Occurrence of Sowerhi/s Whale in ike Firth of Forth. 7 



In addition to the above well-authenticated specimens, M. 

 Van Beneden states ^ that he has seen a very incomplete 

 cranium in the Museum at 8t Petersburg, but as to the origin 

 of which nothinf^ was known. 



Specimens of Ziphioid whales from the Southern Hemi- 

 sphere belonging to the genus Micropteron (Mesoplodon) have 

 also been described, both by the New Zealand naturalists, by 

 the late Dr Gray, and by Professor Flower.^ Various specific 

 names have been given to them. Mesoplodon layctrdi is 

 undoubtedly a distinct species,^ but doubts have been ex- 

 pressed whether some, if not all, of those specimens to which 

 the specific names australis, grayi, hacisti, and hectori have 

 been given, should be regarded as distinct species, or only 

 varieties of Micropteron bidens. Quite recently Mr Fredk. 

 W. True has described the cranium of a young Micropteron 

 {Mesoplodon) collected by Dr L. Stejneger in Bering Island, 

 in the Bering Sea, as a distinct species by the name of 

 Mcsoplodon stejnegeri} As the skull, however, is that of a 

 young animal, its specific characters would be incompletely 

 marked, and it is possible that this also may be Micropteron 

 hidens. 



Sower by 's whale is obviously not so rare a species as was 

 at one time supposed. Table I. shows that seventeen well- 

 authenticated specimens have been taken during the present 

 century in the North Atlantic or its inlets, and of these 

 sixteen have been got on the coasts of Europe. No fewer 

 than seven specimens have been taken during the present 

 decennium, three of which it has been my good fortune to 

 obtain. As a knowledge of the Cetacea becomes more widely 

 extended, we may expect to have what are usually regarded 

 as the rarer species more frequently recognised, and the term 

 " bottle-nosed whale," under which in common speech so 

 many species are classed, more closely restricted to the 

 species to which it properly belongs, Hyperoodon rostratus. 



^ Les Zipliioides des Mers d'Europe, Memoires couronnes publics par 

 r Acad. Koy. de Belgique, t. xli., 1888. 



2 On the genus Mcsoplodon, Trans. Zool. Soc, vol, x. 



^ See my Report on Bones of Cetacea in " Cliallenger " Reports, vol, i., 1880, 



^ Proceedings of the United States National Museum, 1885. 



