67 
was nearly ready for birth in the middle of May. Dr. Traill men- 
tioned sucklings five feet long in December 1806, at Scapay Bay, one 
of the Orkneys; Mr. Neill says that most of the adult females at 
Uyea Sound, Unst, were either pregnant, or giving suck to their tooth- 
less young, in February and March 1805; and in January 1812, in 
the neighbourhood of Paimpol, near the northern extremity of Bre- 
tagne, M..Lamaoiit found the young seven or eight feet long, and 
with cuttle-fish, cod, and milk in their stomachs. 
M. F. Cuvier states that this species is remarkable for the sphe- 
rical form of the anterior part of the head, and that his brother had 
named it “‘ globiceps, 4 cause de la forme arrondie de sa téte.” But 
the “very rounded top of the head,” or “remarkably convex and 
prominent forehead,’’ included by systematic writers in the specific 
characters of the Ca’ing Whale, and even among the otherwise judi- 
cious observations of Mr. Couch, does not properly belong to it; for 
the forehead of the skull is flat, as in other porpoises, though the 
prominent upper muzzle or snout-knob is sufficiently remarkable, and 
not badly represented in the plates already mentioned. 
But, as I have caused a young skull to be sent to the British Mu- 
seum, and Mr. Brabazon has presented a complete skeleton of the 
adult male animal to the same national collection, Dr. Gray has exa- 
mined them, and that eminent zoologist has favoured me with the 
following note of the result :—‘I have compared the skeleton with 
the species which have been usually described under the name of 
D. globiceps, and it would appear that the shape of the head of the 
animal scarcely justified that name ; I can find no difference between 
the Irish and the other specimens.” 
June 14, 1853. 
Dr. Gray, F.R.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
Dr. Crisp exhibited the alimentary canal and ova of a Cuckoo 
(C. canorus), dissected on the 30th of May last. Some facts were 
observed that were thought of sufficient interest to place before the 
Society. A perfect egg was found in the oviduct, ready for expul- 
sion, and about fifty in the ovary ; two of the size of large peas, the 
others much smaller; a circumstance which tends to confirm the 
opinion that the eggs of this bird are deposited at intervals of seven 
or eight days. 
The gizzard was lined with a hair-like substance, which, under the 
microscope, proved to be the spines from the legs of beetles. The 
gizzard contained a large quantity of the remains of the Cockchafer, 
and one of the Click-beetles, but no trace of a Caterpillar was dis- 
covered. In 1834 Mr. Thompson exhibited the gizzard of a Cuckoo 
at the Society (Proceedings, p. 29), and at first the hairy lining was 
