450 Dr. J. E. Gray on the Skeleton of 



Balcenoptera Huttoni. 



Dorsal fin erect, compressed, about two thirds the entire 

 length from the nose. Skull about one fourth the entire 

 length. Baleen elongate, triangular, much longer than broad. 

 Vertebra3 forty-eight ; nem'al canal of cervical vertebrte broad 

 and low, transverse; ribs 11 . 11, first simple-headed. Pectoral 

 fin moderate, the middle finger as long as the forearm-bone. 



Physalus antarctieus, Hutton, Ann. & Mag. Nat, Hist. 1874, xiii. p. 316, 

 t. xvi. A (not Gray, 'Voy. Erebus and Terror'). 



Hab. Southern New Zealand, Otago Head. 



The skull is elongate, 46 inches long, 50 inches over the 

 curve, and 22 inches wide in front of the orbits. The back 

 of the brain-cavity slopes forwards from the foramen magnum 

 nearly to the nasal bones. The beak is 32 inches long from 

 the back edge of the nasal bones, slightly arched, and gradually 

 tapers from the front of the orbit to the tip ; the sides of the 

 maxillary bones are nearly sti'aight or very slightly concave. 

 The intermaxillaries are narrow, rather broader in the middle 

 of their length, flat on the front part, and concave on the sides 

 of the blower. 



The skull greatly resembles that of Balcenoptera rostrata^ 

 especially in the form of the intermaxillaries and the concavity 

 at the hinder part of them. 



The nasal bones solid ; the pair above elongate, triangular, 

 nearly twice as long as broad, flat at top behind, and shelving 

 off on each side in front, leaving an angular keeled central 

 ridge, which is square at the top, broader below, 4^ inches 

 long and '6\ inches wide. 



The lower jaw is strong, curved, 44 inches long, and has 

 a distinct conical tapering coronoid process. 



The palatine bones at the end of the underside of the upper 

 jaw are oblong, four-sided, longer than broad ; they are 

 ti'uncated, but rounded on the outer side of the front edge, 

 and united by a straight median suture ; they are attached by 

 a large broad laminar suture to the pterygoid bones behind. 

 These bones are much larger and broader tlian those of the 

 Rorqual du Gap^ Cuvier, 'Oss. Foss.' v. p. 370, t. xxvi. fig. 3 h\ 

 and they are much broader and larger than those of Balcenoptera 

 ScJdegelii figured by Van Beneden, ' Osteogr. C^taces,' t. xiv. 



The palatine bones are generally large in the Mysticetes, 

 and the pterygoid bones are very small and widely separate ; 

 but in the New-Zealand Pike Whale they are larger than 

 usual. The development of the palatine bones is one of the 

 characters which separate the whalebone-whales from the 



