slender rostrum and numerous teeth of the Platanistids and the squared excavations of the maxillaries. Argyrocetus patagonicus possessed also archaic characters, suggesting earlier affinities still. The two condyles of the skull instead of being closely adpressed to the skull stood out in a way more like that met with in terrestrial mammals. The nasal bones instead of being abbreviated rudiments are well developed as in the archaic Zeuglodonts. The cervical vertebrae of this Whale are all perfectly free from each other and individually long. The skull is on the whole bilaterally symmetrical; this again is a feature more pronounced among the Platanistidae than among other Odontocetes. Accompanying these generalised Cetacean characters are some which show that the animal was too specialised to be the direct ancestor of any existing forms. The end of the mandible was upturned and without teeth, its form being quite unique among Cetacea. Other allied forms, such as Zarrhachis and Priscodelphinus, showed the same length of the cervical vertebrae.
A very distinct family of extinct Whales is that of the Squalodontidae. They to some extent bridge over the gap between the existing Odontoceti and the Eocene Archaeoceti (Zeuglodonts).
The skull of these Whales was on the whole Dolphin-like. But they possessed teeth which were distinctly specialised into incisors, canines, and molars. The molars have a coarsely-serrated cutting edge as in the Zeuglodonts, and are also to some extent two-rooted. But they are more numerous, and so far approximate to the conditions which characterise the more typical modern Odontocetes. Squalodon was a long-beaked form, and Prosqualodon had a skull whose proportions are nearer those of Kogia.
Sub-Order 3. ARCHAEOCETI.
This division of the Whale tribe embraces but a single family, Zeuglodontidae, of which but a single genus, Zeuglodon, can with certainty be discriminated.
Zeuglodon is an Eocene form of large size, with teeth which are limited in number and disposed in three series as incisors, canines, and molars. The molars are double-rooted, a fact which has given to the genus its name. The nasal bones being long
