562 CETACEA. 



A small portion of the skin of this Whale was sent to me in a dried state, and 

 the only observation I have to make regarding it is that it was extremely thin and 

 deep black. 



Six pieces of short balene accompanied the other remnants of this Whale ; they 

 were all of one size, or nearly so, with the exception of one small white piece, evident- 

 ly only a portion of a flake, as, although it measures 5*25 inches in length, it has 

 considerable basal thickness where it had been cut across. Its breadth is only 2*50 

 inches, and it is triangular in form, tapering to a point at its free end, which is 

 broken up into a fringe of long fibres. The five remaining pieces are also triangular, 

 with about 12 inches of length and a maximum breadth at the base of 6 inches. 

 Their basal margins are uninjured, as the plates had evidently been drawn out of 

 the decaying mucous membrane. The long curved free border is deeply fringed. 



In November 1874, or about that period, a small balene Whale was cast ashore 

 on the island of Sondip, lying at the mouth of the Brahmaputra, opposite to Chitta- 

 gong. Some portions of the animal were saved by Babu TJdaychand Dutt, Civil 

 Medical Officer, NoakaH, and are now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta.^ They 

 consist of the skull, less the maxillaries, premaxillaries, vomer, nasals, left pala- 

 tine and the lower jaw. The right petrous and tympanic were preserved. The 

 other bones saved are the atlas, one lumbar and two caudal vertebrae, the 

 body without processes of a dorsal, one spinous and one transverse process, four 

 epiphyses of vertebral centra, first rib of right side, eighth or ninth rib of same side, 

 the right scapula, humerus, radius and ulna, a hyoid and a stylohyal. All of these 

 bones indicate a very young animal, and the question occurs in connection with 

 them, — may this be the young of the same species as Balcenoptera edeni, or can any 

 opinion be pronounced on its relation to Balcenoptera indica ? 



The form of the portion of the skull which remains has a strong resemblance to 

 the corresponding portion of the skull of the Medical College specimen, which skull 

 differs from the Sittang skull in a few but what appear to me unimportant details, 

 such as the much narrower character of the portion of the squamosal which enters 

 into the formation of the temporal fossa, and in the less concave character of the 

 upper part of the parietals in the same fossa. This Sondip skull has the narrow 

 squamosal suture of the Medical College skull, but the concave parietal of the 

 Sittang Whale. In other respects, it agrees with both those skulls, but as the maxil- 

 laries are not present in it, and as the skull of B. schlegeli is chiefly distinguished 

 from those two skulls by the characters presented by these bones, it is possible, in 

 view of tlie differences to be noted in the other bones of this young animal, that it 

 may be specifically distinct from them and B. schlegeli, and therefore probably a 

 hitherto-unknown Cetacean species. My greatest difficulty in reconciling this young 

 Whale with Balcenoptera edeni lies in the characters presented by the lumbar verte- 

 bra, which appears to be the equivalent of the eighth lumbar of that Whale. This 

 vertebra, as I have said, is in a very young stage ; the epiphyses of the body are gone, 

 and those of the spinous and' transverse processes have evidently been cartilaginous, 



^ J. Wood-Mason : Proc. As. Soc, Bengal, 1874, Nov., p. 201. 



