470 
ON THE BEAKED OR BOTTLE-NOSE WHALE 
{HYPEROODON ROSTRATUS). 
By Thomas Southwell, F.Z.S. 
Read igth Dec., 1882. 
Of late years tlie remarkable group of Cetaceans known as the 
Ziphioid Whales has received the special attention of Cetologists, 
and the result has been a very great advance in the knowledge of 
their frequency and distiibution, and, to some extent, of their 
habits also. A few years ago, with the exception of one species, 
Hyperoodon rostratus, literally nothing was known of them 
further than that, at irregular intervals, and in localities far distant 
from each other, some member of this ancient family from time to 
time threw itself upon the shore, and it was believed that, like the 
marsupials of the Australian continent, the existing Ziphioids (so 
abundantly represented in our seas during the formation of the Crag 
deposits) were the survivors of a race now rapidly passing away ; 
this, however, has not proved to be the case to the extent formerly 
believed ; but it is a curious coincidence that, as the continent of 
Australia forms in the present day the last home of the marsupials, 
so, both in species and individuals (with the one exceiDtion already 
named), the Australian seas form the head-(piarters of these ancient 
cetaceans. 
Three species of Ziphioids in as many different genera have been 
met with in the British seas, two of these being of great rarity ; the 
third, the Common Beaked or Bottle-nose Whale {llyperoodmi 
rostratus), is of frequent occurrence ; but of the life history of oven 
this species, which was known and figured by Hunter as early as 
1787, and which in summer congregates in considerable numbers 
in the North Atlantic, so little was known till quite recently, that 
the adult male was by some believed to belong to a different species 
or, even, genus, and it is to the observations made during the past 
