146 THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 



to the same species in which the average of size is different. This view seems 

 most reasonable in the case in question, considering the remarkable correspond- 

 ence in proportions and other characters. 



To my mind, the demonstration of the specific identity of the " Common Fin- 

 back " of the eastern and western Atlantic in the foregoing pages is practically 

 complete. That the average size of the specimens taken on the two sides of the 

 ocean does not agree, is a matter to be explained hereafter, but standing by 

 itself it does not, I think, invalidate the demonstration. 



THE REPRESENTATIVE OF B. PHYSALUS IN GREENLAND. 



Robert Brown and others have stated that the Greenlanders recognize two 

 or more species of large Finbacks under the name of Tunnolilc. There appears 

 not to have been as yet an opportunity for a zoologist to treat the matter 

 critically on the basis of specimens of different kinds actually examined and com- 

 pared, but cetological literature contains some few data bearing upon the subject. 



Scoresby gives a few measurements and a brief description of a " Physalis 

 found dead in Davis's Strait, 105 feet" long (84, i., p. 481). This is more likely to 

 have represented an American Sulphurbottom than B. physalus (L.), although 

 the length is no doubt exaggerated. Eschricht gives measurements of a Tun- 

 nolilc which H. P. C. Moller examined in 1843, but this was also probably a 

 Sulphurbottom. 



In his Oversigt af Skandinaviens Hvaldjur, Lilljeborg (64, 47 and 55) gives a 

 few measurements of, and some notes on, a skeleton from Greenland in the Copen- 

 hagen museum, which is probably to be regarded as representing B. physalus. 

 The description is as follows : 



"The skeleton is from a young animal, with loose vertebral epiphyses and 

 with the outer parts of the annular transverse processes of the 3d to the 6th 

 cervical vertebra cartilaginous. The number of vertebrae is 61, of which 24 

 are caudal vertebrae. All the lumbars, as well as the posterior dorsals, are keeled 

 along the under side of the body, though the keel is least marked anteriorly. 

 The 13 anterior caudals do not decrease largely in length backward. The 

 transverse processes of the most posterior dorsals are with rounded terminations, 

 and also that of the 1st lumbar, and are also directed a little backward, whereas, 

 on the contrary, the latter are directed forward. The transverse processes of the 

 6 anterior dorsals are directed forward, the most anterior the most strongly, and 

 that of the 6th little marked, but still so that the line drawn from the middle 

 of the tip of one to the same place on the other lies in front of the middle of the 

 body of the vertebra. The transverse processes of the 7 posterior dorsals are 

 directed backward, but of these the first and last less strongly. The transverse 

 processes of the 7th and 8th dorsals are directed straight out on the sides. All the 

 transverse processes of the lumbosacrals, with exception of the last, are, however, 

 directed forward. Processus spinosi iuferiores 18." 



The characters of the vertebra above given agree with those of the Mas- 

 sachusetts skeleton in the National Museum, but in the latter the anterior dorsals 



