G5 



rebrul mass, comprising two inches of tlie spinal cliord, weighed 3^ 

 pounds; while the cerebellum, pons, and two inches of the chord, 

 weighed only three-fourths of a pound. 



Respiralorij Organs. — The mode of breathing, and the structure 

 of the nostrils, was precisely as in the Great Rorqual. Two bolster- 

 like substances filled the nostrils, which are withdrawn from them 

 at the moment of breathing by muscles provided for that purpose. 

 There are turbinated bones in the nose and olfactory nerves, as 

 large at least as the human. The author thinks it impossible for 

 water to be habitually spouted through the nostrils. The Whalebone 

 Whales have complex nostrils, and smell and breathe precisely as 

 the higher orders of the Mammalia. 



The Stomach, composed of four compartments, contained no food. 

 The middle tunic of the ureter was composed of distinct longitudinal 

 muscular fasciculi. 



The author then proceeded to consider, at some length, a question 

 which has lately arisen relative to the structure and functions of the 

 abdominal glands of the Cetaceae, and which has been six or seven 

 times before the French Institute in the course of the late and pre- 

 sent session, — viz. Whether these glands are mammiferous .'' M. St 

 Hilaire conceives that they are not mammae, and do not secrete milk, 

 but that they are probably similar to those of the Ornilhorynchus 

 paradoxus, which he thinks are sexual, specific, and odoriferous, but 

 not mammiferous. 



The author first observed, that the question ought, in strictness, to 

 be limited to the Whalebone Whales among the Cetacea ; because 

 the great group of the Delphinus was proved to be mammiferous long 

 ago by Mr Watson, an extract of whose observations is given in 

 " Scoresby's Greenland." He next stated, that his own observations 

 left, in his opinion, no doubt whatsoever, that the similarly situated 

 glands in the Balwna roslrata are also true mammae. An elaborate 

 anatomical examination shewed that they resembled the lactiferous 

 glands of other mammalia in their structure. A cursory examination 

 of the foetal Mysticetus, led to the same conclusion in regard to that 

 genus ; and the author was farther informed by a former pupil, Mr 

 Auld, that in the young Mysticetus harpooned, he had seen a fluid 

 of a cream colour and consistence, and oleaginous taste and smell, 

 issue abundantly from the mouth ; and, in the full-grown females, 

 he had forced out several pounds of a similar fluid from the orifices 

 of the glands by pressure of the foot on the abdomen. 



The specimen of Balaena rostrata examined by the author was 

 9 feet 11 inches in length, 3 feet from snout to ear, and 4 feet 8 

 inches in girth at the termination of the plica> and folds. 



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