262 DR. J. MURIE ON THE ORGANIZATION OF THE CAAING WHALE. 
The softened condition of the pancreas prevented my making as satisfactory an exami- 
nation as I could have wished. It measured 11} inches, had a breath of between 4 and 
5 inches, and weighed 8} ounces. It occupied chiefly the interspace between the right 
border of the first stomach and the duodenal loop, being covered in great part by the 
omentum and gut. Its excretory duct, as mentioned, joined the hepatic. Drs. Williams, 
Jackson, and Turner nearly agree as to the proportions of this organ, its breadth under 
half its length; their specimens were younger than the above. 
Professor Turner’s observations' on the lacteal vessels and mesenteric glands bear the 
stamp of accuracy. I am at one with him regarding Abernethy’s’ supposed great bags. 
These are undoubtedly the product of decomposition ; for I satisfied myself, on studying 
several transverse sections in my specimen of G. melas, where considerable cavities 
existed, that these were solely due to disintegration of the interior tissue and not to be 
confounded with the lymphatic sinuses. I may further say, from long experience in 
such matters, that the mesenteric glands, next to the blood and brains, soonest spoil 
and internally decompose. The rectal cluster of glands mentioned by Turner are 
shown in my figure 73. 
The spleen, &c., I shall notice in connexion with the blood-reservoirs. 
V. RESPIRATION AND MACHINERY INVOLVED. 
1. Hyoidean and laryngeal Structures—The hyoidean arch (figs. 14, 15, & 16) con- 
sists of five separate elements, a single and two pairs of bones. The body, or more or 
less ankylosed thyro- and basihyals, is a broad and thickish crescentiform bone, whose 
widest diameter, from tip to tip, is 94 inches. From the anterior border there juts 
forwards a flat rostrum, basihyal, 1-7 inch wide, which terminally forks, and to the 
extremities of which the ceratohyals are affixed by a fibro-cartilaginous jomt. The 
latter bones are each some 2 inches long, 38; of an inch in diameter, subcylindrical, and 
very slightly curved. Another fibro-cartilaginous joint exists between the ceratohyal 
and the stylohyal bone ; and these are bent at a sharp angle to each other. Individually 
the stylohyal osseous rods are stout, thickish at the middle third, or 1} inch in diameter 
at this point, and with a length of 8} inches. 
The larynx has the common Cetacean formation of an elongate, nearly upright, and 
slightly efflect, tubular epiglottis and arytenoid cartilages. The latter are rather higher 
than the former’, and with an emarginate lip front forwards. The former is a broader 
semilune, the aperture being relatively small, and in the ordinary contracted condition, 
widest transversely. The tube is narrowest in the middle, and basally wide. The body 
of the thyroid cartilage is somewhat flat and with large expanded ale. These jut out 
! Pilot Whale, 7. c. p. 76. 
2 «Some particulars in the Anatomy of a Whale,” Phil. Trans. 1796, vol. xvii. p. 673. 
2 In the young specimen dissected at Boston, U.S., the arytenoid cartilages are mentioned as not rising 
quite so high as the epiglottis, 1. c. p. 165. 
