of Edinburgh, Session 1881 - 82 . 445 
present in this specimen. The skeleton, unfortunately, was not pre- 
served.” * 
On the 9th November 1881, it was reported to Professor A. W. 
Malm of Goteborg, that a small whale had been found dead off 
Vanholmen, near Marstrand, Sweden. Dr. A. H. Malm went to 
see the specimen, and acquired the skeleton for the Goteborg 
Museum, f 
He reports that the animal was a male, 4500 millimetres (nearly 15 feet) 
long, and that it was a Sowerby’s whale. It was found floating by the 
fisherman in a narrow creek — dead, but fresh. The animal had been 
partially flensed before Dr. Malm saw it. The colour was dark slate, 
with greyish-white irregularly scattered spots, especially on the ventral 
aspect. The lobes of the tail measured transversely 1200 mm. The tail 
was not strongly concave posteriorly, as is figured by Dumortier in the 
Ostend specimen, but was almost transverse, with a convexity forming 
an obtuse angle, and not a mesial notch between its lateral lobes. The 
snout tapered more rapidly from the corner of the mouth. Behind the 
teeth the slit of the mouth resembled a bow turned upwards, but in 
front it was at first like a bow turned downwards, and then it was 
straight to the tip of the snout. The upper lips were drawn up so that 
the palate sank below them, and fitted into the furrow of the mandible. 
The teeth projected outside the lips when the mouth was shut. Only 
two teeth were present, one in each mandible, but an alveolar furrow 
extended for about 7 mm. behind each tooth, as if for the lodgment of a 
smaller tooth, such as was found in the Swedish specimen previously 
described by Professor A. W. Malm.J The tongue was fixed to the 
mandible, so that only the point was free. The external nares were 
semilunar, concave forwards, and formed a third of a circle. Anterior 
to the nares, the head had a fine rounded shape. The dorsal fin pointed 
backwards ; its posterior edge considerably falcated ; its length 450 mm., 
its height 200 mm. The anterior limbs were very small ; the anterior 
* Professor Reinhardt refers in his paper to two American specimens of 
Sowerby’s whale, the one taken at Dennis, Massachusetts, in 1869, the other 
at Newport, Rhode Island, in the same year. But in a letter which he has 
favoured me with, he informs me that he is now satisfied that these animals 
were not Mesoplodon bidens (Sow.) but Hyperoodon rostratus. 
+ Goteborg’s NaturhistorisJca Museum , Zool. Zoot., Afddningarna , 1882. 
Through the courtesy of Dr. A. H. Malm, I received an early copy of his 
paper, which reached me a few days after my communication was read to the 
Royal Society. To give sequence to the narrative, I have incorporated in the 
text the above analysis of Dr. Malm’s paper. I am indebted for a translation 
of Dr. Malm’s description, and of that in Professor Reinhardt’s paper, to a 
young Swedish gentleman, one of my pupils, Mr. Arwid Kellgren. 
t Hvaldjur i Sveriges Museen an 1869 
