I04 



NA TURE 



{Dec. 7, 1871 



to consist almost exclusively of cephalopods, or cuttlefish- 

 like animals. 



One of the greatest obstacles to acquiring a more accu- 

 rate knowledge of this group is the excessively confused 

 state of the nomenclature of the different animals of which 

 it is composed. Nearly every single specimen that has 

 been met with has been described under a different name, 

 and before their characters and affinities were understood 

 they were bandied about from one genus to another, even 

 different individuals of the same species having been 

 placed by systematists in different genera, until it has 

 become almost impossible to write or speak of any of them, 

 without the fear of inadvertently adding to the perplexity 

 of those that come after, by adopting and perpetuating 

 some ill- chosen or incorrect term. 



In a valuable recent memoir on the subject by Prof. 

 Owen,* the difficulty is disposed of in a veiy summary 

 manner by uniting all the known forms, both recent and 

 extinct (with the exception of Hypcroodoii), under the 

 generic name of Zipliiiis. This proceeding, at all events, 

 has the merit of running no risk of adding to the confusion 

 of noinenclature, caused by hasty or ill-defined generic 

 subdivisions, founded on imperfect or fragmentary know- 

 ledge of the animal described. But, however great our 

 admiration may be for this strong-handed resistance to the 

 passion for name- coining, which is fast rendering the study 

 of zoology almost an impossibility, it must not lead us to 

 overlook well-marked structural characteristics by which 

 certain small groups of species are allied together, and 

 differcnt'ated from others, whether we call them genera 

 cr by any other term. 



In a paper recently presented to the Zoological Society 

 (read Nov. 7), 1 have given reasons for my belief that the 

 species of ziphioids at present known (1 refer only to those 

 now existing, not to the extinct forms), may be naturally ar- 

 ranged by certain structural characters, especially the con- 

 formation of the skull and teeth, into four groups ; and as, 

 £0 far as is yet known, these are not united by inter- 

 mediate forms, they may, I think, be considered as generic, 

 though of course this is a subject upon which the judgment 

 of different zoologists may dilfer. This arrangement does 

 not differ from that adopted by several other zoologists, 

 who have specially studied the animals of this group, but 

 the characteristics of each section or genus have not 

 hitherto been clearly defined. 



It is not my present purpose to enter into the details of 

 these characteristics, for which I must refer to the above- 

 mentioned communication, but to give a short summary 

 of the known zoological facts relating to the different 

 animals of which each is composed, so that a general idea 

 may be gained of our present state of knowledge of the 

 whole group. 



I. Genus Hyperoodon, Lacdpede. — This genus differs 

 from the rest in having a very prominent convex "fore- 

 head " as it appears externally, though really correspond- 

 ing to the lower part of the face of other animals, sup- 

 ported by strong bony crests on the maxilla, and below 

 which the small pointed snout projects, something like the 

 neck of a bottle from its shoulder, hence the name 

 " Bottle-nose" often applied to these animals, in common 

 with various other cetaceans. The common Hyperoodon 

 (//. rostratus) is, as before mentioned, one of the best 

 known of cetaceans, being a regular visitor to our 

 coasts, and having been frequently described and figured 

 by naturalists who have had opportunities of observing 

 it in a fresh state. Skeletons, moreover, are to be seen 

 in nearly every considerable csteological museum. The 

 first really good description and figure is that of John 

 Hunter, founded on an individual which was caught in 

 the Thames near London Bridge, in the year 17S3, and 

 the skeleton of which still hangs in the great hall of the 

 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. The figure of 



* British Fossil Cetacea from the Crag, Palseonlological Society, vol. 



the animal appears in the Philosophical Transactions for 

 1787. Among the numerous subsequent contributions to 

 the knowledge of the structure and natural history of this 

 species, the monographs of Vrolik and of Eschricht are 

 of especial importance. 



The common Hyperoodon attains the length of twenty 

 to twenty-five feet. It has no functional teeth, the only 

 two which it possesses are quite small and buried in the 

 gum at the front end of the lower jaw, but the palate is 

 beset witli numerous minute horny points. As in many 

 other whales in which the teeth are either absent or very 

 rudimentary when adult, it possesses a complete set at a 

 very early period of its growth, but the majority of these 

 disappear even before birth. Judging by the contents of 

 the stomach of the captured specimens, their food con- 

 sists of several kinds of squid and cuttlefish, and not of 

 true fish ; they are, therefore, not the enemies to fisher- 

 men that some have supposed them, but rather the re- 

 verse, for the cuttles, of which they destroy great quanti- 

 ties, are themselves voracious fish-eaters. In geographical 

 range this species is limited to the North Atlantic, having 

 been found both on the American and European coasts, 

 extending as far north as Greenland, but its southern 

 limit has not been accurately determined ; it has, how- 

 ever, never been known to enter the Mediterranean. 

 Within this range it is migratory, spending the summer 

 in the Polar seas and the winter in the Atlantic, and it is 

 chiefly on its passage northwards in the spring and south- 

 wards in the autumn that it visits our shores. It happens 

 almost every year that in the last-named season one or 

 more are stranded on some part of the extensive coast- 

 line of the British Isles ; usually a female accompanied by 

 a young one, seeking probably for food in too shallow 

 water, are cut off by the retreating tide from their chance 

 of regaining the open sea. In these cases it appears that 

 it is the less experienced younger animal which gets 

 into danger, and is then rarely abandoned by the 

 old one, who thus falls a victim to the strength of the 

 maternal instinct so largely developed in the cetacea. 

 The old males are apparently more wary, and rarely ap- 

 proach the shore near enough to be taken. They are never 

 seen in herds or " schools " like so many of their congeners, 

 but always either singly or in pairs. 



Another animal, allied to Hyperoodon rostratus but of 

 larger size, being fully thirty feet in length, and of heavier 

 proportions, has been occasionally met with in the North 

 Seas, and is generally supposed to be another species of 

 the same genus (//. latifrons), though some naturalists 

 have maintained that it is nothing more than the old 

 male of the former. 



11. Genus Zipliiits. — The type of this genus is Z. cavi- 

 rostris of Cuvier, founded on an imperfect skull picked up 

 in 1804 on the Mediterranean coast of France, near Fos, 

 Bouches-du- Rhone, and described and figured in the 

 " Ossemens Fossiles." It was at first supposed to be a 

 fossil, but has since been proved to belong to a species 

 still living in the Mediterranean, and there is no evidence 

 that the skull is of ancient date. 



2. An animal of the same species was afterwards taken 

 on the coast of Corsica ; its external characters are de- 

 scribed and figured by Doumet in the Revue Zoologtqiie, 

 v. 1S42, p 20S, and its skeleton is preserved at Cette. 

 3. A third specimen was stranded near Aresquiers, 

 Herault, South France, in 1850; the skull, which is now 

 in the Museum at Paris, has been described by Gervais 

 and Duvernoy {Annates des Sciences Naturellcs, 3 series, 

 1850 and 1851). 4 In the Museum of Arcachon is a 

 skull found on the beach at Lanton, Gironde, West 

 France, in 1864, and described and figured by Fischer, 

 in the Noiivcltes Arc/i!7'es dii Museum, tome 3, 1867. 

 5. A complete skeleton of an adult animal is mounted in 

 the Anatomical Museum of the University of Jena. This 

 was obtained at Villa Franca in 1867 by Prof Haeckel, 

 but has not yet been described. 6. In the Museum of 



