ADDITIONS AND COEEBCTIONS. 371 



Caperea antipodaruin (page 101). 



There is a nearly complete but not articulated skeleton, of a whale 

 taken on the coast of New Zealand, in the, court of the Museum of 

 Comparative Anatomy at Paris, which M. Serres has named Baloena 

 austrahs ; but Professor Lilljeborg observes that " it is an entirely dif- 

 ferent species, and without doubt the Euhalcena antipodarum of Gray. 

 The bladebone is of a very distinctive form, and has the rudiment of 

 an acromion. The ear-bones are lost."- The bladebone, according to 

 the drawing that M. Lilljeborg sent to me, " is triangular, as wide at 

 the upper end as the length of the bone, and the rudimentary acro- 

 mion is a small protuberance about one-third from the upper edge." 

 — Letter from Professor Lilljeborg, 1865. 



The beautiful preserved skeleton, with all its whalebone, in the 

 Paris Museum, which was prepared by a Captain of the French Navy 

 on the coast of New Zealand, greatly resembles the skeleton of the 

 Cape whale described by Cuvier as B. australis. It has the smaller 

 head, square nasal bones, and simple (not forked) first rib of that 

 animal. In the latter respect it differs entirely from the skeleton of 

 B. australis in the Leyden Museum. — W. Flower's Notes, Oct. 1865. 



MACLEAYIUS (pages 78 and 103). 



It appears from further information and additional photographs 

 that I have received from Mr. Krefft, that I misunderstood his letter 

 and the photograph ; and the section that I have formed in the family 

 Balcenidce for a genus with a separate atlas, and the observations I 

 have made on it, are all a mistake : the atlas bone is entirely 

 soldered to the rest of the mass, as in other Balcenidce. This is to 

 be regretted ; but still the form of the atlas is so distitict from that of 

 any other known genus of Balcenidce, that I believe the Australian 

 Eight Whale wiU be a distinct genus, to which the name Macleayitts 

 may be properly applied, and it is no doubt a true Balcenida. 



Mr. Krefft has sent the two following figures (p. 372) to further 

 illustrate the mass of cervical vertebrae to which the name Macleayius 

 ■ Australiensis has been attached. 



The additional photographs confirm the opinion that the cervical 

 vertebrae are allied to those of the family iaZcemc^tE — so much so that, 

 if Mr. EJrefft had not sent it to me figured with separate atlas placed 

 in front, I should have believed that the mass was the atlas and 

 cervical vertebrae of a Balcenida agglutinated in a single body, as is 

 usual in that family. 



This similarity did not strike me so forcibly until I saw these 

 additional views, especially the one that shows the hinder part of 

 the lateral processes of the anterior cervical vertebra of the mass, 

 fig. 74. 



In describing frofa drawings and photographs, one labours under 



considerable difficulties; yet such is the extraordinaiy absence of 



knowledge on the subject of the larger whales, that it is better they 



should be noticed and figured until more complete skeletons can be 



obtained. 



2b2 



