Hrcron.— Notes on the Whales of the New Zealand Seas. 8338 
Arctic regions. If such be the case it will have an interesting bearing on 
the distribution of the Cetacea, that the forms of temperate latitudes 
(Eubalena) should present less divergent characters than the Arctic and 
Antarctic representative forms. 
2. EUBALJNA AUSTRALIS. 
Balena australis, Desmoulins ; Dict. Class. H.N., IL., 161. 
= Balena antipodarum, vds Dieffenbach's N.Z., IL, 183; v. Beneden and 
Gervais, Ostéog., 
Caperea antipodarum, tite Cat. S. and W., 101. 
Hunterius temminckii, Gray; l.c. 98. 
Macleayius australiensis, yas Trans. N.Z. Inst., VI., 90. 
Eubalena australis, Gray ; . S. and W., 91 (as a Cape species); Hector, 
Trans. N.Z. Inst., V., ra oh a New Zealand species). 
Examination of the type specimens of the foregoing species, into which 
the common black whales of the southern seas have been divided, confirms 
the view that there are no sufficient grounds for their separation, and that 
they should be combined under the name first given to Cuvier’s ** Baleine 
du Cap.” 
At the same time I adopt Gray’s separation of the genera Balena and 
Eubalena as necessary on account of the great difference in the form of the 
skull, in the number of ribs, and the quality and size of the baleen. Thus 
in Balena the head is one-third of the entire length of the animal, and the 
maxillaries are enormously produced, so that they are three-fourths of the 
length of the skull. 
In Fubalena the head forms one-fourth of the length, and the beak is 
only two-thirds the length of the skull 
The number of vertebra compare as follows :— 
: Balena. 
Eubalena 
Cervicals 1 7 
Dorsals 13 vena 
b : 10 vs IU 
Caudals .. IE os " vs 2 
Although the fine skeleton of Balena mysticetus in the Brussels Museum 
shows a rudimentary fourteenth rib on the left side, the number of dorsal 
vertebrz in that species never exceeds thirteen, while fifteen is the constant 
number present in Eubalena. 
Balena antipodarum was the name given by Gray to a whale of which 
only a sketch was preserved, taken by Major Heaphy, V.C., from a specimen 
stranded in Jackson Bay, Tory Channel, in 1839,* and the same name has 
been given to a fine skeleton in the Museum at Paris, obtained in Akaroa 
Harbour by Captain Berard and Dr. Arnoux of the French corvette ** Le 
Rhin." The length of this skeleton is 45 feet, the skull being 18 feet, and 
* Dieffenbach's New Zealand, I., 44. 
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