PROFESSOR FLOWER ON THE RECENT ZIPHIOID WHALES. 207 
Zipuius, Cuvier’. 
Skull with the premaxille immediately in front and at the sides of the nares ex- 
panded, hollowed, and with elevated lateral margins, the posterior ends rising to the 
vertex and curving forwards, the right being considerably more developed than the left ; 
the conjoined nasals forming a strongly pronounced asymmetrical eminence at the top 
of the cranium, projecting forwards over the nares, flat above, most prominent and 
rounded in the middle line in front, and separated by a notch on each side from the 
premaxille. Anteorbital notch not distinct. Rostrum (seen from above) triangular, 
gradually tapering from the base to the apex, upper and outer edges of maxille at 
base of rostrum raised into low roughed tuberosities. Mesethmoid cartilage usually 
densely ossified, and coalescing with the surrounding bones of the rostrum. 
A single conical tooth of moderate size on each side of the mandible, close to the 
anterior extremity, with its apex directed forwards and upwards. 
The type of this genus is Ziphius cavirostris, 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’*, under the impression that it was 
that of an extinct species, a view which Gervais has clearly shown to have been 
erroneous. This is Petrorhynchus mediterraneus of Gray’s Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales 
in British Museum, 1871, p. 98. 
A second specimen was taken on the coast of Corsica: its external characters are 
described and figured by Doumet in the ‘ Revue Zoologique,’ v. 1842, pp. 207, 208; and 
its skeleton is preserved at Cette*. 
A third specimen was stranded near Aresquiers, Hérault, South France, in 1850. 
The skull, which is preserved in the Paris Museum, is described by Gervais (Annales 
des Sciences Nat. 3° sér. tome xiv. 1850). This is the Hyperoodon gervaisii of Duvernoy 
(Annales des Sc. Nat. 1851), Ziphius gervaisit of Fischer, and Epiodon desmarestii of 
Gray's Catalogue*. 
A fourth is a skull is the Museum of Arcachon. It was found on the beach at 
Lanton, Gironde, West France, in 1864, and is very carefully described and figured by 
Fischer in the ‘ Nouvelles Archives du Muséum,’ tome iii. 1867, p. 42, pl. 4°. 
5. A complete skeleton of a very old animal in the Anatomical Museum of the 
University of Jena. This was obtained at Villa Franca in 1867, by Professor Haeckel, 
but has not yet been described. 
+ «Jappliquerai au genre dont elle [skull of Z. cavirostris] devient le premier type, le nom de Ziphius, 
employé par quelques auteurs du moyen age (voyez Gesner, i. p. 209) pour un Cétacé qu’ils n’ont point 
déterminé.”—Cuvyier, Ossemens Fossiles. 
* This skull is also figured in Van Beneden and Gervyais’s ‘ Ostéographie des Cétacés,’ pl. 21, fig. 7. 
5 Figured in Van Beneden and Gervais, op. cit. pl. 21. figs. 8, 9. 
4 Figured in Van Beneden and Gervais, op. cit. pl. 21. figs. 1-6. 
5 Figured in Van Beneden and Gervais, op. cit. pl. 21. fig. 6, 
