68 MB. ANDBEWS ON ZIPHIUS SOWEBBIENSIS. 



sliores of the British Isles since that which was cast ashore on the 

 coast of Elgin in the year 1800, and which was the first instance 

 of its occurrence on our coasts. Part of the skull and the jaws 

 were sent by Mr. Brodie, with a sketch of the animal, to Mr. 

 Jas. Sowerby, who gave an account of it at a meeting held at Sir 

 Joseph Banks's in Soho Square. 



Erom the singularity of its possessing only two teeth in the 

 lower jaw, aud from the form of the spiracle or blow-hole, it was 

 considered to be a Cetacean altogether unknown, and then received 

 the name of Physeter hidens, Sowerby. 



Previously the skulls and jaws of a Dolphin were discovered 

 in a fossil state in several places on the Continent, and were 

 supposed by Cuvier to belong to a Cetacean that had no recent 

 existence, but to be the remains of a past creation. Erom these 

 remains, that eminent anatomist formed the genua ZlpJmis, and 

 named several species from the peculiar forms of their snouts. 

 Sowerby's specimen of the portion of the skull and jaws was after- 

 wards deposited in the Museum at Oxford, and has been figured 

 and described by Dr. J. E. Grray, in the valuable ' Catalogue of 

 Cetaceans in the British Museum.' 



De Blainville, on visiting England some years since, saw the 

 figures of Sowerby's specimen, and at once recognized it as being 

 identical with Cuvier' s fossil genus Zi;p}iius, and it was consequently 

 named ZipTiius sowerbiensis. 



Four specimens of Dolphins have been taken, viz. at Havre, 

 Calvados, Ostend, and at the mouth of the Seine, which were 

 placed by continental authors under different generic and specific 

 appellations. These were all females, and on strict examination 

 have been proved to be only females of the " genus Ziphius." 



Sowerby's was hitherto the only known male specimen taken, 

 until the occurrence of that captured at Brandon Bay, which also 

 proved to be a male. These two, therefore, are the only known 

 male specimens that have been obtained in Europe. The skull 

 of one is in the Museum at Oxford, and that of the other in the 

 Museum of the Eoyal Dublin Society. 



