RIGHT WHALES 125 



perfect photographic representation." At best it 

 depends entirely and only upon the cervical vertebrae, 

 of which the altas was at first thought by Gray to be 

 distinct. This would be if it were true a difference ; 

 but though that character is dropped by Dr. Gray 

 in his "Supplementary Catalogue" from further in- 

 formation received, the genus is valiantly retained ! 



Hunter ins temminckii was based upon a young 

 and incomplete skeleton in the Leyden Museum, 

 described also by Schlegel and Flower. Its chief 

 character is that "the first rib is very broad with 

 two heads attached to the transverse processes of 

 the first and second dorsal vertebrae." As a matter 

 of fact the statement itself is inaccurate. For Sir 

 W. Flower pointed out that the attachment was in 

 all probability to the last cervical and first dorsal, 

 the apparent position being due to a mistake on the 

 part of the articulator of the skeleton. This character 

 may surely be dismissed as an abnormality, for in 

 the figure which is given the rib is clearly two 

 ankylosed ribs ; it is bifid not only at the head, but 

 at the other extreme. And, moreover, the same 

 state of affairs was found by Sir W. Flower in an 

 example of the southern Right whale B. austrahs. 

 Furthermore, in the Finner, Bal&noptera rostrata, 

 a similar "double" rib has been recorded, and in 

 the British Museum the skeleton of Rhachianectes 

 shows an identical state of affairs. Van Beneden 

 asserts the same as an occasional character of the 

 Porpoise and Globicephalus.* The only other char- 



* " La premiere cote des Ctftace'es," Bull. Ac. Roy. Belg., xxvi., 1868, 

 p. 7- 



