762 PROFESSOR TURNER ON ZIPHIUS CAVIROSTRIS 



of the head, so that although I judged it to be a member of the Ziphioid group of 

 whales, yet I was unable to submit it to a sufficiently close examination to deter- 

 mine the species, until after it had been for some months in the macerating trough. 

 When the bones were cleaned I had no difficulty in deciding that it resembled 

 the Ziphius cavirostris of Cuvier. As the Shetland specimen is the first 

 example of this rare cetacean which has been met with in the British seas, I 

 have the satisfaction of adding this animal to the list of British mammals. 



From the size of the skull and the condition of many of the sutures, it was 

 obviously that of an adult, if not an aged animal ; and as it had not been injured, 

 and the lower jaw was preserved, I am enabled to describe and figure a perfect 

 specimen of this part of the skeleton. 



The general outline of the skull was triangular, with curved sides, the base at 

 the occiput, and the apex at the tip of the beak. The summit of the skull was 

 formed by the two nasal bones, the frontal and the upper borders of the two 

 pre-maxillse. Its greatest length measured in a straight line was 35^ inches; its 

 greatest breadth between the post-orbital processes of the frontal, 21^ inches ; 

 its greatest height, 18£ inches. 



When regarded from the dorsal surface, the skull was seen to slope rapidly 

 downwards and backwards, from the summit to the foramen magnum and 

 occipital condyles. The slope forwards to the tip of the beak was much more 

 prolonged, so that a far larger proportion of the antero-posterior diameter of 

 the skull was in front of the summit than behind. The beak was triangular 

 in form. Its breadth, on a line with the superior maxillary foramina, was 12 

 inches; its length from that line to the tip was 19| inches, and its breadth at 

 the tip 1^ inch. 



The tip of the beak was formed by the two pre-maxillaries and the meso- 

 rostral bone. The pre-maxillse varied much in shape and size in different parts 

 of their extent. Near the tip they were elongated and almost straight, but 

 about 6 inches from the tip their upper borders curved inwards, so as partially to 

 overlap the meso-rostral bone. Here also they diverged from each other and 

 became more expanded ; and as they were traced backwards, this divergence and 

 expansion became more strongly marked. At their hinder ends they mounted 

 upwards to assist in the formation of the summit of the skull. Those parts of 

 the pre-maxilke which lay behind the meso-rostral bone formed the sides and 

 a portion of the posterior boundary of the great pre-nasal cavity at the base of the 

 beak, from the presence of which the specific name of cavirostris was applied by 

 Cuvier. The upper borders of these bones, which in the rostrum were curved 

 inwards, and separated by an interval of about 2 inches, at the sides of the pre- 

 nasal fossa were so far everted as to be 8^ inches asunder, a measurement 

 which expresses the transverse diameter of the fossa. The two bones in the pre- 

 nasal region were far from symmetrical. The right was much more expanded 



