11 
1913-14.] The Auditory Organ in the Cetacea. 
he dissected. Carte and Macalister described * the meatus in Balcenop- 
tera rostrata as lined by a pseudo-mucous membrane of modified cuticle, 
arranged in three longitudinal folds, and filled with a dark, greyish sebaceous 
substance produced in ceruminous glands, the openings of which were 
visible on the mucous membrane. The most recent account of the meatus 
and its contents has been, given by D. G. Lillie, j* He described in Baloe- 
noptera musculus the opening of the meatus, its course to the tympanum, 
where the lumen widened to 1^ inch diameter, and its relation to the mem- 
brana tympani. The meatus contained a solid plug of wax, the base or 
deep end of which was cup-like and moulded on the convex sac-like surface 
of the membrana tympani, which projected into the deep end of the 
meatus. The cup was about 1 inch deep and 1J inch in breadth. The 
plug of wax was about 5 inches long, and its outer part formed a thin 
flattened rod which lay in the inner half only of the meatus. Lillie stated 
Fig. 1. — Plug of earwax from meatus o LMegaptera longimana, slightly reduced in size. 
that the meatus appeared to be full of water, in which the wax and the 
tympanic sac were immersed. 
Mr Coughtrey’s collection contained several good specimens of plugs 
of dark, yellowish-brown earwax. 
Megaptera longimana . — A plug from each auditory meatus of a hump- 
backed whale, captured January 1913, was sent. One was complete, the 
other was not so perfect: they were 150 and 159 mm. (6 and inches) 
long respectively. The tympanic end, 22 mm. (about J inch) broad and 
10 mm. thick, was hollowed into a cup 22 mm. deep, which without doubt 
had been in close apposition with the convex sac-like tympanic membrane 
that had occupied the deep expanded part of the meatus (fig. 1). The plug 
gradually diminished in diameter, and at the opposite end it was flattened, 
only 12 mm. broad and 1 mm. thick. The surfaces of the plug were marked 
with shallow ridges and furrows which extended in its long diameter. 
A much smaller plug, 112 mm. long, was included in the collection. 
The tympanic end, not cup-like, had apparently been broken, its transverse 
diameter was 12 mm., and it rapidly narrowed to a point at the opposite 
* Trans. Roy. Soc. London , 1867. 
t Proc. Zool. Soc. London , p. 769, 1910, with figures and plate. 
