1865.] MR. W. H. FLOWER ON PHYSALUS ANTIQUORUM. 703 
what concave edge, including their hair-like termination, and 12 inches 
broad at the base; the whole set was 14 inches broad, the inner 
2 inches being made up of four or five subsidiary blades, with 
straight, parallel sides. These are not mere detachments split off as 
it were from the inner side of the chief blade; for they are not even 
placed in a line with it or each other, but often in a line with the 
intervals between the main blades. The main blades, where they 
were largest, were set rather less than 3 inch apart ; for in a space of 
6 inches I counted fourteen blades. Anteriorly they decreased in 
size, and, in the part encircling the palate in front, consisted of little, 
isolated, irregularly scattered, very narrow blades, having an oval 
section, with the long axis in the direction of that of the head; their 
length at this part I could not ascertain, as they had all been cut off 
short. Posteriorly they also diminished, and the whole broad area 
from which the whalebone grew became covered with closely packed 
small blades, each ending in a flattened tuft of hair and gradually 
becoming narower, until at the hindermost part they were resolved 
into a mat of fine hairs. The horny baleen was readily pulled off 
from its vascular matrix, a portion of which, removed from behind 
the middle of the right side of the palate, was obtained for the 
College Museum. The dense vascular layer (containing much oil) 
immediately investing the bone is about 1 inch thick; from this 
spring a series of transverse laminze, exactly corresponding to the 
whalebone blades, both the large as well as the subsidiary plates. 
These lamine, in the case of the largest plates, were 1} inch in depth. 
They end in a fine fringe of hair-like bodies, about 4 inches long and 
gradually tapering to a point, which penetrate into the interior of 
the horny blade, and which serve for secreting the pulp of the whale- 
bone hairs. The toughness and power of resistance to decomposi- 
tion of these vascular secreting organs was very surprising. 
The colour of the baleen was certainly different from what it is 
usually said to be in the common Fin-Whale. The hairy terminal 
parts, as seen when looking into the mouth, were, from end to end of 
the series, of a uniform dirty yellowish white, resembling, in fact, the 
baleen of Balenoptera rostrata. The anterior smaller blades were 
entirely of a creamy white ; and this colour prevailed throughout the 
whole series, though streaked longitudinally with slate-colour of 
varying intensity. In the middle and posterior part of the series 
the latter colour occupied about the outer half of the blade, and was 
most intense near the edge, so that when seen from without the set 
had a dark bluish colour. 
Unfortunately, the decomposed state of the carcase and the hurr 
with which the operation of cutting up was conducted, added to the 
inclement state of the weather, prevented me from making any satis- 
factory observations upon the visceral anatomy. My principal atten- 
tion was therefore directed to preserving the skeleton in a perfect 
condition, and observing, as far as opportunity permitted, the natural 
connexions of the bones. To save the rudimentary pelvic bones from 
the destruction to which they are almost invariably consigned, was 
of course my first care ; but here I was nearly too late: these bones, 
