50 PROFESSOR OWEN ON INDIAN CETACEA, 
The optic foramen communicates or is blended with a larger vacuity or fissure 
between the orbitosphenoid, frontal and pterygoid, which might be termed the spheno- 
frontal fissure. The foramen rotundum, in like manner, is blended with a larger vacuity 
between the ali- and orbito-sphenoids, answering to the “fissura lacera anterior” of 
anthropotomy, and which may be called the “ intersphenal fissure ”?. 
The removal of the loosely attached petrotympanic exposes the wide otocranial 
vacuity (Pl. IX. fig. 3, or) in the basal walls of the cranium, which is a characteristic 
feature of the Delphinoid as compared with the Physeteroid skull (Pl. XIII. fig. 2), 
where the otocranial is walled off from the cranial cavity. The otocrane, in both, is 
bounded by the paroccipital, basisphenoid, alisphenoid, and squamo-mastoid: in the 
present species of Phocena it presents a subquadrate form, 1” 4’” in diameter, with the 
angles rounded off, notched anteriorly by the third division of the fifth, whereby the 
“foramen ovale” blends with this great vacuity. 
The entocarotid foramen pierces the outer and fore part of the base of the otocranial 
plate of the basisphenoid, close to, perhaps at, the line of confluence of the alisphenoid. 
There are neither olfactory nor lacrymal foramina. ‘The absence of the rhinal capsules 
simplifies the condition of the prefrontals, and facilitates the comprehension of both the 
special and general homologies of these interesting bones. A pair of minute foramina 
lead from the cranial cavity to the narial ones piercing the prefontals; but they do 
not give passage to olfactory nerves in the Delphinide. 
The departure from symmetry in the present Delphinoid skull is slight: it is seen 
in the greater backward extension of the nasal plate of the right premaxillary (fig. 
2,22"), in the larger size of the prenarial plate of the right maxillary, and in a feeble 
inclination of the upper margin of the septum narium to the left. 
Family PHYSETERID (Cachalots or Sperm-Whales). 
Genus Evpuyseres, Macleay. 
PuyseTEeR (EUPHYSETES) SIMUS, Owen. 
The Snub-nosed Cachalot. (Plates X.—XIV.) 
The Cetacean which I haye next to describe is represented by drawings of the adult 
male (side view, Pl. XI. to scale) and female (side view, Pl. X. fig. 1; upper view, fig. 2 ; 
to scale). It is noted as “a kind of Porpoise” in Mr. Elliot’s MS., and is known to 
the Telugu fishermen of the coast by the name of ‘ Wonga.” The male, measuring 6 
feet 8 inches in length, was taken at Waltair, February 28, 1855. The female was taken 
on the Ist of March, 1853, at the same part of the coast; she measured 6 feet in length. 
* It is noticed as “le trou sphéno-orbitaire,” by Cuvier, ‘ Oss. Foss.’ tom. cit. p. 294. 
