AND MESOPLODON SOWEKBYI. 771 



If this mode of regarding the specific unity of these specimens be correct, then 

 Ziphius cavirostris will have a geographical range equal to that possessed by 

 the spermaceti whale. 



Historical Sketch of Soiverby's Whale. — Early in the present century, Mr 

 James Sowerby figured and gave a short description* of a new species of 

 cetacean cast ashore in 1800, near Broclie House, county of Elgin, which he 

 termed Physeter bidens, or the two-toothed Cachalot. The animal was a male, 

 and the beak, with the anterior part of the cranium and the lower jaw, are 

 preserved in the Oxford University Museum. De Blainville associated the 

 name of Sowerby with this animal, and since then the specific name Soiverbyi, 

 or Soiverbiensis, has been attached to it, although with varying generic appel- 

 lations. For whilst some zoologists class it as a species of the genus Ziphius, by 

 others again the generic name of Mesoplodon, given by M. Gervais, is not un- 

 frequently accepted. In 1864 another specimen, also a male, was stranded in 

 the Bay of Brandon, on the coast of Kerry in Ireland, and the head has been 

 figured and described by Mr William Andrews.! The skull is preserved in 

 the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society. At a meeting of the Royal Irish 

 Academy, June 23, 1870, Mr Andrews mentioned that a second specimen, 

 1 7 feet in length, had been captured in the same locality, in the month of May 

 of that year.| Other animals belonging to the same species have been stranded 

 on the coasts of the continent of Europe. A female at Havre, near the mouth 

 of the Seine, in 1825, described by Cuvier as Delphinorhynchus micropterus, the 

 skull of which is in the Museum of Natural History, Paris. § Another female 

 stranded at Sallenelles, Calvados, in 1825, the skull and part of the skeleton 

 of which are preserved in the Museum at Caen.|| A young female stranded at 

 Ostend in 1835, the skeleton of which is in the Brussels Museum. IT A 

 mandible in the Museum at Christiania, found some years ago on the coast of 

 Norway."""" 



But from the seas of the southern hemisphere specimens have been pro- 

 cured which, though differing in some particulars, yet conform in many essential 

 points with the European examples. In the Museum of Natural History in 

 Paris is a skull brought from the Seychelles Islands, to which the specific name 



* British Miscellany, plate i. p. 1. London, 1806. 



t Trans. Boy. Irish Academy, Part X. 1869. 



X Nature, Aug. 11, 1870. [Professor Macalister writes me that the bones of this specimen are 

 still undergoing maceration. Dr J. E. Gray states. "Annals of Eat. Hist.," August 1872, that Mr 

 W. Andrews informs him of the receipt of a perfect male skeleton of this rare whale at the Dublin 

 Museum, being the third specimen taken on the west coast of Ireland. — Note, October 1872.] 



§ Hist. Nat. des C^tac^s. Paris, 1836 ; p. 114, plate vii. Figured also by Gervais in " Ost^o- 

 graphie des Cetaces," plate xxvi. 



|| Figured by Gervais in " Osteographie des Cetaces," plate xxvi. 



IT Dumortier. Mem. de l'Acad. Roy. de Belgique, torn. xii. 1839 ; and Van Beneden in M6m. 

 Couronnes Coll. in Oct., torn. xvi. plate iii. 1864. 



** Van Beneden in " Bulletins de l'Acad. E, de Belgique," xxii. 1866. 

 VOL. XXVI. PART IV. 9 P 



