ON THE GREENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 53 



winter of 1859-60, near Holsteinsborg, and most carefully prepared at that place under the super- 

 intendence of Mr. Elberg, the administrator of the factory. Late in the autumn of 1860, after 

 this essay had been laid before the Society, it was forwarded to the keeper of the same museum. 

 With the skeleton followed several other parts of the same individual, all preserved in salt, namely, 

 the foremost and hindmost parts of each series of the whalebone, the penis, the eyes, those parts 

 of the skin in which the blow-holes and the external openings of the ears are situated, and, 

 finally, the entire larynx. 



3. The equally complete skeleton of a young individual of the female sex, twenty-two feet 

 four inches long. It was sent to the Royal Museum of Natural History in the autumn of 1857 

 by Mr. Olrik. The whole of the whalebone was still attached to the palatal surface, and the pelvic 

 bones, as also the larynx with the trachea, followed. 



4. A new-born cub of the female sex, which had been harpooned on the 6th of May, 1843, 

 by an English whale-fisher, near Godhavn, while it was accompanying the mother animal, and 

 which the captain of the whaler, when he visited this harbour, twelve days afterwards, 

 presented to Major Fasting, who again, as stated in our preface, presented it to the Royal 

 Museum. When it arrived at Copenhagen, in brine, in the autumn of the same year, its 

 length was thirteen feet, of which the head occupied four feet, or between two sevenths and 

 one third of the whole length. The skin has been stuffed, and is exhibited in the museum, as 

 is also the skeleton, which, in its present state, after having been dried, is only eleven feet 

 nine inches long, of which the head occupies three feet nine inches, accordingly almost one third. 

 The viscera were transferred by the administration of the Royal Museum at the time being to 

 the Zootomical-Physiological Museum. 



5. The head of an almost full-grown foetus of nearly the same size as the last named, viz., 

 three feet eight inches long. It was sent in brine by Captain Holboll in the year 1854, and the 

 greater part of it is now preserved in spirit in the Zootomical-Physiological Museum. 



6. A female foetus eight and a half feet long, the head two feet ten and a half inches long, 

 also sent down in brine by Captain Holboll, and now preserved, in portions, in spirit, in the 

 same museum. 



These materials for the study of the external and internal structure of the Greenland whale are, 

 comparatively speaking, extraordinarily rich, considering the fact that hitherto not even a single 

 complete skeleton of this remarkable animal has been at the disposal of naturalists. As to the 

 outward form, our observations have been almost entirely confined to the new-born specimen 

 preserved in brine ; and as to the viscera, our information is still deficient in more than one 

 respect ; but this cannot be said to be the case as regards the more solid parts, especially the 

 skeleton. 



It is a peculiarly favorable circumstance in this store of materials that it is composed of 

 individuals most different as to age and development — two skeletons of nearly full-grown 

 individuals, one of a half-grown one, a new-born individual, and a foetus in the last half of 

 uterine gestation. 



It is still to be added that, through the kindness of Professor Sundevall, one of us was per- 

 mitted, in the summer of 1842, to examine and ascertain the dimensions of a foetus sixteen 

 and a half inches long which is preserved in spiiit in the Museum at Stockholm, so that we 

 shall hardly say too much when we declare that the differences of age peculiar to this species 

 have, in almost all respects been made perfectly clear to us. As to the differences of sex, Ave 



