430 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
cartilaginous spinal column, which from its magnitude had 
evidently been a part of a large cartilaginous fish, possibly, accord- 
ing to Professor Collett, Selache maxima. 
These observations extend very materially our knowledge of the 
range of the food of the sperm whale, as, in addition to cephalopoda 
and smaller species of fish, the animal apparently at times attacks 
and devours large cartilaginous fish and seals. It is difficult to ex- 
plain the purpose which was served by the stones found in the 
stomach of one of the above specimens, hut I should state that 
some species of seals are in the habit of swallowing stones, and 
afterwards of ejecting them, a habit which has led the seal hunters 
to speak; of the stomach in which stones are found as the ballast 
bag. As the stones were present in the stomach of the same 
sperm whale in which the remains of the seal were found, it is 
possible that they had formed part of the contents of the stomach 
of the seal which the whale had eaten. 
It is interesting to note that Professor Benham, in his account 1 
of the stomach of a full grown specimen of the small species of 
cachalot Cogia (. Kogia ) breviceps , stranded near Dunedin in August 
1900, found a great quantity of cuttle beaks, lenses of eyes, the 
remains of the pens of some Loligo-like species, and some partially 
digested red membranes with horny, conical teeth-like structures 
growing from thick white patches, recalling gizzard teeth of Aplysia. 
Tymjpano-'petrous Bones of Physeter, Kogia , and other Odontoceti. 
As the tympano-petrous bones had been sent to me in good 
order, and as, through the courtesy of the Superintendent of the 
University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, S. F. Harmer, Esq., I 
had the opportunity of examining the corresponding bones in 
Kogia , the small sperm whale of the southern hemisphere, 2 it may 
he useful to give a description of these bones in Physeter and 
Kogia , and contrast them with those of other Odontoceti, 
In Physeter the tympanic bulla was 62 mm. long and 48 mm. in 
greatest breadth, though, if the ridge on the outer surface be 
1 Proc. Zool . Soc r Lond., May 21, 1901, vol. ii. 
2 Mr Harmer tells me that these bones of Kogia are from the New Zealand 
specimen, the capture of which is recorded by Professor Benham in Proc. Zool. 
Soc. Lond., May 21, 1901. 
