196 DR. J. E. GRAY ON BRITISH CETACEA. [May 24, 
seum,’ and in papers in the ‘ Proceedings of the Zoological Society ’ 
and in the ‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ brought the 
results of my labours before the scientific public. The result of these 
examinations has been to increase very greatly the number of species 
now known to inhabit the British seas, beyond those hitherto recorded 
as found in them in the different works on the British fauna, and 
further to establish those species by personal examination and the 
comparison of specimens collected on our coast or in our estuaries 
with the specimens obtained from foreign neighbours or distant 
regions. I have had the good fortune to be able to examine speci- 
mens or osteological remains of all the British species here recorded, 
except Physeter tursio and Steno rostratus. 
This is the more important, as Dr. Fleming is the only author of 
a British Fauna that appears to have seen a British whale in the 
flesh, or to have examined its bones; he describes one species in the 
‘Wernerian Transactions.’ The accounts of these animals in our 
British Faunas are merely compilations, and those of the larger 
Whales are almost entirely derived from the work of Sibbald. Some 
of the authors regard the individual he described as a species; and 
others, as Bell, in his ‘British Animals,’ deem the three or four 
specimens which have been regarded as species by other authors as 
a single species, without more reason than his predecessors had had 
for separating them. 
The species of the different families have a very great similarity 
when examined externally and as a whole; and the best characters 
for the discrimination of genera and species are to be obtained from 
the examination of their skeletons, and especially of their skulls, 
cervical vertebrze, and the bones of their fore limbs. But here, as 
in other vertebrate animals, it requires great care to observe the ex- 
ternal characters of the animal and the peculiarities of their osteo- 
logy, so that the outer form, colour, &c., may be known at the same 
time as the osteological characters. 
To give some idea of the progress of our knowledge of British 
Cetacea, I have compiled the following table. The number in a 
column shows the number of the species in the work of the author 
cited ; the same number repeated in a column shows that the author 
regarded the species as the same. The letters S and H indicate that 
they occur in the Scandinavian or Dutch fauna :— 
Turton, | Fleming,| Jenyns, | Bell, 
1807. 1828, 1835. | 1837. 
S. H. 1. Balena mysticetus............... 48 48 73 12 
S. 2. Megaptera longimana ......... DOP icases eases 75, part | 13 
S. 3. Physalus antiquorum............ 49-51 | 45-47 | 74-76 13 
A, —— Uguidli..........ccrcecsse.|ecererceceecleccceessees. 
5 SIDDHIGN ee secede sce er oscelcasesanemeuclencaeercecs. 
6. Benedenia knoxii ......... soseipaseetedy an|seeore sees 
7. Sibbaldus laticeps .......0c..ccaslesccessesevclevesvesscee 
7*, DOUCALUIN Ee stapeposeaensnenat |sue-pehidneas| be ceebae spa 
S. 8. Balenoptera rostrata 52 
