Occurrence of the Bottle- Nosed or Beaked WJicde. 39 



The published figures of Ilyperoodon, in which the tail is 

 so placed as to enable one to see its shape, do not always 

 correspond in their representation of the posterior border. 

 In Dale's figure ^ of the Maldon specimen this border is 

 shown as if notched at its mid-point, as is the case, for 

 example, in the whalebone -whales. In Hunter's figure ^ of 

 the Thames specimen the tail is also represented as notched 

 mesially. In Vrolik's figure ^ of the Zandvoort specimen, 

 and in Dr Gray's figure of a specimen taken at Aust Passage 

 in October 1840, a similar notch is also shown. But in 

 Baussard's figure of the Honfleur specimen {op. cit., PL I.) this 

 border is not notched ; and Captain David Gray both figures 

 and describes the tail, instead of being notched in the centre, 

 as round in the middle.* My observations on the Dunbar 

 specimen also showed that instead of a mesial notch there 

 was a slight projection at and immediately on each side of 

 the middle of the posterior border of the tail ; so that the 

 figures in which a mesial notch is represented are in this 

 respect inaccurate. I have described and figured a similar 

 form of tail in Mesoplodon hidens^ and Burmeister has 

 figured ^ the tail of his Epiodon (ZiioMus) as possessing the 

 same shape. Hence the absence of a mesial notch, and the 

 presence of a slight convexity in the middle of the posterior 

 border of the tail, is a family character in the Ziphioid whales. 

 In the sperm whale, again, according to Beale " and to Bennett, 

 a slight notch or depression posteriorly is situated between 

 the two lobes of the tail. 



Owiug to M. Baussard's description of the palate in the 

 Honfleur Hyperoodon, and the interpretation, though erro- 

 neous, put upon its structure by M. Lacepede, I was natu- 



^ This figure is copied by Pennant in ''British Zoology," vol. iii., pi. vii., 

 1812. 



2 Phil. Trans., vol, Ixxvii., pi. xix. This figure is copied into Bell's 

 " British Quadrupeds." 



^ 0]}. cit., pi. i. 



^ Proc. Zool. Soc. London, Dec. 19, 1882. See also his figures 1-5. 



5 Journal of Anat. and Phys., Oct. 1885, vol. xx., pi. iv. 



6 Anales de Museo Publico de Buenos Aires, Entrega quinta, torn i., pi. xv. 

 '' Natural History of Sperm Whale, p. 24, and fig. on p. 23 ; also Bennett's 



"Whaling Voyage round tlie Globe," vol. ii., p. 156; London, 1840. 



