98 PYGMY SPERM WHALE PIERS. 



hreviceps. F. E. Beddard (Mammalia, p. 367, Camb. Nat. His- 

 tory, Lond., 1902) allows two species, if the accounts of their 

 osteology are to be depended upon, namely Kogia hreviceps and 

 Kogia (C(illignathus) simus, the latter from the coast of India. 

 The former is said to have 13 pairs of ribs, no teeth in upper jaw 

 and 14 or I 5 in each ramus of lower jaw; and the latter, 14 pairs of 

 ribs, 2 teeth in upper jaw and 9 in each ramus of lower jaw. 

 K. floweri, a Californian form, whose teeth are particularly long 

 and recurved, and K. pottsi from New Zealand, have been de- 

 scribed as distinct forms, but further investigation will probably 

 indicate that they are merely varietal forms of K. hreviceps. 



We thus see that the accidental occurrence of Kogia hreviceps 

 in north latitude 44° 34', close to Halifax, Nova Scotia, is remark- 

 able and worthy of note, because it considerably extends the 

 range and also adds another mammal to the casual members 

 of our marine fauna. 



How the present individual came on our coast. To account for 

 its occurrence here, we must surmise that it had come from trop- 

 ical regions, to the southern coast of the United States or the 

 vicinity of the West Indies, and thence northward in the warm 

 waters of the Gulf Stream, and straying westward out of that 

 current, had come by chance to our cold shore in the middle of an 

 unusually severe winter, there to die, not directly as a result of 

 the low temperature of the water, but because of the ice which 

 gave it no opportunity to come to the surface to breathe. That 

 it coasted up along the shore of the United States, is a less probable 

 hyposthesis. The number of female specimens containing 

 foetuses which have been taken in northern waters, suggests the 

 possibility that their unusual visits are in some way associated 

 with the breeding season. 



Description. — As the species is seldom met with, a description 

 of the present specimen will be of some interest. The accom- 

 panying plate illustrates the external characters of the entire 

 animal, and also depicts all aspects of the cranium, which latter 

 is complete in all its parts. These drawings have been made 

 with considerable care, so as to be accurate in all particulars, 

 especially as regards the skull. Gray, in his Catalogue of Seals 

 and Whales in the British Museum, second edition, Lond., 1866, 

 p. 216, gives figures of the dorsal and lateral views of a skull 

 and a lateral view of a lower jaw, reproduced from those of M. 

 de Blainville of 1838, and these figures have generally been 



