254 MR. W. H. FLOWER ON A LESSER FIN-WHALE [May 24, 
The animal was a male. Its stomach contained the remains of 
numerous fish of considerable size; my informant thinks, cod-fish. 
Of its external appearance or visceral anatomy I could learn nothing 
satisfactory. It must have been nearly adult, as the epiphyses of 
the humerus and proximal end of the radius and ulna were firmly 
united. Those of the bodies of the vertebrze were stili mostly sepa- 
rable. This accords well with the current statement that 30 feet is 
the maximum length any of the species has been known to attain. 
The total length of the skeleton as it lay in situ was 24! 4", of 
which the head occupied 5! 5", the seven cervical vertebre with their 
intervertebral spaces 1’, the eleven dorsal 3! 11", the twelve lumbar 
6! 6", and the twenty caudal (commencing with the first vertebra 
which bears a chevron bone) 7! 6". 
In the entire number of the vertebrze, as well as in their distribu- 
tion into different regions, the skeleton agrees with those described 
by Eschricht, with the exception that there are two additional ver- 
tebre in the tail, making the whole number fifty instead of forty- 
eight. Eschricht remarks that the terminal caudal vertebre are 
rarely preserved in the skeletons of whales in museums; and he 
gives a careful description and figure of these bones, from a young 
specimen at Christiania which he thought was complete. Allowing 
for difference of age, the vertebrze described, the forty-seventh and 
forty-eighth from the head (regarded by Eschricht as penultimate 
and terminal), correspond in characters with the forty-seventh and 
forty-eighth of the present skeleton. I am therefore disposed to 
consider that the vertebral elements corresponding to the rudimen- 
tary and ankylosed forty-ninth and fiftieth vertebree of the latter 
were either not ossified or had been lost in the Christiania specimen, 
and that fifty must be regarded as the normal number of vertebrze 
in the species. 
The last three vertebre in the present skeleton are broad and 
depressed. The forty-eighth measures at its anterior end, from above 
downwards, 1!"1, from side to side 1"°6. Its length is 1/2. It 
diminishes greatly posteriorly, especially in width. The epiphyses 
are distinctly marked, though firmly united to the body of the bone. 
The hinder surface has a bony union, occupying about one-fourth of 
its area, on the upper and left-hand corner, with the contiguous sur- 
face of the succeeding bone. This is 1''"1 in length, 08 in height, 
and 13 in width at its anterior part. It is of unsymmetrical form, 
the length of the left lateral margin being nearly double that of the 
right. This causes an obliquity of the posterior surface, and the 
consequent tilting to the right side of the last vertebra—a mere 
rounded tubercle about the size of a pea, firmly ankylosed to the 
penultimate. 
The cervical vertebree of the Whales are generally considered to 
furnish important characters, both for their generic and specific di- 
stinction, and therefore deserve close attention. Dr. Gray gives, 
among the generic characters of Balenoptera, ‘The second and 
third cervical vertebrae united by the spinous process.’ Under the 
heading of specific characters a more detailed description is given, 
