CH.XII FIRST STUDIES OF WHALES 167 



by inheritance from the founder of the Museum, John 

 Hunter, who had written on the subject, and en- 

 riched his collections with such specimens as he was 

 able at that day to collect ; possibly from a feeling that 

 the subject had been neglected and needed thorough 

 investigation; possibly also from the accidental 

 circumstance that a correspondent, Mr. W. L. 

 Crowther, of Hobart Town, Tasmania, presented in 

 successive years a series of rare skeletons to the 

 Museum. Whatever cause may have suggested 

 the study. Flower made it completely his own, as the 

 long series of papers contributed by him to the Pro- 

 ceedings and Transactions of the Zoological Society 

 amply testifies.^ Of these, that on the Osteology 

 of the Sperm Whale, which he was enabled to 

 write through the liberality of Mr. Crowther in 

 sending a skeleton to the College of Surgeons, 

 is undoubtedly among the most important, having 

 regard to the abnormal characteristics of the animal ; 

 but future zoologists will thank him for those in 

 which he describes new or little-known animals, as 

 well as those in which he introduces a more 

 intelligent classification, sweeping away, as he 

 proceeds, a large number of hastily-determined 

 species. The skeleton of the sperm whale arrived 

 from Tasmania in 1865, but it could not be exhibited 

 in the Museum until 1868. This important 

 acquisition, however, was only the first of a series. 

 In 1866 a skeleton of the Greenland right whale 



' See the complete list in Appendix III. 



