Jin. "W. H. FLO WEE ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF THE SPEEM- WHALE. 369 



known, I venture to question whether the Cachalot frequently, if ever, exceeds that 

 length, when measured in a straight line. Mr. Crowther assures me that the specimen 

 described in this memoir was considered a full-sized animal. But the most important 

 evidence upon this head is derived from a magnificent lower jaw, also presented to 

 the Museum by that gentleman, which was considered in the colony " unique on 

 account of its great size." This jaw measures in a straight line, from the tip to a line 

 drawn across the hinder edges of the rami, 16' 2", or 1 inch longer than that of the 

 Yorkshii-e skeleton, and but 20" longer than that of the Tasmanian skeleton. The fact 

 that the animal to which this jaw belonged was considered by experienced men a giant 

 among Cachalots gives a good mdication of what size the ordinary individuals attain. 



Lastly, a few words on the zoological designation of the Cachalot, presuming that 

 there is at present but one well-established species. Following the rules laid down by 

 the Nomenclature Committee of the British Association, we find in Linnseus's ' Systema 

 Natui-ee' (12th edit. 1766), the genus Physeter including every animal, then kno-ivn or 

 imagined, with which the Cachalot can possibly be identified. Of the four species 

 assigned to this genus, the one called macrocephalns is without doubt that especially 

 founded upon the common Cachalot, notwithstanding the error in the diagnostic ex- 

 pression, "fistula in rostro." The P. catodon was a small species, probably the Beluga; 

 the P. mio-ojis and tursio had high dorsal fins ; while the references under the head of 

 P. macrocephalus to Clusius's description, the statement as to the size and the number 

 of the teeth, and especially to the " spermaceti e ventriculis cerebri," all point indis- 

 putably to the great Sperm-Whale. 



Artedi's name of Catodon has been revived as the generic designation of the Cachalot 

 by several zoologists, whose faith in Sibbald is so great as to retain in the system, upon 

 the strength of his description and figure alone, an animal of which, as Dr. Gray says, 

 " there is not a bone, nor even a fragment of a bone, nor any part that can be proved 

 to have belonged to a specimen of this gigantic animal, to be seen in any Museum in 

 Europe " *. If the Linnean genus Physeter is to be kept in abeyance until the redis- 

 covery of Sibbald's " Palwna macrocephala tripinna" f, it is to be feared that it may 

 ultimately disappear altogether from zoological literature. 



* ' Cat. Seals and ■\Miales in Brit. Mus.' (1866), p. 215. 

 t ' Phalainologia Nova,' 1692. 



