Haast. — On Eupliysetes pottsii. 97 



the same species under three different names (see Trans. Zool. Soc, VI., 1869, 

 p. 127), and who mixes up together, under one name, the skulls of two such 

 large and distinct animals, as a one-horned and two-horned rhinoceros, under a 

 single name, as a double-horned one. (See P.Z.S., 1S67, p. 1015.) I need 

 not, but could, refer to many more instances of the same kind. I am in the 

 habit of estimating from what is written about what I know, the reliance I 

 may place upon what is written of what I do not know, and have thus lost 

 my confidence in this author's writings on zoological questions. He may be 

 an admirable comparative anatomist, and I am told that since he has had the 

 well-determined skeletons of the Zoological Department in the British Museum 

 so easy of access, he does not make the mistakes that he formerly did, and his 

 observations on the recent Ziphioid "Whales are all made on skulls which 

 I had previously determined and named. 



It is an old complaint that persons will write about what they have a 

 limited knowledge of Thus the comparative anatomists are always giving 

 their opinions on the limits and definitions of genera and names that ought to 

 be used — subjects not much in their way, and on which they have very crude 

 ideas. What would they say if a zoologist interfered with their anatomical 

 details, their confused nomenclature of bones, and their much controverted 

 homologies 1 But it is the more remarkable when we consider how very few 

 animals have been dissected, and how imperfectly those that have been dissected 

 have been described, as is proved by their own papers (see for instance Mr. 

 Clarke's late paper on the hippopotamus, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1872, p. 185), that 

 an anatomist should leave his subject and diverge to write upon the synonyma 

 of species and the priority of names, all of which is mere compilation on his 

 part. 



Art. XIX. — On the Occurrence of a New Species of Euphysetes (E, pottsii), 



a remarkably small Catodont Whale, on the Coast of New Zealand. 



By Julius Haast, Ph.D., F.R.S., Director of the Canterbury Museum. 



Plate XV. 

 [Read before the PldlosopMcal Institute of Canterbury, 6th August, 1873.] 

 Amongst the specimens lately added to the collections in the Canterbury 

 Museum, either new to science, or at least to New Zealand, none is more 

 interesting than that of a remarkably small catodont whale, allied to 

 Euphysetes grayii, which was stranded amongst the rocks in Governor Bay, 

 near Ohinitahi, the residence of T. H. Potts, Esq., F.L.S., by whom it was 

 secured and presented to the Canterbury Museum. 



As far as I am aware only another species of the genus Euphysetes exists, 



N 



