334 Prof. J. Reinhardt on the Fin- Whale 



added for comparison, and also the measurements of the skull 

 of a large Balcenoptera antiquorum in the zoological garden at 

 Antwerp — both taken from a table communicated by the 

 above-mentioned English cetologist in his valuable '' JSTotes 

 on the Skeletons of Whales"*. The little discrepancies which 

 may be found in some few relative dimensions can hardly have 

 any importance when we consider that the skull of whales 

 changes considerably during growth, and that the Icelandic 

 cranium is not very far from being twice as large as the one 

 described by Flower. 



To this almost perfect resemblance in the skull we must fur- 

 ther add a correspondence in the colour of the baleen, which is 

 uniformly black in the Icelandic whale, as is also that of the 

 Balcenoptera Sihhaldn^ and, finally, according to the statement 

 of Capt. Bottemann, a correspondence as to the number of the 

 vertebrae, so much the more important as sixty-four vertebrae is 

 the greatest number yet met with in any fin-whale tj and is 

 only found in the above-mentioned species J. Accordingly I 

 do not hesitate to refer the " Steypirey^r " of the Icelanders to 

 Balcenoptera Sihhaldii] and as we hitherto have only known 

 the skeleton of half-grown specimens of this whale, the know- 

 ledge of it has been not a little promoted by the information 

 now procured. 



This result established, we have still to find out what the 

 relation of this species is to the two other fin-whales, to which 

 it bears such a striking resemblance in colour that it seems 

 impossible to point out any essential difference, viz. the spe- 

 cies recently described under the name of Balcenoptera Caro- 

 Uncey and the ^^ Tunnolik " of the Greenlanders, usually con- 

 sidered identical with the Ostend whale. 



As to its relation to Balwnoptera Carolince^ I see, from a 

 short notice in the English periodical the ^ Athenaium ' (1868, 

 No. 2108, p. 427), that Mr. W. H. Flower, at the meeting of 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. of London, Nov. 8, 1864, p. 411. 



t In the essay of Eschriclit and myself on the Greenland whale (in the 

 K. D. Vid. Selsk. Skr. ser. 5. vol. v.) the number of the vertebrae in B. an- 

 tiquorum (B. mtisculus), p. 549, is, by a misprint, stated to be 63 ; and the 

 same error appears also in the English translation of the same essay in 

 the '^ Recent Memoirs on the Cetacea," edited by W. H. Flower for the 

 Ray Society (p. 105). I consider it my duty to correct this error, so much 

 the more as I perceive with regret that others have been led astray by it. 

 The Balcenoptera antiquorum has regidarly only 61 vertebrae, and that is 

 also the number found in the skeleton alluded to by Eschricht and myself 

 in the treatise quoted above. 



X One of the two skeletons on which this species has been founded is 

 known to have sixteen pairs of ribs, the other fifteen. As Mr. Bottemann 

 only found fifteen in the foetus dissected by him, it is probable, though by 

 no means certain, that the latter number is the normal one. 



