41 



our animal is as distant in organization and form from tlaat of a 

 diigong, as the cranium of an elephant is from that of one of the 

 Edentata. But the peculiarity of the skull in carnivorous 

 Catacea is, that their face is almost entirely formed of the 

 maxillaries and intermaxillaries, the nasal bones being very 

 minute, and out of the ordinary place ; while the frontals, 

 separated from each other by the aforesaid predominant bones, 

 are each thrown down on the sides of the head, forming the 

 front side of a. fossa temporalis as large as the orbit itself, and 

 still more completely closed. 



The frontal, in our animal, is a heavy quadrilateral piece, with 

 concave sides, one of which forms the top of the orbit. A point 

 of the maxillary comes near to the front angle of this orbit, and 

 its posterior wall is formed by part of the zygomatic apophyse of 

 the temporal, which, however, does not join the post-orbital 

 apophyse of the frontal, but leaves it open in this place. The 

 lower part of the orbit has its front side formed by a short 

 thick triangular jugal, which in our specimen is not quite entire. 

 The fossa temporalis is of a pear-shaped form, the point of which 

 is open, and directed obliquely in front downwards. 



The occiput falls almost vertically from the top of the head. 

 It is sinuated behind on each side, a slight cavity being at the 

 summit. From this it gently projects to form the oval eminence 

 of the occipital condyles. The foramen occipitale is oval ; its 

 vertical height being two inches, and the width one inch and a 

 half. The occiput itself, which is eleven inches high by one 

 one foot in width, has its lower edge on each side divided into 

 two lobes, of which the external one makes an acute angle. 



The under side of the skull or roof of the mouth is convex, 

 like that of the true sperm whale, but otherwise presents 

 considerable differences. Por instance, only two small points 

 of the intermaxillaries show themselves on each side of the line 

 of the vomer to form the snout, which is almost entirely com- 

 posed on the under-side of the enormous maxillaries. These 

 have each in their middle a linear groove five inches and a half 

 long, running up from the front of the snout, and which 



