Occurrence of the Bottle-Nosed or Beaked Whale. 25 



I. — O71 the Oceurrenee of the Bottle-Nosed or Beaked Whale 

 (Hyperoodon rostratus) in the Scottish Seas, with 

 Ohservations on its External Characters. By Sir 

 William Turner, M.B., LL.D., F.E.S., Professor of 

 Anatomy, University of Edinburgh; President of 

 the Ptoyal Physical Society. 



(Read 20tli January 1886. ) 



The term " bottle-nosed whale " is one which in popular 

 speech is applied somewhat indiscriminately to various 

 species of Cetacea. When used zoologically it is intended to 

 designate that particular kind of toothed whale, which 

 naturalists have now agreed to call, notwithstanding the 

 inappropriateness of the name, Hyperoodon, and which is re- 

 presented in the iNTorth Atlantic by the species rostratus. 

 The name Hyperoodon applied to this genus of cetacea was 

 given to it by the French naturalist, M. Lacepede, who stated 

 that the palate (v7rep<Zrj) was rough, with " very small, un- 

 equal, hard and pointed teeth." ^ This statement purports 

 to be based on the dissections made by M. Baussard of a 

 large female and young female captured near Honfieur in 

 September 1788. On referring, however, to M. Baussard's 

 description,^ I find he does not state that these animals were 

 provided with palatine teeth, but that the palate in the 

 young animal was furnished "with small, hard and sharp 

 points, d'une demiligne d'elevation, and rather unequal," and 

 that they were somewhat longer and stronger in the mother 

 than in the calf. The presence of palatine teeth in a mammal 

 would indeed be contrary to all experience. 



The first definite evidence of this whale was obtained as 

 far back as 1717, when on 23d September a young female, 

 14 feet long, was stranded at Maldon in Essex. It was 

 examined and figured as the bottle head or flounder's head 

 by Mr Samuel Dale,^ who also stated that another of this 



^ Histoire Natnrelle des Cetacees, Paris, p. 320. 



2 Observations sur la Pliysiqne, sur I'Histoire Natnrelle, etc., March 17S9, 

 p. 201, tome xxxiv. 



^ History and Antiquities of Harwich and Dovercourt, by Silas Taylor, 

 with Appendix on the Natural History, by Samuel Dale, p. 411, PI. xiv., 

 London, 1732. 



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