Hector. — Notes on New Zealand Whales. 257 



Their colour is either black or grey, or banded with dirty white, some of the 

 plates being almost altogether of a light tint; each plate is fringed with 

 coarse white hair. 



PHYSALUS AUSTRALIS, Gray. 

 Stenohalcena xanthog aster ^ Gray, Ann. and Mag. N. H., Oct. 1874, p. 305. 



PL XYIII. 



On the lOfch of June last a large whale, reported by the whalers to be a 

 true sulphur-bottom, was cast ashore in Port Underwood, on the south side of 

 Cook Strait, and an assistant (Mr. A. McKay) was despatched from the 

 museum to secure the skeleton and take measurements. 



The carcass was stranded on a rocky point close to deep water, and had to 

 be dragged into a fresh position before it could be handled. It was so much 

 decomposed that the skull and jaws dropped through the flesh during the 

 removal, and on this account the external measurements are not very reliable. 

 The whole of the skeleton was ultimately secured and placed out of reach of 

 the tide to sweeten, the paddles and smaller bones being carefully buried. 



The general form of the whale was slender in proportion to the height, 

 the head appearing long and pointed, and the after part produced, so that the 

 gi'eatest girth was behind the shoulders. The throat and belly were strongly 

 plaited with longitudinal bars of hard skin 2*5 inches wide, the interspaces 

 having elastic skin. 



The paddles appeared short in proportion to the general size, and there 

 was a low recurved and pointed fin on the back just over the vent, and the 

 same distance from the tip of the tail as the length of the head. 



The brain-case is one third the length of the skull j the baleen slight, 

 longer than broad, black on outside edge, shading to pure white inside the 

 mouth. Width of base, 2 feet 6 inches. 



The following measurements were obtained : — 



Total length 



„ of skeleton 



Length of head ... 

 Lower jaw 

 Occiput to last rib 



Last rib to first caudal {i.e. vertebra with chevron bone) 

 Caudal series of vertebrae ... 



Length of bones in the paddles, from the glenoid cavity . . . 

 Width across phalanges 

 Distance from anus to tip of tail (penis 3 feet in front of 



anus) 

 Tip of tail to hump 



Ft. 

 70 



In. 

 



67 



3 



19 







17 







14 







16 







18 



3 



8 



6 



1 



3 



17 







18 







