115 



The lessened demand for these still important articles has consequently 

 materially decreased the number of ships engaged in the trade ; and, in 

 combination with the diminution of the species, has rendered the returns 

 too precarious for the profitable investment of capital. 



I will now briefly notice that portions of the fossil organic remains 

 of the Cachalot have frequently been found, greatly resembling in 

 structure the existing animal. 



Professor Owen describes some of these fossil bones, which were 

 obtained from the coast of Essex, England ; M. Q-ervais has named the 

 animal whose relics were discovered at Montpelier, France, in the most 

 modern of the tertiary deposits, the Phys. antiquus ; and M. Jaeger 

 mentions, under the name of Phys. molassicus, another species found 

 in Germany. 



Genus Baljsnodon,' Owen. 



Fragmentary relics disinterred from the red crags of the Meiocene 

 period at Felixstowe, England, exhibited teeth very similar to those of 

 the Sperm Whale, upon which character the present genus was founded. 

 M. Meyer has since discovered a skull at Lintry, in Austria, which he 

 places under the Balseuodon of Owen, although he thinks that in many 

 particulars, other than the teeth, it approaches nearer to the Zeuglodon 

 than to the Cachalot. 



Balsenodon physaloides of Owen, and Balseuodon lentianus of Meyer, 

 are the two species alluded to. 



Family XII. MESOPLODONTIP^. 



Dorsal fin small, subfalcate ; head beaked ; forehead receding ; throat 

 longitudinally plaited (?) ; pectoral fins small, low down towards the 

 middle of the chest; skull small, narrow, upper part asymmetrical; 

 frontal portion high ; occipital scarcely rounded, flattish ; anterior surface 

 of the premaxillee curves forwards over the breathing apertures ; beak 

 much elongated, tapering, narrow ; maxillary bones simple, expanding 

 horizontally over the orbits, without tuberosities at the base ; inter- 

 maxillaries somewhat swollen behind, not forming a basin round the 

 nostrils ; upper jaw shorter and narrower than the lower one, so that 

 when the mouth is closed the upper beak is let within the teeth of the 

 lower one, departing, in this particular, widely from other toothed 

 whales ; lower jaw broad behind, narrowed in front ; mandibular 

 symphysis moderate, short ; cervical vertebrae partially anchylosed ; 

 costo-sternal ribs cartilaginous ; teeth, at the most, two pair, com- 

 pressed, in lower jaw only, occasionally largely developed. 



' <t>d\aiya, balcena, whale, and oSovs, tootb. 



