108 PRor. w. B. BBisrHAM ON THE [May 2l, 



it was not a " young Sperm- Whale," but a full-grown " Small 

 Cachalot," or Cogia hrevicejys. The head had been most skilfully 

 disarticulated from the cervical vertebrae, and remained close to 

 the body ; the lower jaw had been cut away and was missing. I 

 found, later, that it was in the possession of an old whaler, who 

 intended to keep it as a curio, but who parted with it for a small 

 consideration. 



The " flukes," too, had been cat off and carried away by the 

 finder of the whale ; while much of the flesh of the head and trunk, 

 including the dorsal fin, had also been removed for the purpose of 

 extracting the oil. I subsequently obtained the flukes, but the 

 damage done to the carcase prevented me making any observations 

 of value on the contour of the body or its coloration, or accurate 

 measurements. This is the more to be regretted, as I gather from 

 Flower and Lydekker's ' Mammals ' that some uncertainties exist 

 as to these matters. 



The abdominal wall had been cut through and the viscera were 

 scattered about on the sand near the body ; the thorax, also, had 

 been opened and the lungs and heart abstracted. 



Thus I obtained the entire skeleton, which together with some 

 of the viscera were packed in barrels and taken to Dunedin. At 

 the time I was unaware of the rarity of Cogia, otherwise I should 

 have taken care to preserve all the viscera, and to have taken 

 fuller measurements, even though these would have been imperfect. 

 The only organs that I removed for study were the larynx, 

 stomach, and penis, while the narial canals remained adherent to 

 the skull. 



An account of the larynx I have already presented to the 

 Society, it agrees closely with that of other Odontocetes. The 

 present contribution deals with the remaining organs. 



I, External Features. 



The general form of the body of Cogia has been described and 

 figured by Owen [7] for specimens from India, and Von Haast [2] 

 gave an account of a specimen from New Zealand seas. These 

 are the only accounts accessible to me. 



The dorsal surface of the Parakanui specimen was black ; the 

 under surface dirty white with a tinge of yellow in it, especially 

 noticeable on the under surface of the pectoral fin. Von Haast 

 says the " belly is greyish white"; Owen states (from Eliott's 

 MS.) that the lower surface was " pinkish." Possibly these varia- 

 tions from pure white — which is usual in the Cetacea — -are due to 

 postmortem changes. In a young Eorqual that reached me in a 

 perfectly fresh condition early in August, within 48 hours after 

 its death, the belly was pure snow-white, but after exposure to 

 the air for a couple of days the white took on a bluish tinge. 



The total length of this specimen of Cogia, which is a full- 

 grown male, was 8 feet 9 inches, measured in a straight line from 

 the tip of the snout to the bottom of the notch in the flukes. 



