724 . PROF. W. H. FLOWER ON THE [Dece. 19, 
son, and others, until Dr. Gray, in the ‘Zoology of the ‘Erebus’ and 
‘Terror’’ (1846), described and figured a cranium, received into the 
British Museum from the Orkneys, as that of a distinct species, 
which he named Hyperoodon latifrons (p. 27 and plate 4). The 
diagnostic character is: —‘‘ Skull large, heavy, solid, the reflexed part 
of the maxillary bones very thick and thickened internally, so as 
nearly to touch each other in front of the blower, much higher than 
the hinder part of the skull;’? whereas of H. rostratus it is stated 
that “the elevated plates of the maxillary bones are thin, leaving a 
broad space between them in front of the blowers, and as high as 
the frontal crest.” 
Professor Eschricht, who had devoted great attention to the 
anatomy, development, and life-history of the Cetacea, expressed, 
in his valuable memoir on Platanista, the opinion that Dr. Gray’s 
H. latifrons was nothing more than an old male of the ordinary 
form’, This opinion called forth a long rejoinder from Gray’, in 
which he endeavours to show that males and females of both forms 
have been met with, and moreover states that “he was assured by 
the fishermen who procured the head which he described and 
figured that it was that of a female gravid with young.” 
So convinced was Gray of the distinction, that in 1863 (see P.Z.S. 
1863, p. 200) he constituted H. latifrons into a distinct genus 
called Lagenocetus, and retained it in this position in all his sub- 
sequent cetological writings. 
Since the type specimen was described by Gray, not only several 
skulls but also complete skeletons have been met with of the larger 
form, a very fine specimen being mounted in the Copenhagen Museum 
and another at Caen. Although there is certainly nothing except size 
and the form of the maxillary crests to distinguish them from the 
more common form, there is so striking a difference in the shape of 
the skull, that Dr. Gray’s opinion, backed by the various statements 
made by him regarding the age and sex of the different individuals 
recorded (all of which perhaps will not bear close investigation), has 
induced many zoologists to agreed with him, at all events as to 
the specific distinction, and to admit H. latifrons into the list of 
Cetaceous animals, sometimes as a doubtful and sometimes as a well- 
determined species. I had, in fact, myself done so in the article 
“ Mammalia” written in the beginning of this year for the ‘ Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica,’ being fortified in this opinion by some premature 
information derived from the same source as that which has now 
dispelled this view (as mentioned in a note to p. 395 of the present 
volume of our Proceedings), and especially because my friend the late 
Prof. Reinhardt, whose recent death is a great loss to this branch of 
zoology, had fully adopted Gray’s view *. 
Hs Bes the English translation in Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 2, ix. p. 281 
52). 
2 Bia p- 407. 
3 He says:—‘Eschricht meente, som bekjendt, at Hyperoodon latifrons kun 
var opstillet paa den ret gamle Han af den almindelige Dggling, Hyperoodon 
rostratus; men Gray’s Art maa nu ansees for vel begrundet.’—Vidensk. Selks. 
Skr. 5 Rekke, naturvidens. og math. Afd. 9, B. 1 (1869). 
