4S8 On the Great Rorqual of the Indian Ocean. [No. 5. 



diameter, and lateral processes 12 in. long and 8^ in. broad. Last- 

 ly, a caudal (?) vertebra,* about the 4th ; the body (posteriorly) 15 

 by 17 7} in. broad. 



Iu As. Res. XV, App., p. xxxiv, " a large jaw-bone of a 

 Whale" is recorded as having been presented by Mr. J. Kyd 

 (1822-5). It was only the basal portion of one, and is now much 

 injured by long exposure to the weather out-of-doors 5 but it ap- 

 pears to have belonged to a rather smaller individual of the same 

 species, which I think we may safely venture on designating Ba- 



L^NOPTEEA IKDICA. 



In As. Res. XVII, 624, and 01. Se. II, 71, " the vertebra and 

 cranium of a Whale" are recorded as having been presented by Gr. 

 Swinton, Esq. (1830). These also are now much damaged and most- 

 ly valueless, from long exposure to all weathers,— the result of want 

 of accommodation for such bulky specimens in our excessively over- 

 crowded museum building. The length of this Whale was about 30 ft., 

 of which the head was about a fourth. Probably the young of Bal^- 

 nopteea indica, rather than another and smaller species. A fine 

 skull of the same, with rami of the lower jaw measuring; 10 ft., 

 was obtained by the late Professor H. Walker from a friend in 

 Arakan, and is now in the museum of the Calcutta Medical College. 

 It is most probably from the Bay of Bengal .f 



There are other remains of Bal^nidje in our museum, the origin 

 of which I have been unable to trace, — at least when and by whom 

 presented : but they were in the collection prior to my taking 

 charge of it iu 1841. Portions of one skeleton appear to be refer- 

 able to BALiENA austealis, Desmoulius (le Grand Balein du Cap, 

 Cuvier), or ordinary southern ' Right Whale.' These consist of 

 three vertebra?, a patr of humeri, and a pair of scapula?. One hume- 

 rus and one scapula have now been injured by long exposure out of 

 doors ; but the others are in tolerably good preservation, and well 

 agree with Cuvier's figures in the Ossemens Fossiles ; the acromion 



* I mean one of the series with inferior * V-bones' attached j not one of the 

 small caudal that support the tail-flukes. 



t in the Society's 30 ft. specimen, the bases of the lower jaw are mutilated, 

 onty the shafts remaining ; but in the Medical College skull the coronoid, &c, 

 of the lower jaw accord with those of our 2i It jaw. 



