4 



184 On the Vaagmcer and the Her ring -king. 



number of rays increases, and the height of the body and the 

 length of the head relatively to the total length diminish ; but 

 it can by no means be stated that this always and everywhere 

 holds good. In all probability U R. Grittii" is nothing but 

 an unusually large and old B. Banhsii. With regard to U R. 

 glesne " nothing can be said with certainty ; but under any 

 circumstances it is a doubtful species. Its small number of 

 fin-rays is also ascribed to the above-mentioned specimen from 

 Stavanger, which is rather smaller (9| feet); but this had 

 the caudal extremity truncated after the usual fashion of the 

 King of the Herrings. 



Beyond the northern seas, Regaled have been observed in 

 the Mediterranean (2?. gladius and telum), off the Bermudas, 

 New Holland, New Zealand, and the Cape ; but whether in 

 these cases we have to do with several distinct species it 

 is impossible at the moment to decide. That the genus is 

 tolerably cosmopolite is clear ; but whether its species are few 

 or many we cannot yet say. 



As regards the characteristic differences between the two 

 genera, which are certainly very nearly related, but which are 

 more than the mere results of an artificial classification resting 

 upon external characters, I may in conclusion indicate as a 

 splanchnological difference that the stomachal csecum, at least 

 in Regalecus Banksii, is continued far beyond the anus, 

 nearly to the extremity of the tail, along the right side of the 

 median partition. There are also some osteological differences. 

 The skeleton of the body is certainly extremely feeble in both 

 genera, but weakest in Regalecus. The number of vertebrae 

 is not very different (in the Vaagmcer I have counted 97 and 

 100) ; the vertebrae are on the whole shorter, stronger, and 

 more compressed in the Vaagmcer, and generally more elon- 

 gated in the King of the Herrings, apart from the differences 

 which prevail in these respects in different parts of the verte- 

 bral column* The number of interspinous bones in the Rega- 

 lecus is twice or three times that of the vertebras; in the 

 Vaagmser of course not twice as great. There also appears to 

 be this difference : the ribs are completely absent in the 

 Vaagmaer, while the King of the Herrings has true ribs upon 

 the vertebrse from the eighth to the twenty-fourth, the anterior 

 ones directed obliquely backwards, and the hinder ones gra- 

 dually acquiring a position more and more approaching the 

 horizontal. From the twenty-fifth vertebra these structures 

 are replaced by fine double hamiapophyses, which at first are 

 short and vertical, and then become longer and attain a more 

 oblique position. For more ample details upon these and 

 other characters of the skeleton I must refer to the third sec- 

 tion of my detailed memoir which has been so often mentioned. 



