Miscellaneous. 495 



identical with Thomson's Hades tenehrosus, A careful examination 

 of this species convinces me that it is not correctly placed in the 

 jSTilionidae. The form of the head, the distant anterior coxas (which 

 are described as transverse, but which are totally differently formed 

 from those of Nillo and which would be much more accurately 

 described as globular), the structure of the tarsi, &c. appear to me 

 to be quite foreign to the Nilionidae. There can be no doubt that 

 Hades is very closely allied to Cri/jms, which I described recently 

 (Ent. Month. Mag, 1877, xiv. p. 73) and placed near Chartopteryx 

 in the Cyphaleinae ; and I believe I am correct in placing both these 

 insects in that subfamily. The tarsi in Nilio are filiform : that is to 

 say, they are not flattened beneath ; and they are sparsely pubescent. 

 In Hades the tarsi are somewhat flattened beneath and are densely 

 clothed with long soft pubescence ; that of the posterior tarsi is 

 divided longitudinally by a fine smooth line, as in Hemicyclus and 

 some other Cyphaleinae, 



British Museum, 

 Oct. 28, 1878. 



The Balsena (Macleayius) australiensis of the Paris Museum, com- 

 pared with the Balsena biscayensis of the University of Naples. 

 By M. F. Gasco. 



It will be remembered that, on the 9th of February, 1877, there 

 was captured in the harbour of Tarento a true whale, which, it 

 would aj)pear, is the first that has been seen in the Mediterranean ; 

 and that its complete skeleton is now in the cabinet of Comparative 

 Anatomy of the University of Naples. 



On the 3rd November, 1877, I had the honour to present to the 

 Royal Academy of that city a first memoir, which has since been 

 published, A careful examination of the osteological characters 

 soon showed me that the whale of Tarento Avas identical with that 

 captured in 1862 in Delaware Bay opposite Philadelphia, and upon 

 which Mr, E. Cope published a very brief osteological report in the 

 year 1865. 



Both the Tarento whale and that of Philadelphia belong to the 

 species Baloena biscayensis, Eschricht, which for several centuries 

 was pui'sued with aA^idity, and, I was going to say, exterminated, 

 throughout the temperate region of the North Atlantic, first by the 

 Basques, and then successively by the Saintongeois, the Normans, the 

 Dutch (who called it NordTcaper), the Danes, Norwegians, English, 

 and Americans, 



Being invited to take part in the seventh Congress of the French 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, I hastened on my 

 arrival in Paris to visit the superb Cetological collection which figures 

 in the galleries of Comparative Anatomy, and especially the complete 

 skeletons of BaUtna mysticetus, B. australis, and B. antipodum, the 

 last of which is still the sole individual of its species in European 

 Museums. 



