Haast.—On a new genus of Ziphioid Whale, 451 
symphysis, and of varying size and shape, either hidden below the gums or 
rising conspicuously above them, according to age and sex. They differ, 
however, from this and other ziphioid genera by possessing in the upper 
jaw, starting in a vertical line above the posterior border of that mandibu- 
lar tooth, a series of small conical teeth, slightly ineurved, which extends to 
near the gape of the mouth. 
I may here at once observe that these teeth are neither rudimentary nor 
are they confined to young animals, because as I shall show in the sequel, 
these three skulls are derived from individuals of different ages, of which 
one is an aged (male ?) animal, in which the row of teeth is best developed. 
It is thus evident that this series of teeth is a functional portion of the 
animal, is constant and necessary for its proper nourishment, some of them 
being broken off, others evidently worn down from use. That these small 
teeth, of which the largest stands nearly half an inch above the gums, are 
only rooted in the latter, does not lessen their value as a specific character 
of some importance. 
Of the species of Ziphioid Whales inhabiting the New Zealand seas I 
have obtained three, namely, Berardius arnuvii, three specimens, Epiodon 
nove zealandia, and Mesoplodon floweri, none of which show the least sign 
or rudiment of teeth in the upper jaw. Moreover several others have been 
secured in New Zealand and Australia, but nowhere can I find that, except 
the teeth in the lower jaw, they possessed any, and I have looked carefully 
over all the different papers on the Ziphioid Whales of the Northern Hemis- 
phere to which I had access without finding the slightest mention made of 
the occurrence of such a peculiar feature in their dentition. 
On the contrary, Professor Flower, in his excellent paper on the recent 
Ziphioid Whales *, when enumerating their principal structural characters, 
begins by stating that they have no functional teeth in the upper jaw. I 
believe that this term functional is rather ambiguous when applied to their 
gums, and can scarcely be applied to the gums under consideration, as we 
are totally unacquainted with the food on which it subsists, or the manner 
in which the same is obtained. It is true these teeth do not grow from 
alveolar grooves in the premaxillaries, but only from a groove in the gums, 
and have their roots implanted therein, but nevertheless I have no doubt 
that they are always present and do perform as distinct and important 
functions as those of Euphysetes, or any of the Dolphins, which possess teeth 
of similar forms, 
The first of the accompanying photographs shows the three skulls in 
comparison with each other ; the second, the middle portion of the second 
skull belonging to an aged (male ?) individual; whilst the following list 
*“ Trans, Zool. Soc.,” Vol. VIII, Part 3, 
