152 ON A SKELETON OF A WHALE IN THE 



vertobrsB back of the dorsals are reversed. The cranium was 

 badly shattered when found, and was restored in some respects 

 very satisfactorily, but in others quite erroneously. The 

 mounting was done some fifty or more years ago, and the bones 

 are so easily broken, though much less fragile than those of the 

 Halifax specimen, and the rods used in mounting the separate 

 bones have so rusted that, while the curator hopes at some time 

 to remount the skeleton, he has not as yet ventured to under- 

 take the task. 



In the plate the upper figure shows the entire- skeleton 

 reduced to about one-fourteenth natural size, and the two lower 

 show most of the vertebras reduced to about one-third natural 

 size. 



Those interested in cetacean anatomy will find it profitable 

 to compare plate V with plate II, which shows the vertebrae of 

 the Halifax specimen. Like most of the remains of cetacea 

 found in pleistocene deposits, the Vermont specimen was dis- 

 covered in a bed of clay, " between eight and nine feet below the 

 surface," in a railroad cut. They were secured by Professor Z. 

 Thompson, who studied and described them, but witli very poor 

 illustrations, and after considerable deliberation placed the 

 animal in a new species, believing, and as recent investigations 

 show^ rightly, that while A-ery closely allied to the living white 

 whale, Delphinapterus leucas, it nevertheless presented differ- 

 ences of sufficient importance to warrant its separation specifi- 

 cally from the living form. 



The following named bones were found and are now pre- 

 served in this skeleton. The cranium was badly broken, but 

 enough fragments that could be pieced together were found to, 

 as Thompson says, '^ determine very nearly the form and entire 

 length of the head and of one side of the lower jaw, and of its 

 symphysis with the other side." 



From the alveoli it appears that the animal had seven teeth 

 in the lower jaw and eight in the upper on each side, or thirty 

 in all. Only nine of these were found. Forty-one vertebrrc: 



