416 MR, W. H. FLOWER ON THE SKELETONS OF WHALES [Nov. 8, 
Museum of Natural History at Brussels, where they are arranged 
and displayed to great advantage, under the able direction of M. Du 
Bus. Of this collection I shall speak first. 
The first object that meets the eye on entering the room is a mag- 
nificent skeleton of Balena mysticetus, the only one to be seen at 
present in any museum in Europe, except at Copenhagen. The 
singular effect produced by the enormous size of the head, as com- 
pared with the remainder of the skeleton, must be seen to be fully 
realized. 
The cranium is 18! 9" long in a straight line, the vertebral column 
31' 6", making a total of 50! 3", The epiphyses of the arm-bones 
are united at both ends, as are those of all the caudal vertebree, but 
not those of the lumbar and dorsal vertebra ; so that the animal was 
in a late period of the adolescent stage. The vertebral formula is 
C. 7, D. 14, L. 10, C.23=54. The tail is quite complete. This 
is the normal fo¢al number, according to Eschricht and Reinhardt ; 
but an individual peculiarity consists in the development of an addi- 
tional rudimentary rib on the left side, about 18!’ long, and articulating 
with the transverse process of the fourteenth vertebra behind the 
neck. This vertebra is therefore reckoned among the dorsal instead 
of the lumbar series. The ordinary number of dorsal vertebrae and 
pairs of ribs is thirteen. The two last lumbar and three first caudal 
vertebree are enveloped in an immense mass of exostosed bone. The 
skeleton appears quite perfect ; even the pelvic bones are present, 
though not yet articulated. There are two bones on each side, dif- 
fering considerably in the details of their conformation from the same 
bones in the skeleton which has been lately received, though not yet 
mounted, at the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. 
The osteology of the Northern Right Whale has been so fully de- 
scribed by Eschricht and Reinhardt that no further remarks upon 
this skeleton (which furnished part of the material for their memoir) 
are necessary. 
Megaptera longimana.—A very fine and complete skeleton, 46! 
long, of a nearly adult individual. The vertebral formula is C. 7, 
D. 14, L. 11, C. 21=53. Ribs 14 pairs. The enormous size of 
the fins is grandly displayed in this specimen ; they measure 12! from 
the head of the humerus to the tip of the phalanges. The cervical 
vertebree are all free; the second to the fifth have the upper and 
lower transverse processes separate in all, but they are not complete 
at the ends. Those of the second are short, thick, and convergent, 
but still with a wide interval between their ends; this, according to 
Eschricht, is completed in the living animal by cartilage, which may 
in old age become ossified ; but this process must take place at a re- 
latively later period of life than in the Balenopteride. According 
to the same excellent authority, the processes of the succeeding 
vertebre are not continued in cartilage so far as to meet ; so that we 
could never expect to find osseous rmgs on them. In the Brussels 
specimen the upper processes increase and the lower ones decrease 
in length, from the third to the fifth. There is no inferior process 
on the sixth or seventh. 
