Dec. 7, 1 871] 



NATURE 



105 



the University of Louvain is a skull of an animal of this 

 genus, brought from the Cape of Good Hope, of which a 

 description has been published by Prof. Van Beneden, 

 under the name of Ziphius itidicus (Mem. de I'Acad. 

 Roy. de Belgique, coll. in 8vo, 1S63). 7. A very similar 

 skuU in the British Museum, also from the Cape of Good 

 Hope, has been described by Gray (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1865, 

 p. 524) by the name of Petrorhynciis capcnsis. 8. A 

 complete specimen of a young male, thirteen feet long, 

 was taken near Buenos Ayres in 1865, and is the subject 

 of an elaborate memoir by Burmeister (Annales de Museo 

 Publico de Buenos Aires, Vol. i. p. 312, 1S69), accom- 

 panied by detailed figures of external characters, skeleton, 

 and some of the viscera. The specimen was first named 

 in a preliminary notice Ziphioi-Iiyiichus cryptodon,\)\\'L sub- 

 sequently described as Epiodoii australis. 



Such are the materials upon which our knowledge of 

 the genus Ziphius is based. For the present it is im- 

 possible to determine whetherthedifferences thathave been 

 noticed in the above-mentioned specimens are the result of 

 age, sex, or individual peculiarity, or whether they denote 

 specific distinctions. The remains that are preserved 

 indicate in e\ery case an animal of rather smaller size than 

 the Hyperoodon. 



HI. — Genus Mcsoplodon, Gervais. It is not without some 

 hesitation that I assign this designation to the present 

 well-marked section, as it is extremely difficult to deter- 

 mine which of the numerous names which have been 

 given to it by various authors should have the preference. 

 The type-species of the group, Sowerby's whale, has had 

 no less than eleven generic appellations given to it 

 since its discovery in 1804, viz., Pliysctcr, Dclphinus, 

 Hfifiodon, Dioton, Aodon, Nodus, DilpJiiiiorltyncIius, 

 Micropttroji, Mesoplodon, Mcsodiodon, and Ziphius ! 

 Many of these names had to be abandoned almost as soon 

 as they were bestowed, as their authors had overlooked the 

 fact that they had been previously appropriated to other 

 members of the animal kingdom. To give a full account of 

 the entangled literary history of the genus would occupy too 

 much space for the present communication, so I will con- 

 tent myself with enumerating the specimens which are re- 

 ferable to it, as far as they are known to me, existing in 

 various museums, from v/hich some idea of the frequency 

 of occurrence and of the geographical distribution of the 

 animals will be obtained. They are rather more numerous 

 than those of Ziphius. 



I. An imperfect skull in the University Museum, 

 Oxford, from an animal (a male) sixteen feet long, ob- 

 tained on the coast of Elginshire, figured and described by 

 Sowerby {British Miscellany, p. i, 1804) under the name 

 of Physetcr bideiis, but to which the specific name of 

 Soiiie7-l>yi\iZS since been generally attached. (This is Del- 

 phinus {Hcleiodoii) So7iv/l>t:usis of De Blainville, Nouv. 

 Diet. d'Hist. Nat., t. ix., 1817, Second edition; £>. 

 Soiocrbyi Desmarest, Mammalogie, 1822.) 2. A skull 

 in the Paris Museum from a female specimen fifteen feet 

 long, stranded at Havre, Sept. 9, 1825, described by De 

 Blainville (Nouv. Bulletin. Sc. t. iv., 1825) as the " Dauphin 

 du Dale," by Cuvier as Dclpliiuus {Dclphinorhynchus) 

 jiiiavpleins, and afterwards by a variety of other names, 

 but now generally considered to be specifically identical 

 with the first mentioned. 3. A complete skeleton in the 

 Brussels Museum from a young specimen stranded at 

 Ostend, August 31, 1835. 4. A skull and part of 

 skeleton in the Museum at Caen from Sallenelles, 

 Calvados, North France, 1S25. 5. Mutilated skull in the 

 Museum of the Royal Dublin Society, from an animal 

 fifteen feet long, stranded in 1864 in Bandon Bay, 

 Kerry, Ireland. 6. Another skull and some bones in 

 the same museum from a second specimen from the same 

 locality, in 1770. 7. A lower jaw in the Christiana 

 Museum, from the Coast of Norway. 8. A skull in 

 the University ISIuseum, Edinburgh, of unknown origin. 

