52 CETACEA. 



' The marking at each side from behind the lip, extending under the chin in 

 the direction of the belly, is fourteen inches in length ; in breadth it is two 

 inches anteriorly and nine inches posteriorly.* Colour, when quite recent, of a 

 blackish lead hue, and the skin, which was exquisitely thin, beautifully polished 

 like patent leather, and more especially so on the tail and caudal fin : it was 

 merely of a lighter shade beneath, and not'white. No teeth visible.' 



Although no teeth could be seen when the animal was entire, the re- 

 moval of the fleshy portion of the lower jaw exposed four of them toAvards 

 its extremity. They are loose in their sockets, and so deeply sunk in the 

 groove as not to be apparent above the bone when the jaw is viewed in 

 profile. Though loose, the two front teeth may be stated as 7h lines from 

 the extremity of the jaAv, and the hinder pair as 9 lines distant from them. 

 So much has already been written on the teeth of this species that I shall 

 content myself with merely calling attention to the very small size of the 

 anterior pair in the present individual, a male upwards of twenty-three 

 feet in length, compared with those represented in Owen's Odontography, 

 pi. 88, fig. 1, although the Jlyperoodon to which the latter belonged is 

 said to have been immature, p. 347. The stomach of the Irish specimen 

 was quite empty. It was believed that this animal, which was in the 

 highest condition, would have been about five tons in weight ; it produced 

 above ninety gallons of oil : the entire skeleton has been preserved for the 

 Belfast Museum. 



Baussard's figure of the Hypemodon (as repeated in F. Cuvier's Hist. 

 Nat. Cetaces, pi. 17, fig. 1) would with some corrections represent this 

 specimen ; but it has seemed to me desirable to have an outline of it en- 

 graved from the drawing already alluded to, zoolor/icaUy corrected by 

 myself (pi. 4, fig. 2). The difference between Baussard's and the Irish 

 specimen will be seen to consist in the latter being less elongate; in its 

 dorsal fin being smaller and placed considerably further back ; in its eye 

 being round instead of oval, like the human eye, and in its being deficient 

 in the ornament of eyebrows ; also, in the spiracle being placed in the same 

 vertical plane with the eye. 



In my paper before alluded to (p. 379) a simultaneous movement or 

 migration of Hyperoodons to the Irish Sea is recorded to have taken place 

 in the autumn of 1839, not more than two hoAvever appearing in company. 

 In connexioiT with this fact, I have on the present occasion only to notice 

 the autumnal appearance of the species in another year, and the occun-ence 

 of these individuals on the same day, though in localities widely separated, 

 the one being taken in Belfast Bay and the other in the Firth of Forth. 

 Just as I reached Edinburgh on the 31st of October, and was conversing 

 with Dr. P. Neill — who had likewise borne his part in describing British 

 "Whales — the body of a Hi/perooduu to our astonishment appeared in view, 

 and, as we learned, was about to be taken to the Zoological Garden, and 

 exposed to the atmosphere during winter. The blubber and soft parts had 

 previously been removed, the latter having been anatomically examined 

 by Mr. John Goodsir, and " preparations " of them made for the University 

 Museum, where the skeleton itself will eventually be placed. This is said 

 to be the first knowp occurrence of the species on the eastern coast of 



* These are evidently the same as the " two diverging furrows," described as 

 "under the throat," in the Physeter hidens of Sowerby ; they were said in the 

 Irish specimen under consideration to have resembled the healed-up deep wounds 

 in the stem of a large tree. 



