20 Proceedwgs of the Royal Physical Society. 



to be an adult and probably aged male Hyperoodon ros- 

 tratiis} 



In the autumn of 1887 my assistant, Mr James Simpson, 

 whilst spending his vacation in Shetland, observed from the 

 cliff above the Hole of Scraada a massive skull of a Hyper- 

 oodon lying some distance below him on the beach, and 

 having communicated with Mr John Anderson of Korth- 

 mavine on the subject, the skull was secured in the autumn 

 of 1888, and presented by Mr Anderson to the Anatomical 

 Museum of the University of Edinburgh. Mr Thomas Ander- 

 son has kindly written the following note on the animal: — 

 " It was seen floating dead off the villions of Ure in March 

 1883. As the sea was too rough to launch a boat, the salvors 

 from the rocks fixed a small anchor to it, and towed it along 

 the cliffs till it was opposite the entrance of the tunnel 

 leading from the sea to the Hole of Scraada, when it drifted 

 on to the beach at the upper end of the Hole. It was flenched 

 there, and the blubber yielded 260 gallons of oil. The whale 

 was newly dead, as no part of it was decayed. No record of 

 its dimensions or external appearance was taken, as the men 

 who eot it were more anxious to secure the blubber than to 

 take measurements." 



The skull had been lying on the beach from 1883 until it was 

 removed for transmission to the Museum in 1888, and during 

 that time its surface had been to some extent rubbed on the 

 stones by the action of the waves, and unfortunately the slender 

 part of the beak and the pterygoids had been broken off. 



The skull was obviously that of an aged animal, for the 

 sutures were obliterated, and the maxillary crests were of 

 great height and thickness. Its dimensions may be made 

 more evident, and the changes which age produces in tlie 

 skull, by a comparison with the young male skull from Loch 

 Eanza, referred to in my former communication. 



1 See Captain David Gray and Professor Flower, in Proc. Zool. Soc, 

 December 19, 1882 ; and Mr Thos. Southwell in Trans. Norfolk and Norwich 

 Naturalists' Soc, vol. iii., p. 476. 



