330 Mr. A. Doran on the Capture of a Right Whale. 



posterior border of the nasal. The nasal bones present the 

 characters described bj Professor Flower as typical in Euha- 

 Icena, and still more remind Professor Capellini of the same 

 bones in Madeayius. They are short and broad, concave 

 anteriorly, and quite unlike those of B. mysticetus. 



The tympanic bone of this B, tarentina differs from that of 

 B. australis in the form of the curve of the inner marG:in and 

 in the form of the columellar projection on the lip close to the 

 meatus ; moreover it is gibbous behind as in B.japonica^ but 

 less inflated than in B. australis, still less than in B. anti- 

 podum. The petrous bone is of the ordinary Balcena type. 

 The malleus is lost • but Signer Capellini figures the incus and 

 stapes, which are of the same form as specimens of the corre- 

 sponding bones in B. australis and mysticetus in the museum 

 of the lioyal College of Surgeons of England. Judging from 

 the engraving, the incus has no affinities to the highly charac- 

 teristic representative of that ossicle in Baleenoptera and 

 nearly all other cetaceans. 



The mandible of B. tarentina does not very closely resem- 

 ble that of B. australis, but is similar to the same bone in the 

 fossil Idiocetics Guicciardini and in Balmnotus. Its rami are 

 well bowed outwards anteriorly, as in the other right whales. 

 The myloid groove is much deeper than in any other existing 

 Balcvna, recalling a character observed in the fossil Balcenotus 

 of Belgium and Tuscany. The length of each ramus, fol- 

 lowing the external curve, is 2'50 metres ; the height of each 

 condyle 0*24 metre. There are six mental foramina on each 

 side ; the distance between them diminishes regularly towards 

 the most posterior. The longest baleen-plates measured by 

 Professor Capellini are 0'7() metre long, following the curve 

 of their inner margin. They form two masses of 240 plates 

 each, tl\e longest, of which the measurement has just been 

 quoted, were in the middle of each mass. The author declares 

 that they are in pattern unlike those of any other whale, 

 although he has inspected the large collection of baleen-plates 

 at Vienna. 



The seventh cervical vertebra is quite free. This region 

 (except in that respect) much resembles the same in Gray's 

 Madeayius ; only, instead of the complete freedom of the atlas 

 seen in that New-Zealand whale, the first cervical vertebra in 

 B. /arew///2a is distinct above, but ankylosed to the second below, 

 as in Idiocetus. The axis and the four succeeding vertebrse 

 are also fused inferiorly only ; the separation above is very 

 distinct between the fourth and fifth and the fifth and sixth ; 

 such is the case in Balcenotus and Balcenida. There is a 

 peculiar fissure running along the under surface of the bodies 



