FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. 
103 
honour of havina: recognized the remains of these great aninials is carried 
back to a learned physician of Antwerp in the seventeenth century, Goro- 
piu3 Becanus.* 
" At the end of the last century, the Baron von Hupsch wrote upon this 
subject a very curious work.f But it is, above all, to Cuvier we owe the 
most remarkable work on the fossil bones of Antwerp. The great natu- 
ralist of the Museum had received at Paris many which had been exhumed 
at the time of the excavation of the Basin of Commerce, in the reign of 
the First Napoleon. J 
" Some years ago fossil bones of cetaceans were found in great numbers 
in other localities, — the Crag Sea seemingly having had a much more con- 
siderable extension than had been previously thought. In Holland, in the 
province of Gueldres, bones have been found exactly as at Antwerp ; and 
moreover a portion of a cranium, which recently came from the Baltic,§ 
appears to have belonged to an animal that had a great analogy to our 
JPlesiocetes. Similar bones have also been dug up in Eussia, and described 
under the name of Cctotherium.\\ 
" A phenomenon of another kind, but equally worthy of remark, is a 
skeleton of a baleinoptera found in England, in the diluvium, at twenty- 
eight feet above the present high-water ; and another discovered in Nor- 
way, near Fredericstadt, at 250 feet above the present level of the seas,** 
" In spite of these inherent difficulties in the study of the fossil remains 
of cetacpa, we have succeeded, however, in determining the greatest num- 
ber. "We have attained to reconstituting some of them tolerably com- 
pletely. 
" In the first place, then, we have found out that the great species of 
baleinides, or cetaceans with whalebones, had then many representatives. 
Some weeks since, an entire head of one of these great animals was ex- 
posed, but, unfortunately for science, it could not be preserved. We 
possess in great number the vertebrse of these whales from all parts of the 
body ; fragments of ribs and of limbs — comprising the shoulder-blade ; 
many portions of the cranium ; the inferior maxillaries, nearly perfect ; 
and, above all, the tympanic bones. 
" But the family which is most richly represented in that ancient sea was 
the Ziphioides. We see them of all sizes. Of these we have, first, an 
animal near to the cachalots of the present day, and of dimensions equally 
gigantic. Another oflers all the characters of the existing Hyperoodon ; 
then we find numerous teeth singularly constituted, which we attribute to 
Ziphioides allied to Dioplodon and Mesoplodon. Lastly, some truly dAvarf 
species complete this curious family, and certainly these did not exceed in 
size the smallest dolphins of the present creation. 
" The Cetodonts, or the cetacea with teeth, had also many other repre- 
sentatives, approaching most nearly to the long-nosed species of the tropi- 
cal regions. Two fine heads have been discovered at Tieux-Dieu, the per- 
fect preservation of which is due to the intelligent and active care of the 
* Goropius Becauus, ' Orig. Antwerp.' 
t * Beschreibuiig eiuiger neu entdeckten Versteiuten.' 
X Cuvier, ' Ossements Fossiles,' t. v., premiere partie, p. 352 (4to edit.)- 
§ Hensche and Hagen, ' Ueber einea auf der kurischea Nehrung bei Niddeu gefundenea 
Knochen,' Schrift. der Phys. CEcon. Gesells. in Konigsbcrg, Jahr i., Heft ii. He gives a 
list of the cetaceans stranded in the Baltic, and notices several fossil cetaceans. 
II Eichwald, 'Die Urwelt Rusfelaud's/ St. Petersburg, 1840, livr. Ire, p. 25 ; Brandt, 
Institut, 1843, No. 205 et No. 449. Nordmann, ' Palaoutologie Sued-llusslauds.' Thq 
last is in course of publication. 
** * Stadstrath Hensche,' loc. cit. page 7, 
