Occurrence of Sowerhys Wlude in ilie Firth of For Ik. 13 



had a well-marked falciform shape, with the concave border 

 directed backwards. The skin of this fin was darker in 

 colour than the surface of the back, and was more nearly 

 black. The shape of the dorsal fin is not correctly given in 

 Sowerby's drawing, but is properly represented in Dumortier's 

 figure. In both of these drawings the tail is incorrectly 

 figured as having a notch in the middle of its posterior 

 border, whereas, as I have shown in the drawing of the tail in 

 the specimen which I described in 1885,^ this border was 

 convex at its middle, so that the entire border had a 

 festooned edge. The figure which Aurivillius has given of 

 the tail in his animal closely corresponds with my original 

 figure, and with the form of the tail observed in this most 

 recent specimen. Reinhardt's figure of the tail of this 

 animal,^ though without the mesial notch, does not give a 

 mesial convexity, and is not therefore quite accurate. 



[Note. — April 1889. — Whilst correcting these sheets for 

 the press, I received a copy of the Evening Stctr newspaper, 

 l^ublished at Washington, U.S., April 3d, in which the capture 

 of a female Sowerby's whale, 12^ feet long, at Atlantic City, 

 New Jersey, on the 28th March, is recorded. The specimen 

 was secured by Professor F. W. True for the National 

 Museum, Washington. It is the eighteenth specimen which 

 has been captured in the North Atlantic, and the eighth 

 obtained during the present decennium. 



I may also state that in the Journal of Anatomy and 

 Physiology, April 1889, vol. xxiii., I have described the 

 stomach of the specimen of Sowerby's whale from Dalgety 

 Bay, and have compared it with the stomach of Hyperoodon 

 and several of the Delphinidse.] 



^ Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, October. Plate iv., vol, xx. 

 ^ Oversigt over d. K. D, Videusk. Selsk. Forlidl., Copenhagen 1880. 



