1882. ] WHALES OF THE GENUS HYPEROODON. 725 
On the other hand, Gervais, in the ‘Ostéographie des Cétacés,’ 
written in conjunction with Van Beneden, firmly maintained the 
specific identity of the two forms, citing cases of intermediate 
structure of cranium between the typical form of H. rostratus and 
that of H. latifrons, and affirming that all the specimens reterred 
to the former were either females or immature males. 
The importance of solving such a question is perfectly evident. 
It is indeed a pressing need in Cetology, as involving such an 
important point in the life-history of so common a British species, 
and also because, although Captain Gray’s discovery of the com- 
mercial value of Hyperoodon-oil may give us for a short time ample 
means for investigating the subject, it will before long, it is to be 
feared, place it altogether beyond our reach. 
It was last year that this enterprising seaman, who has already 
done so much to increase our knowledge of the Northern Cetacea, 
especially by the interesting description he has given us of the 
natural position in the mouth and mode of action of the baleen of 
the Greenland Whale (see ‘ Land and Water,’ 1st December 1877) 
turned his attention to Hyperoodons or “ Bottlenoses,” which had 
hitherto in their native haunts enjoyed a happy immunity from the 
attention paid by whalers to the more gigantic members of their 
order. Observing their frequency in the seas which he visited in 
the pursuit of the Greenland Whale, the seas lying to the east of 
Greenland, between Iceland and Spitzbergen (which, by the way, was 
the original seat of the Greenland Right-Whale fishery, before it was 
mostly transferred to Baffin’s Bay), he harpooned several specimens 
and brought back their oil. This, upon analysis, as related in the 
following communication, proved to be very similar to that of the 
Sperm-Whale, and probably of equal value for the special purposes 
to which that now scarce material is put, and for which, I believe, 
no efficient substitute has been found. The presence of spermaceti 
also in the head of the Hyperoodon, which has been affirmed and 
denied by previous investigators, was fully confirmed by Captain 
Gray’s observations. 
Hearing that Captain Gray intended this year to devote himselr 
exclusively to the capture of ‘‘ Bottlenoses,”’ I called his attention 
to the interest of the subject, and to the great opportunities which 
he would have for solving the disputed question of the difference or 
identity of the two alleged species, and requested him carefully to 
note the sex and appearance of all the individuals killed which might 
throw light upon the question. How completely Captain Gray has 
carried out this object will be seen by his own communication, 
which, besides giving us for the first time any idea of the external 
characters of the adult male Hyperoodon (an animal never previously 
figured or described), must cause 1. latifrons to be henceforth 
erased from the list of species, and the genus Lagenocetus to be 
consigned to a similar fate. 
Besides the notes, Captain Gray has brought home tangible 
evidence of the correctness of his observations in a series of skulls, 
of which that of an adult male has been presented to the Museum 
