October 21, 1870.] 103 [Cope. 
ON MEGAPTERA BELLICOSA. 
By E. D. Copz,.A M. 
(Read October 21, 1870, before the American Philosophical Society.) 
For many years American Whalers have been in the habit of taking 
hump-back whales off the coast of San Domingo, and in other parts of 
the Caribbean Sea. Desiring to determine the species which is the 
object of their pursuit, and which, no doubt, haunts the Floridan and 
Fig. 21. Fig. 26. 
other southern coasts of the United States, I wrote to my friend, Dr. A. 
Gos, colonial physician at St. Bartholomew’s, W. J., in reference to the 
- possibility of procuring a skeleton of it. His efforts, undertaken in pur- 
suance of this object, resulted in the preservation of the skeleton of an 
individual of thirty-two feet in length, which he forwarded to Philadel- 
phia, and which has furnished the following characteristics. 
