244 DE. 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 \'on 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 1 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. 3 & 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 comer, and 

 its mid angle is directed backwards. When looked into by pressing forwards with the 

 finger the front margin (as fig. 27, oi Lagenorhynchus depicts), part of the anterior and 

 lateral walls are seen to be thrown into iiuiumerable fine striae or black-pigmented 

 cuticular wriggly but parallel rugae, which radiate centrally and forwards. These, the 

 loose surrounding membrane, and deep fixtty 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 G-ramjJus and the A\Tiite-beaked Bottlenose, 



