336 Transactions, — Zoology. 



the comparison of the skulls described in my former paper, one of wliicli is 

 now in the British Museum and the other in the Colonial Museum, with the 

 type from the Cape of Good Hope in the Paris Museum, which i^s described 

 and partly figured by Van Beneden and Gervais, I feel no hesitation in 

 identifying the New Zealand humpback with that from the Cape. 



4. Physalxjs axjstralis. 



Physalus australis, Desmoulins ; Diet. Class. H.N., II., 166. 



Balcsnoptera australis, Gray; Zool. Er. and Terr., pi. 51. 



Sibbaldius antarcticus, Gray ; Cat. S. and W., 381. 



Balcenoptera antarctica, v. Beneden and Gervais, Ostgog., 234. 



? FJiysalus grayi, McCoy ; Zool. and Palteont. of Victoria, p. 4. 



? Sibbaldius sulplmreus, Cope ; Proc. Phil. Acad., 1869, 20. 



Stenobalcena xanthogaster, Gray ; Ann. and Mag. N.H., 1874, 805. 



Physalus australis, Hector ; Trans. N.Z. Inst., V., 157, VII., 257. 

 The complete skeleton, seventy feet in length, of the great southern rorqual 

 described in my former paper''' has now been mounted in the Colonial 

 Museum, and there are no osteological characters by which it can be 

 distinguished from the great northern rorqual (Physalus antiquoruni, Gray, 

 or Balcdnoptera musculus, Van Beneden and Gervais) of which I have 

 examined skeletons in the museums at London, Edinburgh, and Turin. 



In its external characters, and especially in having a small dorsal lobe 

 situated far back, instead of the high erect fin so characteristic of the 

 northern Physalus, it resembles the broad-nosed fin-whale (Physalus sihbaldii) 

 figured by Turner, f but the short pectoral limbs, the form of the skull, 

 and the number of vertebrae, 64,:[. its fifteen ribs and great size readily dis- 

 tinguish it from the genus Sibbaldius of the rorquals, which have 56 

 vertebrse and fourteen ribs and expanded maxillaries. 



As there is no other complete skeleton of the southern rorqual yet 

 described, and the various species above quoted from the South Seas and 

 the Pacific Ocean have been founded on very fragmentary evidence, I think 

 it better to combine them under the name by which the razorback was first 

 recognized in the south. 



The s^Decimen in the Melbourne Museum, quoted from Professor McCoy, 

 appears to be the same, but it is not yet fully described, the chief point of 

 difference noted being that it has 16 and not 15 ribs, which is the number 

 in other skeletons of the species. 



Sibbaldius suljjhureus, Cojpe, is only named from descrijptions and draw- 

 ings, and I have suggested it as probably the same as the southern species, 

 on account of the resemblance of a skeleton which I obtained in San 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., 1875, VII., 257. t Trans. E. Soc. Ed., XXVI., 197. 



\ By an oversight the number of vertebrje was formerly given as 57, the seven 

 Gervicals not having been included. " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," VII., 259. 



