The Zoologist — January, 1873. 3359 



Mediterranean, when they pass out of the Straits of Gibraltar, do 

 not at once cross the Atlantic Ocean, as they ought, according to 

 Van Beneden's theory, but naturally, with their desire to keep to 

 the shore, conie north and keep along the coasts of Portugal, Spain 

 and France, until they reach the south coast of England, where the 

 greater number have been observed. Some of them pass to the 

 east and up the German Ocean, and others to the west coasts of 

 Great Britain and Ireland, some even reaching the northern end of 

 the gulf-stream. This explains how Petrorhynchus cavirostris, bred 

 in the Mediterranean, sometimes occurs at Shetland, and at others 

 in the German Ocean. 



I have used the names as in my Catalogues, and have only added 

 a few synonyms, because they are given at length in my ' Catalogue 

 of Seals and Whales in the British Museum' (8vo, 1866), with 

 numerous figures in the text, and more modern ones in the 

 'Supplement to the Catalogue' (1871), which are sold at a very 

 small price. 



Order Cetacea. 



Teeth all similar, conical, sometimes not developed, when the palate 

 is furnished with transverse plates of baleen or whalebone. 

 Body fish-shaped, smooth, bald. Limbs clawless ; fore limbs 

 fin-shaped; hinder united, forming a forked horizontal fin. 

 Nostrils enlarged into blowers. Teats two inguinal. Car- 

 nivorous. 

 Section I. Mysticetes (or Whalebone Whales). —Head large, de- 

 pressed. Teeth rudimentary; they never cut the gums. Palate 

 with transverse, fringed, horny plates of baleen. Nostrils 

 separate, longitudinal. Gullet very contracted. Tympanic 

 bones simple, large, cochleale, attached to an expanding 

 peristic bone, which forms part of the skull. 

 The whalebone whales, or Mysticetes, inhabiting the northern 

 hemisphere, live and breed essentially in the colder parts of it, and 

 the southern parts of England seem to be the limits of their migra- 

 tion ; and the great increase of traffic of ships, and especially steam 

 vessels, on the more temperate parts of the sea, appears to restrict 

 their visits, and especially their breeding, more to the arctic portion ; 

 thus some whales which were formerly said to be common on the 

 coast of Britain, as the right whale, no longer visit this country. 



The humpbacked whale [Megaplera], the razor-back {Physalus 

 Anliquorum), and the pike whale [Balcenoplera roslrata) perhaps 



