50 



PROFESSOR STRUTHERS. 



(B) The Hind Limb. 

 16. Table V., showing, in inches, the Length, Breadth, and 

 Thickness of the Pelvic Bone and the Femur in the 

 Megaptera longimana. 



17. The Pelvic Bone (figs. 15 and 16, P.). — As seen in the 

 preceding Table, scarcely half of the length of the pelvic bone is 

 ossified. This contrasts remarkably with the condition of the 

 bone in Rndolphi's 44-feot-long Megaptera (English measure), 

 also a male. In the full-sized figure which he gives (op. cit., 

 Taf. IV.) the length of the ossified portion is fully 9 inches, 

 while neither of the cartilages is an inch in length. It contrasts 

 also with the condition of the bone in my 50-feet-long B. 

 musculus, in which the lengths of the corresponding parts are, 

 the ossified part 8| to 9 inches, the posterior cartilage | inch, 

 the anterior cartilage about 1 inch. In form, the pelvic bone 

 contrasts with that of this B. musculus in being less flattened 

 and in having a much less extended promontory. The breadth 

 at the promontory in the B. musculus is 4 to 4^ inches, in the 

 Megaptera only 2^ to 2| inches. Nor is the promontory in 

 Megaptera tipped with cartilage. 



^ The measurements of the anterior and posterior portions of the pelvic bone 

 are taken from the middle of the outer border of tlie promontory to the tip of each. 



