152 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1786. 



ditferences which distinguished these bones from those of crocodiles, of which 

 I had at that time several in my collection. His intention was to write on this 

 subject, and to send his essay, containing his reasons for supposing these bones 

 to belong to crocodiles, to the k. s. ; but I dissuaded him, as a friend, from doing 

 this, lest he should afterwards be under a necessity of retracting his opinion : 

 and I sent him a figure of the lower jaw of a crocodile, accurately done by my 

 own hand, and soon after the skull and under jaw of a pretty large crocodile; 

 which induced him to defer his design of writing about these antiquities of the 

 old world, till he should be better informed on the subject of cetaceous fishes. 



Major Drouin, of Maestricht, who made, about the same time, a collection 

 of an infinite variety of corals, madrepores, alcyoniums, echinites, belemnites, 

 shells, and petrified wood, from the same mountain and its environs, likewise 

 procured a beautiful specimen of two maxillary bones of the same incognitum, 

 but with the insides turned outwards ; and this gentleman also supposed them to 

 belong to the crocodile. A sketch of this specimen is to be found in M. 

 Buchoz's Dons de la Nature, tab. 68. But the specimen itself is now in Teyler's 

 Museum, at Haarlem, with the whole of Major Drouin's collection. 



Another still more valuable and perfect specimen is to be seen at the house of 

 the Rev. Dean Godding, of which there is also a rough sketch in M. Buchoz's 

 Dons de la Nature, pi. 66. In this the greater part of both the upper and under 

 maxillary bones is entire, and a bone, with small teeth, belonging to the palate; 

 by which it appears that the animal had not only teeth in the jaw-bones, but also 

 in the throat, as several fishes have, but which are never found in the mouth of 

 crocodiles. 



Notwithstanding all my endeavours to convince my friends, and afterwards M. 

 Drouin, and particularly the dean, whose valuable and truly beautiful specimens 

 1 saw in the year 1782, I never could prevail on them to adopt my opinion, that 

 these bones belonged to physeteres or respiring fishes. M. Hoffman, adhering 

 closely to the Linnaean system, objected, that the physeteres had teeth only in 

 the lower jaw-bone, whereas this fossil monster had them in both upper and 

 lower maxilla. He did not seem to recollect, that (puo-rjxji^ signifies something 

 respiring, or breathing, and applied to fishes, breathing fishes ; nor that the 

 physeteres, according to the Linnean system, have small teeth in the upper jaw- 

 bone, though larger ones in the lower jaw, according to the observations of Dr. 

 Otho Fabricius, in his Fauna Groenlandica, p. 42, where he mentions the ma- 

 crocephalus, and p. 45, where he speaks of the microps. 



In August 1782, I sent M. Godding, who had favoured me with a copy of 

 his valuable specimen, a full demonstration of its being the head of a physeter, 

 or breathing fish, Delphinus, or Orca, or under whatever genus it may be 

 ranked, as having large teeth of the same size in both the maxillae. But in 



