Cetacea. 1535 



me to write these lines, and which was left nearly dead by the reced- 

 ing tide on the sandy shore of Blankenbergh, on the coast of the pro- 

 vince of Occidental Flanders, on the 20th of June, 1837. 



It was purchased by M. Paret,* of Slykens, near Ostend, in whose 

 cabinet I examined the skeleton last summer. It was a female,f and 

 measured seventeen feet four inches in total length. 



Sp. 1. Baleinoptera rosteata. 



Osteology of the head. Superior mamillaries large, triangular, elon- 

 gate, acute anteriorly above ; each furnished with about 310 plates of 

 baleen which are thin and white, and have their extremities fringed, 

 the longest plates do not exceed 4 inches 6 lines in length. Near the 

 root of these plates on the exterior side, a long band of whalebone 

 runs parallel to the maxillary, after which the perpendicular plates 

 take an oblique, internal direction.]; The maxillaries are (taken se- 

 parately) sloped somewhat like a roof, and form by their inferior sub- 

 union (on the palate) a nearly similar figure. The lateral, inferior 

 blade of the maxillaries advances as far as the crest, which forms the 

 anterior limit of the roof of the orbits. 



The vomer is seen in the whole length of the inferior canal, situated 

 between the maxillaries, and has the aspect of a slender, rounded 

 rod. 



The intermaxillaries are very much lengthened, compressed ante- 

 riorly, and leave an empty cavity in continuation of the blow-holes. 



The nasal bones are shaped like two thick, approximating, oval- 

 oblong tubercles. 



The frontal bone is covered by the superior maxillary on its ante- 

 rior portions, which forms apophyses which inosculate in correspond- 

 ing cavities of the posterior surfaces of the maxillaries ; these last, 



* This is a remarkable man, who being a Flemish tavern-keeper in the little village 

 of Slykens, and quite illiterate, has from his infancy upwards, had a love for collecting 

 objects of Natural History and other curiosities ; by dint of constant exertions, he has 

 got together many interesting things. He possesses several skeletons of Cetacea, in- 

 cluding Delphinorhynchus micropterus, the Grampus, &c. ; and it was he who, in 

 1827, prepared the great skeleton of a Rorqual, which was shown all over Europe. No 

 British naturalist, coming on the continent by way of Ostend, ought to miss paying a 

 visit to this person, who is always much flattered when strangers come to see him. 



f Why are nearly all stranded Cetacea of the female sex ? 



% See Hunter, Bonaterre, &c. 



