AND MESOPLODON SOWEBBYL 761 



hitherto been recorded, excepting that from Arcachon, have been obtained on 

 the shores of the Mediterranean. 



But from other parts of the world recent crania of Ziphioid whales have 

 been procured, which are closely allied to, if not specifically identical with the 

 European species. In 1863, M. Van Beneden described by the name of Ziphius 

 indicus* a perfectly adult skull, brought from the Cape of Good Hope, which 

 he thought had been obtained from an animal captured in the Indian Ocean; 

 hence the trivial name indicus by which he designated it. This skull is now 

 in the Museum of the University of Louvain. In 1865, Dr J. E. Gray 

 described by the name of Petrorhynchus capensisi the cranium of another Ziphioid 

 sent from the Cape of Good Hope by Mr E. L. Layard. An excellent descrip- 

 tion of the beak of this skull, and the region of the pre-nasal fossa, with illustra- 

 tive figures, has been given by Professor Owen,! who altogether condemns the 

 attempt made to exalt this specimen into a new genus, and ranks it along with 

 the skull described by Van Beneden as an example of Ziphius indicus. 



In August 1865, Dr Burmeister, of Buenos Ayres, obtained a young male 

 Ziphioid, 13 feet long, which had been stranded near that city. He has 

 described and beautifully figured the external form of the animal, its visceral 

 anatomy, and the skeleton. § Owing to its youth, the teeth were still imbedded 

 in the gum, and not only were two large teeth observed at the point of the 

 lower jaw, but from thirty to thirty-two small teeth were counted in the gum 

 on the mandible, and twenty-five on each side in the gum of the upper jaw. 

 Burmeister provisionally named the animal Delphinorrhynchus australis, and 

 shortly afterwards proposed to call it Ziphiorrkynchus cryptodon. Subsequently 

 he adopted Dr Gray's generic name Epiodon, and, after suggesting as specific 

 names successively cryptodon and patachonicum, finally decided on Epiodon 

 australe. 



Description of the Shetland Ziphius. — In the autumn of 1870, I purchased 

 through one of my pupils, Mr M. Coughtrey, from Mr John Anderson of Hills- 

 wick, Shetland, a number of cetacean bones, chiefly those of a large Rorqual 

 {Balcenoptera Sibbaldii), which had been stranded in October 1869, in Hamna 

 Voe, on the north-west coast of the main Island. Along with the Rorqual 

 Mr Anderson sent the skull of a smaller whale, which he informs me was cap- 

 tured in 1870 off Hamna Voe, out at sea, and towed to the shore. When this 

 skull came into my possession it was invested by the dried and hardened textures 



* Mern. Couronnes de l'Acad. Boyale de Belgique, 6th June 1863. Collection in octavo, vol. xvi. 

 1864. Plate i. 



t Proc. Zool. Soc. 1865, and Catalogue of Seals and "Whales, 1866. 



% British Fossil Cetacea of the Bed Crag, in the Memoirs of the Palseontographical Society, vol. 

 xxiii. 1870. 



§ Annals of Natural History, 1866, vol. xvii. pp. 94, 303, plates iii., vi. ; also in Anales de 

 Museo Publico de Buenos Aires, Tomo i. 1868. PI. xv.-xx. 



