100 Transactions. — Zoology. 



are soldered together, and have all the peculiar characteristics of tlie Australian 

 species, whilst it has only 12 dorsal (instead of 14), 11 lumbar (instead of 9), 

 and 20 caudals with 8 chevron bones attached (instead of 21). 



The Australian species has 14 ribs, whilst the New Zealand species has 

 only 12, of which the first one is broad and flat, and has, like the 2nd, 3rd, 

 4th, 5th, and 6th, two articulating surfaces; whilst, according to MacLeay, the 

 Australian species has only one articulating surface on the first rib. The 

 second rib still exhibits a considerable breadth, whilst the succeeding ones 

 become gradually nai'rower. The last six ribs, which assume a rounded shape, 

 possess only one articulating surface. 



Thus, even supposing that the minor difierences in the form of the skull 

 might, perhaps, be due to sex, the number, arrangement, and the form of the 

 vertebrte and ribs alone would prove the distinct specific character of the New 

 Zealand specimen, for which, therefore, I wish to propose the specific name of 

 Euphysetes pottsii, in honour of T. H. Potts, Esq., F.L.S., by whom the specimen 

 was secured to science. 



The contents of the stomach consisted of a dark slimy matter, from which 

 no clue could be obtained as to the usual food of the species under review; but 

 we may conclude, from the absence of the horny beaks of Cephalopods, of 

 which some years ago we obtained nearly half a bushel in the stomach of 

 Berardius arnouxii, that this species does not feed on them . Moreover, the 

 position and smallness of the mouth show^s that this animal is probably a 

 ground-feeder, existing, perhaps, on the smaller hydroid Zoophytes. 



Before concluding I wish to draw once more your attention to the 

 remarkable non-symmetry of the cranium of this new whale, which, probably 

 more than any other known catodont cetacean, shows this so conspicuously. 

 We are so accustomed to observe — almost invaiiably in the skeletons of the 

 vertebrates — a perfect bilateral symmetry, that any deviation from this rule is 

 generally regarded, if not as a monstrosity, at least as a deformity. It is, 

 therefore, very striking to find in a whole and imjjortant cetacean section — the 

 Denticete — the iipper surface of the skull, with very few exceptions, 

 unsymmetrical, amongst which the family of the Catodontidce is the most 

 conspicuous. This family, amongst other characteristics, is distinguished by 

 the nostrils being enormoiisly disjiroportionate in size, the left one being the 

 lai'gest ; at the same time the nasal bones, as those of the face, ax'e generally 

 unsymmetrical and distorted. Of them the genus Uitjyhysetes may be said to 

 possess this unsymmetrical distortion of the skull and the difierence in the 

 size of the nostrils in the highest degree. 



Systematic zoologists have generally hitherto had little time to do more 

 than fix the so-called generic and specific characters, without being able to 

 examine into the causes why certain animals exhibit such peculiar forms and 



