OCR Text |
Show 724 PROF. w. H. F L O W E R O N T H E [Dec. 19, son, and others, until Dr. Gray, in the 'Zoology of the 'Erebus' 'Terror" (1846), described and figured a cranium, received into the British Museum from the Orkneys, as that of a distinct species, which he named Hyperoodon latifrons (p. 27 and plate 4). The diagnostic character is:-" Skull large, heavy, solid, the reflexed part of the maxillary bones very thick aud thickened internally, so as nearly to touch each other in front of the blower, much higher than the hinder part of the skull;" whereas of H. rostratus it is stated that " the elevated plates of the maxillary bones are thin, leaving a broad space between them in front of the blowers, and as high as the frontal crest." Professor Eschricht, who had devoted great attention to the anatomy, development, and life-history of the Cetacea, expressed, in his valuable memoir on Platanista, the opinion that Dr. Gray's H. latifrons was nothing more than an old male of the ordinary form1. This opinion called forth a long rejoinder from Gray2, in which he endeavours to show that males and females of both forms have been met with, and moreover states that " he was assured by the fishermen who procured the head which he described and figured that it was that of a female gravid with young." So convinced was Gray of the distinction, that in 1863 (see P. Z.S. 1863, p. 200) he constituted H. latifrons into a distinct genus called Lagenocetus, and retained it in this position in all his subsequent cetological writings. Since the type specimen was described by Gray, not only several skulls but also complete skeletons have been met with of the larger form, a very fine specimen being mounted in the Copenhagen Museum and another at Caen. Although there is certainly nothing except size and the form of the maxillary crests to distinguish them from the more common form, there is so striking a difference in the shape of the skull, that Dr. Gray's opinion, backed by the various statements made by him regarding the age and sex of the different individuals recorded (all of which perhaps will not bear close investigation), has induced many zoologists to agreed with him, at all events as to the specific distinction, and to admit H. latifrons into the list of Cetaceous animals, sometimes as a doubtful and sometimes as a well-determined species. I had, in fact, myself done so in the article " Mammalia " written in the beginning of this year for the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' being fortified in this opinion by some premature information derived from the same source as that which has now dispelled this view (as mentioned in a note to p. 395 of the present volume of our Proceedings), and especially because my friend the late Prof. Reiuhardt, whose recent death is a great loss to this branch of zoology, had fully adopted Gray's view3, 1 See the English translation in Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 2, ix. p. 281 (1852). 2 Ibid. p. 407. 3 H e says:-" Eschricht meente, som bekjendt, at Hyperoodon latifrons kun var opstillet paa den ret gamle H a n af den almindelige D^gling, Hyperoodon rostratus; men Gray's Art maa nu ansees for vel begrundet."-Vidensk. Selks. Skr. 5 Raskke, naturvidens. og math. Afd. 9, B- 1 (1869). |