156 Transactions.— Zoology. 
EUBALÆNA AUSTRALIS. 
The Black Whale—Tohora. 
E. australis, Gray, l.c. 91. Balena (Caperea) antipodarum, Gray, (in part) Le. 
p. 101 ; Dieffenbach’s N.Z., IL, Tab. 1. 
Ear bone, Pl. VL f. 2. 
These two species are for the present placed together because whalers 
do not recognize two kinds of Black Whale, and the only portion of the 
second species which is described by Dr. Gray is an ear bone sent to the British 
Museum from Otago by Mr. Stuart, but which, as already stated, I find to 
agree with that of his Veobalena marginata. The skeleton of Caperea antipo- 
darum in the Paris Museum (Gray, l.c. 371), taken on the coast of New 
Zealand, is however considered by Professor Flower to differ from that of 
B. australis in having square nasal bones and a simple (not forked) first rib. 
The Black Whale is the largest and best known of all the whales on the 
New Zealand coast, reaching a length of 60 feet. Its huge bones may be seen 
strewn on the beach in great profusion at any of the whaling stations, but 
generally in a bad state of preservation. The skull is triangular, convex, with 
the beak bent down rather suddenly, and the posterior part depressed, the 
brain cavity being only one-third the length of the beak. The vertebre of the 
neck are united into a compact mass, the spinous processes forming a solid 
crest. The ear bone (Pl, VL, fig. 2) is rhombic, with a large oblong aperture. 
The baleen is thick, rather brittle, with thin enamel, and margined with a 
thick fringe. The blades are from 2 to 9 feet in length. . 
The females visit the bays and inlets round the coast to calve during the 
winter months from May to August, where they are captured by the shore 
whalers. The males are seldom caught, as they rarely approach the land and 
are more shy and wild than the females. From October to May the Black 
Whales are only captured by cruisers on the whaling ground which extends 
from the Chatham Islands to Norfolk Island. 
Several vertebre, and two imperfect tympanic bones of this whale are in 
the Museum.* 
MEGAPTERA NOVA ZEALANDIAS. 
New Zealand Humpback. 
M. nove-zealandie, Gray, l.c. 128. 
Ear bone, Pl. VL, figs. 3a. and b. 
This species is also founded by Dr. Gray on the ear bone alone, and has 
_ not been clearly identified. A whale that was captured in Wellington 
* A very perfect pbs and periotic bone has been obtained in Preservation Inlet, 
on the West Coast of ee since the above was written, and agrees with the figure of 
—_ Bones of the adult Balena australis given in Huxley’s ‘‘ Comp. Anatomy,” p. 397. 