 (I am indebted to Prof. Van Beneden for information about 



this specimen, which has not hitherto been recorded.) 

 All these appear to belong to one species. The adult 

 males have a single triangular compressed tooth on each 

 side, rather in front of the middle of the lower jaw, which 

 projects beyond the lip like a tusk, working against a 

 hard callous pad in the upper jaw. In the specimen from 

 Calvados, a group of barnacles had attached themselves 

 to the outer surface of the tooth. 9. In the British 

 Museum is a skull received from the Cape of Good Hope, 

 with teeth in a similar situation, but developed to such an 

 extent as to pass (curving upwards, backwards, and finally 

 inwards) all round the upper jaw, and actually to meet 

 above, preventing the mouth from opening beyond a very 

 few inches at most. It is very difficult to imagine how 

 the animal could have lived and obtained food in this 

 condition, and it might well be supposed to be an indi- 

 vidual deformity, but Mr. E. Layard has shown me a 

 tooth of another individual having exactly the same con- 

 formation, and being upwards of a foot in length. To 

 this species the name of Layardii has been applied by 

 Dr. Gray. 10. An animal probably of the same 

 species, but with the tooth much less developed 

 (? a female), was very lately stranded at Little Bay, 

 about six miles from Sydney, and its skeleton is 

 now in the Australian Museum. 10. In the Museum 

 at Caen there is another skull, from an animal caught in 

 the entrance of the Channel about 1840, which appears to 

 belong to a different species from those ordinarily found 

 on our coasts, as the compressed tooth is placed nearer 

 the apex of the jaw. 12. A skull in the Museum at 

 Paris, remarkable for the peculiar form of the lower jaw, 

 and of the heavy massive tooth v.'hich it supports, obtained 

 from the Seychelle Islands, has received the specific name 

 aidensirosliis, and very recently a complete skeleton of the 

 same (13), obtained by Mr. Krefft Irom Lord Howe's Island, 

 has been added to the Sydney Museum, already rich in 

 skeletons of rare Cetaceans. Lastly (14), mthe Museum at 

 Wellington, New Zealand, is a skull and some bones of an 

 animal, nine feet long, which was killed in Titai Bay, 

 Cook's Strait, January 1866, and figured by Dr. Hector 

 in the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," vol. 

 iii., part xv., of which the conformation of the skull shows 

 that it is a member of this group : but the single com- 

 pressed tooth in the lower jaw is situated farther forwards 

 than in any other known species, thus completing the 

 series of different positions in the side of the ramus occupied 

 by the developed teeth, and proving its small value as a 

 generic character. 



IV. — Berardius, Duvernoy. This genus was founded 

 by Duvernoy upon a skull received at the Museum of 

 Paris in 1846, having been obtained from an animal 

 stranded in Akaroa Harbour, New Zealand. In the name 

 of Berardius Arnuxii conferred upon it by Duvernoy. the 

 captain of the French corvette, Lc Khin, Bi5rard, and the 

 surgeon, Arnoux, who jointly presented the specimen, with 

 some others of considerable interest to the Museum, are 

 commemorated in zoological literature. 



Only three other specimens of this animal have since 

 been seen, and all on the coasts of New Zealand : — One in 

 1862, embayed in Porirua Harbour, was converted into 

 oil, and can only be conjectured to have been a Berardius 

 by its dimensions, and a slight description published by 

 Mr, Knox. In January 1870 another was taken in 

 Worser's Bay near the entrance to Port Nicholson, 

 and its skull and some bones were presers'ed for the 

 Wellington Museum ; and, lastly, a specimen of this fine 

 animal, which is thirty feet long, and, after Hypeioodon 

 laiifrons, the largest of the group, ran aground on the 

 beach near New Brighton, Canterbury, on the i6th of 

 December, 1868, where it fortunately came under the 

 notice of Dr. Julius Haast, F.R.S., the energetic and able 

 geologist, and Curator of the Museum at Christ Church. 

 The details of its capture are given by Dr. Haast in the 

 Proceedings of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 



