m leaden black, paler beneath.

SIZE.--Fourteen feet, flippers 2 feet; dorsal fin, 2-1/4 feet long,
11 inches high; tail flukes, 3 feet broad.

Blyth's specimens were procured in the Salt Lakes near Calcutta. It
was for the young of this that he mistook _Orcella brevirostris_.

PHYSETERIDAE--THE CACHELOTS OR SPERM WHALES.

_GENUS EUPHYSETES_.

NO. 270. PHYSETER _or_ EUPHYSETES SIMUS.
_The Snub-nosed Cachelot_.

NATIVE NAME.--_Wonga_, Telugu.

HABITAT.--Bay of Bengal.

DESCRIPTION.--The general form of this animal resembles the porpoise,
but the position of the mouth at once distinguishes it. It is small
and situated, like that of the shark, considerably under the blunt
rostrum, so much so as to lead one to conjecture whether or not it
turns on its back in seizing its prey, as do the sharks. The blow
hole is crescentic, but eccentrically placed to the left of the
middle line of the head, and the horns of the crescent are turned
diagonally backwards--that is to say, the lower limb points to the
back whilst the upper one touches the middle line and points across;
the eye is small; the pectoral fins are triangular, about one foot
in length and four and a-half inches broad in the male, and four
inches in the female; the dorsal fin is sub-falcate, standing about
a foot high, and is nine to ten inches broad at the base, the male
being the broader; the colour is a shining black above, paler and
pinkish below.

Dentition: 1--1/9--9 = 20.

SIZE.--Six to seven feet.

The peculiarity of this cetacean is the preponderance of the cranial
over the rostral part, more so, as Professor Owen remarks, than in
any other species. The asymmetry of the bones too is remarkable,
although this is characteristic of all the catodon whales,
especially as regards the bones of the anterior narial passages, the
left of which is very much larger than the right. This is also the
case in the large sperm whale, but in _Euphysetes_ the disproportion
is still greater. In a notice on a New Zealand species (_E. Pottsii_),
by Dr. Julius Haast, he gives the difference as fifteen times the
size of the right aperture; the mouth is also peculiar from its
position and small size, being very much overshot by the snout. It
may, as Dr. Haast supposes, be a ground feeder, existing on the
smaller hydroid zoophytes, otherwise it must, I think, turn on its
side in seizing its prey.

MYSTICETE--WHALEBONE OR BALEEN WHALES.

_GENUS BALAENA--THE RI