326 ziPHnuiE. 



inches. 



Length of the skull 28 



Length of the nose 14 



Length of the teeth 8? imperfect, worn at the end. 



Width of nose at the bridge . . 10 

 Width of nose at the notch . . y^ 



Width of skuU at orbits 17 



The back of the skull is higher and much narrower than that 

 of G. Svineval. 



This species- does not appear to have been observed before as 

 British, and I do not find any indication of its having been descriDed 

 as an exotic species. But it is so distinct both in the form of the 

 nose of the skull, in the width of the intermaxillary bones, and more 

 especially in the thickness and convexity of the palate of the front 

 part of the skuU, from the species which have hitherto been described, 

 and the differences are so visible, that Mr. Edward Gerrard selected 

 it as a distinct species as soon as he saw it. 



It has been suggested that this may perhaps be the other sex of 

 the common Pilot Whale {Qlohioeephalus Svineval); but I can scarcely 

 think this probable, as I have seen many skulls of the latter, and 

 they have been all nearly similar and very unlike the one under con- 

 sideration; and I can scarcely believe that all I have seen could 

 have been of the same sex ; for it is a whale that comes on the coast 

 in great shoals, and hence one of its names is the " Social Whale," 

 and specimens of both sexes have been recorded as caught on the 

 British coast. At the present moment there is an inclination to 

 regard some of the whales which have been considered species as 

 mere sexes of the same species, simply because the specimen described 

 in one case happens to be a male and in the other a female. Thus 

 Debphinus mieropterus is said to be the female of Ziphius Sowerbiensis 

 for the above reason ; but I have not heard that any new specimen 

 has been discovered, or any fact elicited, to prove the truth of this 

 suggestion, and it may be only an instance of accidental coinci- 

 dence — a case the opinion formed may be disproved by the next 

 discovery of either animal. 



FamUy 8. ZIPHIID^. 



Head beaked. Blower linear, transverse, arched in the middle 

 and bent back at the ends. The upper jaw toothless ; the lower jaw 

 with a few teeth on the sides or in the front, which are sometimes 

 not exposed or soon deciduous. Body elongate. Dorsal fin falcate. 

 The pectoral fins small, low down, and rather close together in the 

 middle of the chest ; fingers 6, of four or five phalanges. 



Delphinidse, Hyperodontina, et Ziphiina, Gray, Zool. JEreb. ^ Terror, 



24; Cat Cetac. B.M. 59, 61; Proc. Zool. Soc. 1863, 201. 

 Diodonea (pars), So/in. Anal. Nat. 60, 1815. 

 Heterodontes, Ikivemoy, Ann. Sci. Nat. 1851, 23. 

 Rhynohocete, EschricM, Nord. Wallth. 21. 



