TYPE OF THE FOSSIL CETACEAN AGOEOPHIUS PYGMJ5US 5 



has not been seen by any zoologist since Leidy examined it in 1869. Leidy's 

 statement at that date^ was as follows : " Professor Holmes, to whom the speci- 

 men now belongs, has recently submitted it to my examination." The Holmes 

 collection was purchased by the American Museum of Natural History in 1873, 

 and one would naturally expect to find the skull oi AgoropMus in that institution,' 

 but on writing to Dr. H. C. Bumpus, director, I was disappointed to learn that 

 it could not be found. Thinking that Leidy might have deposited it in the 

 PhiHdelphia Academy, I wrote to Prof. J. Percy Moore regarding it, but was 

 informed that it was not in the museum of that institution. 



A comparison of Leidy's figures with those in the plate now published 

 shows, first, that some fragments of the skull had been lost between 1850 and 

 1869, and, second, that the single tooth originally remaining in the skull had 

 also disappeared. The principal pieces of the skull lost were a fragment from 

 the proximal end of the right maxilla and a fragment from the distal end of the 

 post-orbital process of the left frontal. In Leidy's side view of the skull the 

 left premaxilla was transposed to the right side. He did not figure the left side 

 of the skull. 



The single tooth, already mentioned, which is so well shown in figs. 2, 4. 5, 

 and 6 of the plate published herewith, is not shown at all in Leidy's figures, and 

 that author remarked that it had been lost. 



The original figures of the upper surface and right side, published by 

 Tuomey in 1847,- are crude but apparently fairly accurate. The maxillge as 

 there shown are complete proximally, indicating that portions of the skull at 

 this point were lost at some subsequent date. The form of the single tooth is 

 substantially that of the later and more carefully drawn figures. Tuomey states 

 that a portion of the left upper maxilla containing one tooth was found by F. S. 

 Holmes in the Eocene beds of Ashley River, about 10 miles from Charleston, 

 and that Prof. Lewis R. Gribbes afterward visited the same spot and found the 

 remainder of the skull. He gives the following dimensions : Length (incomplete), 

 14J in.; greatest breadth, 7i in.; height, 5i in.; length of enameled portion of 

 tooth, I in. 



In the preceding paragraphs I have mentioned briefly some of the views 

 that have been expressed by zoologists regarding the relationships oi Agorophius. 

 It may be desirable to consider this subject a little more in detail. As regards 

 the opinion that AgoropMus is a near ally or possibly a direct ancestor of the 

 rorquals, it appears to me that there is little probability of its correctness. 



1 Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., (2), 7, 1869, p. 421. 



'Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 3, 1847, pp. 151-153. Also in Amer. Jour, of Sci., (2), 4, 1847, pp. 283-5, 

 with copies of the original figures. 



