A clipping from the Oregonian newspaper contains the following:
Albany, Oregon, March 2 [1904]. A peculiar specimen of the whale variety has been reported on the Oregon coast, near Newport. J. G. Crawford, of Albany, has just returned from a trip to Newport, where he made a picture of the head of the strange animal. The body was washed upon the beach during the recent storm which swept the coast. It is about 15 feet long. * * * Residents of the vicinity say they have never seen anything like it on the Oregon coast. * * * On either side of the mouth are two villainous-looking tusks several inches in length. They are at the back of the mouth, and extend up to a level with the top of the upper jaw. They are very wide and flat, squared on top. The mouth has no other teeth. * * *
The head is equipped with a blowhole, like that of a whale. The eyes are very low, almost underneath the lower jaws.
The body is in a good state of preservation, the flesh having been torn but little by the birds.
On receipt of the foregoing information, letters were immediately addressed to Mr. Crawford and also to the keeper of the life-saving station at South Beach, Capt. Otto Wellander, asking that, if possible, the entire skeleton be preserved. Captain Wellander replied that the whale had not been dead long when washed ashore; that he had tried to find the body, but that the high tides had either carried it away or buried it under driftwood.
The skull when cleaned passed into the possession of Mr. J. G. Crawford, who sent to the Museum some excellent photographs of it, and also of the head before the flesh had been removed. Later he sent the skull itself to the Museum for my examination, and finally very generously presented it to the Museum in exchange.
The skull is that of an adult individual, in nearly perfect condition, with the mandible and teeth. The parts missing are the left malar, the left tympanic bone, the distal ends of the pterygoids and the proximal ends of the premaxillæ. ([Pl. 3], fig. 2.)
SKULL.
The Oregon skull exhibits all the characters included in the original diagnosis of the species,[31] but two of these, namely, the lack of a groove in front of the premaxillary foramen, and the vertical position of the premaxillæ distally, I do not at present consider of any importance, as they are shared by M. bidens. The species, as represented by the Oregon skull, however, presents other characters which clearly differentiate it from any other species of the genius. As it is without a basirostral groove, it allies itself in that respect to M. bidens, europæus, and hectori. Unlike those species, it has the premaxillary foramen behind the maxillary foramen, and in this respect resembles densirostris and grayi. Perhaps the most salient characters in which stejnegeri differs from bidens and all other known species are the erect position and flat surface of the supraoccipital and the very prominent backward extension of the frontal plate of the maxilla. This backward extension is so great that when the beak is horizontal a vertical line through the posterior margin of the maxilla passes considerably behind the temporal fossa. The only species which approaches stejnegeri in this respect is hectori, but in the latter the supraoccipital instead of being flat above the condyles is very strongly convex.
Another very marked character of stejnegeri is that the extension of the lateral free margin of the orbital plate of the frontal, anterior to the orbit, is equal to the length of the orbit itself. In bidens and all other known species this extension is only from one-third to one-half the length of the orbit. Numerous other distinguishing characters will be mentioned in the course of the following description of stejnegeri, which is drawn from the adult Oregon skull, but modified when necessary by reference to the type skull from Bering Island. Comparisons are made chiefly with M. bidens, which is on the whole the best known species.
In the Oregon skull of stejnegeri, the breadth between the post-orbital processes does not exceed the length from the occipital condyles to the maxillary notches. The skull is, therefore, narrower in proportion to its length than in any other species of the genus except hectori, as represented by the skull figured by Flower. This skull was, however, that of a young individual. It is probable that in adults of this species the skull is broader than in stejnegeri.
In the latter species, again, the length of the brain-case, between the occipital condyles and the maxillary notches, is just equal to the distance from the latter point to the distal end of the maxillæ, and the rostrum, including the premaxillæ, is much shorter than in other species of Mesoplodon, except hectori, as represented by the young skull above mentioned.