NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 123 



founded his genus Hunterius. Holder (1883) records that in the skeleton in the Charleston (S. C.) 

 Museum, the first rib (which was single-headed) had "but one articulating surface, which joins 

 to the transverse process of the first thoracic vertebra. The next eight ribs are joined to the 

 vertebrae by two articulating surfaces, one junction being to the transverse processes, and the 

 other to the bodies of the vertebrae. The remaining five, floating ribs, have one attachment, 

 which is to the [transverse processes] of the vertebrae." The last rib is usually much shorter 

 than those before it. The attachment of the anterior ribs to the sternum is very slight, allowing 

 thus considerable freedom of movement so as to enable the animal to expand and fill its lungs 

 to the utmost capacity when breathing, preliminary to making a dive. 



The sternum is usually more or less heart-shaped. That of the Provincetown 1864 specunen 

 at Cambridge is decidedly so, and is figured by True (1904, Plate 46, fig. 4) from a photograph. 

 The figure of the same specimen published by Dr. J. A. Allen (1908, Plate 23, fig. A) is from a 

 drawing and shows it of a roughly oval outUne, but this must be in reality some other bone. 

 True (1904, p. 258) figures diagrammatically the sternum of a Right Whale killed off Long 

 Island, N. Y., that is roughly cruciform, and which, as he states, so much resembles that of 

 the Finback Whale that "one might almost believe that it did not belong to the skeleton to 

 which it is attached." The sternum in these whales is a bone that has become of less impor- 

 tance consequent to the adaptations to an aquatic life, and hence is subject to more or less 

 imperfect development leading to its reduction in size. The deepjnedian notch is significant 

 of its origin from two lateral portions that in most land mammals fuse very early in life. 



The outline of the scapula (text-fig. 5, p. 191) is highly characteristic. The vertebral border 

 is evenly and roundly convex. The anterior border is very nearly straight or faintly concave 

 almost to the antero-dorsal corner where it becomes slightly convex. The posterior border is 

 straight for about one fourth its length and then becomes evenly concave from that point to 

 the glenoid cavity. The ridge of the scapular spine is low and begins nearly half-way to the 

 glenoid border, near the anterior edge of the shoulder blade. The acromion process is large 

 and produced forward as a broad tongue. The infraspinous portion of the scapula therefore 

 includes nearly its entire lateral aspect. In two specimens from Long Island, N. Y., Andrews 

 (1908) found the right scapula the larger in each. There are no daiides in the Cetacea. 



The humerus is short and thick with a very large rounded head. Distally it has two 

 articulating surfaces that slant in toward the main axis so as to meet at an angle. The anterior 

 articulates with the radius, the posterior with the ulna, forming thus an elbow joint that is 

 without power of flexion. The ulna and radius are of somewhat similar shape, much flattened, 

 short and thick, expanded distally. The ulna resembles that of the Humpback and differs 

 from that of Balaenoptera in lacking the basal expansion at the outer side, which in the latter 

 genus overlaps the end of the humerus. 



The carpus of this whale is still imperfectly known. There is apparently some variation 



