38 



BRITISH FOSSIL CETACEA 



The confluence or otherwise of borders in contact, even if known with certainty to be 

 unaffected by the age of the individual, is not admissible as a generic character. Vte. Du Bus 

 exeinphfies his nominal genus exclusively by fossil rostrums. In some of the Ziphii 

 associated under this head the vomer appears on the palate {Aporoius recurviros(ris), in 

 others not {/Ip. affinis). 



ZiPHioRHYNCHUS. — Ziphiorijnckus, Burmeister,^ founded on a I&iw^q Ziphius stranded 

 on the shore at Buenos Ayres, with a rostrum resembling in premaxillary and prefrontal 

 modifications that of Zip/iius Gervaisii, rests on the minute and concealed germs of 

 teeth^ for its generic distinction. One (terminal) pair of mandibular teeth are more 

 developed, but only in the degree characteristic of the female sex. Burmeister has 

 recorded valuable anatomical observations on this Ziphius ; it accords with Zipltius 

 {Delphi>io7-i/nchm) micropterui in the small size and position of the dorsal and pectoral 

 fins, the dorsal being rather further back in Ziphius patachonicus than in Z. niicropferus. 

 The caudal fin is widely emarginate in both. 



Belemnoziphius. — Professor Huxley contributes his mite to this array of names by 

 proposing the genus Bdemnoziphius for those species in which " the vomer occupies fully 

 a third of the width of the upper face of the rostrum," the extremity of which " is entire, 

 not bifid, but sharply pointed, almost like the end of the guard of a Belemnite, the vomer 

 and premaxillae seeming to coalesce into one solid terminal cone."* Unless the prefrontal 

 has been mistaken for the vomer, I have not seen any specimen of Ziphius or Ziphioid 

 Cetacean presenting these characters, and can only remark that they appear to exemplify 

 rather a phase of anatomical knowledge of the individual than a power of recognising 

 a genus. 



A few words may be permitted, in conclusion, in reference to the first-described 

 specimens on which our earliest knowledge of Cetacean remains in the Red Crag deposits 

 was founded. 



Dr. Bowerbank or Mr. Charlesworth would be able to say how long, and through how 

 many hands, the fossil (fig. 226, p. 536, 'British Fossil Mammals,' 1S46) in Mr. John 

 Brown's (F.G.S., of Stanway) Collection, now in the British Museum, Register No. 

 27,862, had been passing, without any clue having been caught as to its nature, before the 

 amorphous unicum came, in 1840, into mine, with permission from the possessor to 

 slice and aj)ply to it the microscopic test. If the palaeontologist cares to turn to the 



1 ' Annals and Maj^. of Nat. Hist.,' 1866, pp. 94 aud 303. 



" ' Anales del Museo Publico de Buenos Ayres,' entrega quinta, 4to, 1868, pi. xix, fig. 4 ; pi. 

 fig. 6. 



3 " Memoires sur le Delphinorhx nquc microptere eclioue a Ostende," par B. C. Dumortier (' Memoires 

 de I'Acadcmie Royale de Bruxelles,' torn, xii, 1839). 



* " Proceedings of the Geological Society," May 25 tb, 1864 (' Quarterly Journal of the Society,' vol. xx, 

 p. 392). 



