52 
CETACEA. 
‘ The marking at each side from behind the lip, extending under the chin in 
the direction of the belly, is fourteen inches in length ; in breadth it is two 
inches anteriorly and nine inches posteriorly.* Colour, when quite recent, of a 
blackish lead hue, and the skin, which was exquisitely thin, beautifully polished 
like patent leather, and more especially so on the tail and caudal fin : it was 
merely of a lighter shade beneath, and not white. No teeth visible.’ 
Although no teeth could be seen when the animal was entire, the re- 
moval of the fleshy portion of the lower jaw exposed four of them towards 
its extremity. They are loose in their sockets, and so deeply sunk in the 
groove as not to be apparent above the bone when the jaw is viewed in 
profile. Though loose, the two front teeth may be stated as lines from 
the extremity of the jaw, and the hinder pair as 9 lines distant from them. 
So much has already been written on the teeth of this species that I shall 
content myself with merely calling attention to the very small size of the 
anterior pair in the present individual, a male upwards of twenty-three 
feet in length, compared with those represented in Owen’s Odontography, 
pi. 88, fig. 1, although the Hyperoodon to which the latter belonged is 
said to have been immature, p. 347. The stomach of the Irish specimen 
was quite empty. It was believed that this animal, which was in the 
highest condition, would have been about five tons in weight ; it produced 
above ninety gallons of oil : the entire skeleton has been preserved for the 
Belfast Museum. 
Baussard’s figure of the Hyperoodon (as repeated in F. Cuvier’s Hist. 
Nat. Cetaces, pi. 17, fig. 1) would with some corrections represent this 
specimen ; but it has seemed to me desirable to have an outline of it en- 
graved from the drawing already alluded to, zoologically corrected by 
myself (pi. 4, fig. 2). The difference between Baussard’s and the Irish 
specimen will be seen to consist in the latter being less elongate ; in its 
dorsal fin being smaller and placed considerably further back ; in its eye 
being round instead of oval, like the human eye, and in its being deficient 
in the ornament of eyebrows ; also, in the spiracle being placed in the same 
vertical plane with the eye. 
In my paper before alluded to (p. 379) a simultaneous movement or 
migration of Hyperoodons to the Irish Sea is recorded to have taken place 
in the autumn of 1839, not more than two however appearing in company. 
In connexion with this fact, I have on the present occasion only to notice 
the autumnal appearance of the species in another year, and the occurrence 
of these individuals on the same day, though in localities widely separated, 
the one being taken in Belfast Bay and the other in the Firth of Forth. 
Just as I reached Edinburgh on the 31st of October, and was conversing 
with Dr. P. Neill — who had likewise borne his part in describing British 
Whales — the body of a Hyperoodon to our astonishment appeared in view, 
and, as we learned, was about to be taken to the Zoological Garden, and 
exposed to the atmosphere during winter. The blubber and soft parts had 
previously been removed, the latter having been anatomically examined 
by Mr. John Goodsir, and “ preparations ” of them made for the University 
Museum, where the skeleton itself will eventually be placed. This is said 
to be the first known occurrence of the species on the eastern coast of 
* These are evidently the same as the “ two diverging furrows,” described as 
“ under the throat,” in the Physeter bidens of Sowerby ; they were said in the 
Irish specimen under consideration to have resembled the liealed-up deep wounds 
in the stem of a large tree. 
