PROFESSOE FLOWER ON THE RECENT ZIPHIOID WHALES. 207 



ZiPHius, Cuvier'. 



Skull with the pi-semaxillse immediately in front and at the sides of the nares ex- 

 panded, hollowed, and with elevated lateral margins, the posterior ends rising to the 

 vertex and curving forwards, the right being considerably more developed than the left ; 

 the conjoined nasals forming a strongly pronounced asymmetrical eminence at the top 

 of the cranium, projecting forwards over the nares, flat above, most prominent and 

 rounded in the middle line in front, and separated by a notch on each side from the 

 praemaxillae. Anteorbital notch not distinct. Rostrum (seen from above) triangular, 

 gradually tapering from the base to the apex, upper and outer edges of maxillae at 

 base of rostrum raised into low roughed tuberosities. Mesethmoid cartilage usually 

 densely ossified, and coalescing with the surrounding bones of the rostrum. 



A single conical tooth of moderate size on each side of the mandible, close to the 

 anterior extremity, with its apex du-ected forwards and upwards. 



The type of this genus is Ziphius cavirostris, Cuvier, founded on an imperfect skull 

 picked up in 1804 on the Mediterranean coast of France, near Fos, Bouches-du-Rhone. 

 and described and figured in the ' Ossemens Fossiles ' ^, under the impression that it was 

 that of an extinct species, a view which Gervais has clearly shown to have been 

 erroneous. This is Petrorhynchus mediterraneus of Gray's Suppl. Cat. Seals and Whales 

 in British Museum, 1871, p. 98. 



A second specimen was taken on the coast of Corsica: its external characters are 

 described and figured by Doumet in the ' Revue Zoologique,' v. 1842, pp. 207, 208 ; and 

 its skeleton is preserved at Cette^. 



A third specimen was stranded near Aresquiers, Herault, South France, in 1850. 

 The skull, which is preserved in the Paris Museum, is described by Gervais (Annales 

 des Sciences Nat. 3° ser. tome xiv. 1850). This is the Hyperoodon gervaiini of Duvernoy 

 (Annales des Sc. Nat. 1851), Ziphius gervaisii of Fischer, and Epiodon desmarestii of 

 Gray's Catalogue "'. 



A fourth is a skull is the Museum of Arcachon. It was found on the beach at 

 Lanton, Gironde, West France, in 1864, and is very carefully described and figured by 

 Fischer in the 'Nouvelles Archives du Museum,' tome iii. 1867, p. 42, pi. 4^ 



5. A complete skeleton of a very old animal in the Anatomical Museum of the 

 University of Jena. This was obtained at Villa Franca in 1867, by Professor Haeckel, 

 but has not yet been described. 



' " J'appliquerai au genre dont elle [skull of Z. cavirostris'] devient le premier type, le nom de Ziphius, 

 employe par quelques auteurs du moyen age (voyez Gesner, i. p. 209) pour un Cetace qu'ils n'ont point 

 determine." — Cxitiee, Ossemens Fossiles. 



2 This skull is also figured in Van Beneden and Gervais's ' Osteographie des Cetaees,' pi. 21. fig. 7. 



" Figured in Van Beneden and Gervais, oj>. cit. pi. 21. figs. 8, 9. 



* Figured in Van Beneden and GeiTais, op. cit. pi. 21. figs. 1-6. 



' Figured in Van Beneden and Gervais, op. cit. pi. 21. fig. 6. 



