of the Whale in the Buenos Ayres 

 Museum, drawn by myself, and, as I believe, exact to nature. 



" Fig 1. The skull. We have two specimens — one complete, the 

 other consisting only of the hinder part, without the jaws. In the 

 fermer the upper jaws are no longer in position, but separated from 

 the cranium, and therefore little importance can be attached to the 

 width of the opening between the intermaxillary bones in the ante- 

 rior part of the cleft between them ; it may be somewhat exaggerated. 

 All the other parts are entirely exact from nature, and well preserved. 



" Length of the intermaxillary, 7 feet 2 inches ; length of the max- 

 illary, 7 feet ; length of the under jaw, 10 feet 2 inches. Breadth of 

 the frontal bones between the orbits, 5 feet ; breadth of the vertex 

 behind, 2 feet 8 inches. 



" The baleen is entirely black, without any other colour. We have 

 two kinds in the Museum — one 5| feet and the other 1 foot 8 inches 

 in length. This last only may be from the Balcenoptera ; the other 

 perhaps from a Balcena, because it is much more slender and more 

 fringed. 



" Comparing my drawing (fig. 1) with that of Cuvier from the Cape 

 Balcenoptera (Oss. Foss. pi. 26. fig. 2), you will find that the 



