Hecror.— Notes on the Whales of the New Zealand Seas. 3438 
Buenos Ayres, having been described in detail by Burmeister as Epiodon 
australe, 
In European museums this whale is only represented by skulls, the 
individual specimens of which have generally been distinguished by specific 
and even generic appellations ; but it has been shown by Prof. Turner, of 
Edinburgh University, in a memoir reviewing the whole subject,* that the 
distinctions are only founded on changes and developments of the meso- 
ethmoid cartilage, which with increasing age becomes ossified and swollen 
into different shapes, while at the same time the bony processes surrounding 
the pre-nasal fossa also undergo change of form; but these differences he 
considers do not exceed the range of individual variation which is often 
met with in comparing a series of crania of the same species of animal. 
He further shows that the geographical range of Ziphius cavirostris, 
including all known forms, is equal to that of the sperm whale, of which 
one species only is now generally admitted to exist. 
The specific distinction made by Dr. von Haast between the Chatham 
Island and New Zealand specimens is founded on little more than the form 
of the teeth, which in the latter specimen, now in the Canterbury Museum, 
I have formerly pointed out had become absorbed,} only the fangs being left, 
while in the slightly smaller and probably younger specimen from the 
Chatham Islands the teeth were still large and serviceable,t but such 
degeneration of the dental apparatus with advancing years is idle not to 
be taken as a character of specific value. 
The only important difference between the descriptions of Dr. von Haast 
and Burmeister is the presence of one pair of ribs less in the New 
Zealand skeleton; but this is so violent a departure from the number 
obtaining in a so closely allied, even if not an identical species, and from 
the number found in all other ziphioids except Hyperoodon, that it should, 
I think, be attributed to individual abnormality or an accident to the 
preparation. 
One important feature in Burmeister’s description has not been alluded 
to by Dr. von Haast, namely, the presence not only of the large terminal 
mandibular teeth, but also thirty small teeth in the gum of the mandible and 
twenty-five on each side in the gum of the upper jaw. As the Buenos Ayres 
specimen was quite young, measuring only 13 feet in length, whereas 
the Canterbury specimen was adult, and measured 29 feet, the absence 
of the functionless teeth in the latter was probably due to the difference 
of age. This is clearly opposed to the generic value attributed to such 
organs in t in the case of Oulodon. 
rans. Roy. Soc. Edin., XXVI., 759. 
1 Trans. N.Z. ibd 166. t Trans. N.Z. Inst., V., pl. 4 and 5. 
