902 PRINCIPAL SIR WILLIAM TURNER ON 
higher and the mouth was deeper and wider. In comparing the measurements of the 
two species in Table I., it should be kept in mind that the skulls of the Biscay Whale 
were adult; those of mysticetus were immature—the one with the mandible was from a 
young skeleton, about 25 feet long, and therefore not quite half the length of the 
adult, whilst the other, with a skull 114 feet long and without the mandible, was from 
an older though not an adult animal, perhaps about 40 feet long.* 
In biscayensis the smaller adult skull was 12 feet 63 inches long, and its breadth in 
the fronto-orbital region was 8 feet 24 inches, the breadth being about two-thirds the 
length, whilst in the larger mysticetus the breadth, 5 feet 7 inches, was about half the 
length, 11 feet 5 inches, which doubtless is a specific difference. The occipital squama 
differed in the two species ; in biscayensis the greatest breadth of the posterior surface 
was somewhat more than the height measured from the foramen magnum, whilst in 
mysticetus the breadth was yet greater than the height. The character of the posterior 
surface of the squama was also different: in bescayensis the mesial vertical ridge, narrow 
below, expanded laterally about the upper half, but was bounded on each side by a 
broad concavity ; whilst in mysticetus the mesial ridge expanded in the upper part 
to form an almond-shaped convexity which occupied a considerable proportion of the 
squama and left room for a relatively narrow lateral concavity. In bescayensis the 
breadth of the skull in the squamoso-occipital region was less than in the fronto- 
orbital, and the post-orbital process projected beyond the anterior process of the 
squamous temporal; in mysticetus these diameters were practically the same, and 
the squamous temporal, pre- and post-orbitals, and the external apex of the superior 
maxilla were almost in the same antero-posterior vertical plane. In bascayensis the 
nasal bones were somewhat broader in relation to their length, their posterior border 
was transverse to their long axis and not indented, and the anterior nares were 
wider than in mysticetus; whilst in the latter the posterior border was pointed and 
indented, and two processes from the frontal extended forwards between the nasal 
bones for 3 inches. 
Figures of the skulls of European examples of the North Atlantic Right Whale 
had previously been given by Gasco for the Taranto specimen; by DE LA Paz GRAELLS 
for the specimen in the Cabinet of Secondary Education at San Sebastian, who also 
figured the mandible of one preserved in the Institute at Gijon in Asturias. 
The external characters of the American Right Whale from New Jersey have been 
figured by Houper, as well as the skulls of the Charleston and New York specimens ; 
True in Plates 42 to 46 figured the skulls of the New York and Charleston examples, 
also Copr’s type specimen of B. cisarctica, and the head of one caught off Cape Cod 
in April 1895. Van Benepen figured in Plates I. and II. of the Ostéographie the 
skull and skeleton of B. australis in the Paris Museum of Natural History, and in 
* 'These crania are catalogued in my Marine Mammals in the Anat. Mus. of the University, pp. 21, 22, London, 
1912. As the skeleton of the smaller mysticete was suspended in the Museum at a considerable height, difficulty 
occurred in making complete measurements, 
