by Frank E. Beddard. 133 
The pigment is to some extent visible through the not yet pigmented 
skin. And the size of the bulb is striking. In the other feetus no 
such view of the eye is to be obtained and only the slit between the 
lids is visible. The length of this slit is, in the small fcetus under 
discussion, 2°55 mm. ‘This length, although appearing to be minute, is 
really not so when we compare its proportions with that of the adult 
Cachalot. Hentschel* gives 9 cm. as this length and sees no reasons 
for distinguishing as to size between the right and left eye opening. 
The proportions are therefore in the large adult which Hentschel 
examined, 9 cm. to 1,740 cm., total length of the animal, i.e. very 
nearly one-two hundredth. In the feetus before me, the proportions 
are (after “straightening” the head) 2°5 to 114 mm., i.e. about 
one-fortyfifth. The difference is enormous, the foetus possessing what 
may be fairly termed a very large eye as compared with the adult. 
In the rather larger feetus, the eye slit remains at about the same 
proportionate size. Its length is 241 mm., and the length of the eye 
slit 5 mm., Le. one-fortyeighth. I may take this opportunity of 
mentioning that in the largest foetus of all those which are known to 
me through my own examination, the one recently described by me in 
this Journal, the eye has distinctly commenced to be proportionately 
reduced in size. In that foetal whale the total length is 500 mm. and 
the eye slit only 7 mm., which is therefore but one-seventy-first of the 
total lensth of the animal. JI may also take this opportunity of 
referring to the alleged asymmetry in the eyes of this Cetacean, which 
Hentschel denies in the adult, but which has been affirmed. — In the 
largest foetus, where the considerable length of the eye slit renders 
measurements easier, and thus more reliable for minute comparison, 
I found that both right and left eye slits were exactly 7 mm. in length. 
It may be perhaps permissible to refer to another difference between 
the two eyes of this the oldest foetus, which may have a hearing upon 
the questions just dealt with. On the left side only, the eye slit was 
continued anteriorly by a much shallower groove upon the skin. 
Whether this can be looked upon as a trace of a formerly larger eye 
or not there is no other evidence to prove or disprove. ‘here is no 
doubt, however, about the fact thus briefly described. It should be 
noted, however, that furrows in the skin of an alcohol preserved 
animal with a smooth skin like this foetus, as might be expected, occur 
elsewhere and are thus not impossibilities in a giyen situation quite 
apart from any meaning to be attached to their occurrence. 
* Zool. Anz. Bd. XXXVI, 1910, p. 417. 
