244 DR. J. MURIE ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CAAING WHALE. 
skull. The main facts, as he well exemplifies, are, that the turbinals alter from the 
horizontal to the vertical position, and occasionally in some animals are more than three 
in number. Moreover he upholds that the upper corrugated nasal sacs of the Whales 
are the homologues of the anterior or maxillary turbinate bones, in them a fibrous and 
not hard sclerous skeleton; and, again, the posterior sacs may possibly represent the 
inferior or ethmoidal turbinates. The outer opening he takes to be equivalent to the 
narial orifices of other animals with muscles attached; the cartilages in the Whales 
being absent. 
Olfactory nerves obtain, but very diminished in size, indeed hair-like; but he is 
dubious as to their capacity in influencing smell, which he believes to be very much 
modified in the Cetaceans. 
It seems to me that Sibson loses sight of the significance and homology of the parts 
in their ulterior specialization as a cranial floating organ—this, in my opinion, being 
as absurd a proposition as that, from the direction of the first stomach of the Rorqual, 
water swallowed in plenty (?) is thrown up therefrom. The otherwise correct Stannius 
must have but glanced at the fleshy narial layers. With Von Baer I agree, not only in 
surmising, but in recognizing individual nasal muscles, homologues of the occasionally 
diminutive series connected with the nose and upper lips in higher Mammals. I have 
little doubt also that odour, in a modified condition from land-breathers, is appreciable 
to the marine Cete, which notion Hunter had already promulgated, 1 am inclined to 
think the skull’s development quite as much influences the position of the blow-hole 
than the reverse; but I differ most decidedly from Von Baer in not recognizing in the 
nasal sacs transformed turbinate bones. 
In this female Globiceps the outer orifice of the blow-hole, or naso-respiratory opening 
(figs. 8 & 2), is situate upon the summit of the forehead, vertically rather behind the 
eye, and, as in Delphinus, a trifle to the side of the median line. It is distant rear- 
wards 23 inches from the front of the labial prominence, and its outer angles each a 
foot from the eye. In the ordinary condition of the parts the lips of the aperture are 
closely approximated, leaving only a wide V-shaped transverse shallow sulcus, with 
slightly sinuous edges. This slit measures barely 2 inches from corner to corner, and 
its mid angle is directed backwards, When looked into by pressing forwards with the 
finger the front margin (as fig. 27, of Lagenorhynchus depicts), part of the anterior and 
lateral walls are seen to be thrown into innumerable fine striz or black-pigmented 
cuticular wriggly but parallel rug, which radiate centrally and forwards, These, the 
loose surrounding membrane, and deep fatty tissues give great elasticity to the parts, 
which, furthermore, from two obliquely transverse cushions or backwardly resilient and 
smooth fibro-cartilaginous oblong bodies, naturally close the orifice while the muscles 
are relaxed. 
At first intent I had described the spiracular cavity, and its sacs in detail, of our 
specimen. But as in my papers on Risso’s Grampus and the White-beaked Bottlenose, 
