bal^:noptera. 53 



87. Baleen plate of B. slbhaldi : length 39 inches, width 16 

 inches ; from Harris, Long Island, 1905. Colour, form, 

 and texture as in the otlier specimens. See No. 33. 



Donor — Dr Duncan Fletcher. 



38. Baleen plate from B. sihhaldi from Eide, in the Faroe 



Islands; length 46 inches, width [^ inches. Colour, 

 form, and texture as in the other specimens. 



Donor — J. A. Harold Brown, Esq. 



39. Baleen, two plates taken from a calf of the Steypireythr 



{B. sihhaldi) by Captain Bottemann, May 1871. The 

 plates are 7 inches long and 2^ inches wide at base. 

 Colour of plates and bristles greyish white. 



Donor — Captain Bottemann. 



40. Vertebrae, seven Cervical and first Dorsal, with inter- 



vertebral discs dried and shrunken ; natural skeleton. 

 The plates are partially ossihed to the bodies. The 

 length of the cervical part is 3 feet 2 inches; the 

 greatest transverse diameter at the axis is 4 feet 

 6 inches. The range of rotation of the atlas on 

 the axis was 17°. The odontoid is stunted, and was 

 imbedded in a thick, strong ligament occupying 

 a part of the ring of the atlas, which acted as a 

 check to prevent over-rotation in either direction. 

 A slight rocking movement of the atlas on the axis 

 was also permitted. The cervicals in this animal 

 closely resembled those in the Longniddr}' whale, 

 except the 6th cervical, in which the diapophysis 

 was complete, whilst the parapophysis was only 10 

 inches long, ended in a point, and did not complete 

 the boundary of the lateral foramen. The first dorsal 

 resembled the seventh in its parapophysis being repre- 

 sented by a stunted tubercle. The specimen is from 

 a gravid female, said to have been about 90 feet long, 

 but not measured, stranded in October 1869, near 

 Hannia Voe, Shetland. Referred to by Turner in 

 Tnnis. Roy. Soc. Ediii., vol. xxvi., 1870. 



41. Vertebrae, eight dorsal, the plates not fused with the 



bodies, from the same whale. 



42. Vertebra, lower dorsal, the plates not fused with body 



of vertebra; mounted to show the great central 

 cavity in the inter-vertebral disc, 11 by 7^ inches, 

 lined by a fiocculent synovial membrane, which 

 during life is filled with a yellow synovial fluid. 

 The presence of so many synovial joints in the spine, 

 conjoined with the small articular processes, facilitated 



