THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 



89 



Cope's description of the type-skull is accurate, except that the nasals are 

 longer than wide. The two together are as wide distally as each is long. The 

 length of the maxilla from the tip to the end of the nasal process is 89 inches ; 

 breadth across the frontal summit, 13f inches; palatines, 21| inches long in the 

 median line, measured in a straight line ; the glenoid fossa of the squamosal from 

 tip to tip in a straight line, 22 inches. 



The atlas is wanting, also the 7th cervical, not the 4th, as stated by Cope. 

 The processes of the axis form a complete bony ring, enclosing an oval foramen, 

 the long axis of which measures 5 inches. The greatest width of the bony ring 

 itself is 4 inches ; distance from edge of anterior articular facet to outside of ring, 

 8-J- inches. The superior transverse processes of the 3d, 4th, and 5th cervicals are 

 broken ; also, the inferior processes of the 5th cervical. The length of the pro- 

 cesses in the cervical vertebrae present (in straight lines) is as follows : 



SIBBALDIUS TECTIROSTRIS COPE. (TYPE ) CERVICAL VERTEBRAE. 



The breadth of the right radius at the distal end is 5 in.; of the left, the same ; 

 at the proximal end, 5|^ in. in both. Breadth of the right ulna at the distal end, 4 in. ; 

 of the left, 4^ in. ; at the proximal end (including the olecranon), right, 5| in., 

 left, 6 in. 



Not many months after Cope prepared the original description of S. tectirostris, 

 he inserted in the American Naturalist the following brief notice of the type- 

 specimen : 



"NEW FINNER WHALE. 

 " (Sibbaldius tectirostris.) 



"The Academy of Natural Sciences has just obtained the perfect skeleton of 

 a whale from the coast of Maryland. It is a finner, of the genus Sibbaldius Gray, 

 and is half-grown and forty-seven feet in length. It is quite distinct from all 

 known species, but is nearest S. laticeps. Its characters are found in the nasal and 

 phenygoid [sic] bones, and in the cervical vertebrae, etc. I call it S. tectirostris. 

 Two cervicals only have complete lateral canals ; the nasals are short, wide, con- 

 cave in front, except a prolonged keel in the middle line above, and in front. 

 Edward D. Cope, Philadelphia." * 



1 (Broken) ? 



1 Amer. Nat., No. 5, July, 1869, pp. 277-278. 



