54 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



have been less fortunate, the two oldest individuals having both been males, the younger ones, 

 on the contrary, females. 



As extremely advantageous to our purpose we must finally point out the fact that we 

 have been able to preserve in spirit the foetus at the middle of its uterine life, and the head of 

 the full-grown foetus, after they had been divided into several pieces. That Ave cannot do without 

 specimens with all the parts in their natural connection, not even in the examination of the 

 skeleton, if it is to be comparatively complete and accurate, will not be less true as to the 

 Cetaceans than as to any other family of animals. Without being able to examine such speci- 

 mens, we can neither form a correct idea as to the natural position of the pectoral limbs, or the 

 juncture of the ribs with the vertebral column and the sternum, or the relation of the pelvic bones 

 to the rest of the body. Nay, even when the bones have been subjected to the influence either of 

 drying or putrefaction, we cannot in all cases in full-grown individuals, and scarcely ever 

 when younger ones are concerned, obtain a correct idea of the form of single bones. The ossi- 

 fication proceeds very slowly, especially in the large whalebone-whales ; in several bones it is not 

 completed until very late ; in some, as in the carpus and the phalanges of the five fingers, 

 most probably never ; but as long as a bone is still partially cartilaginous, especially on its 

 surface or on its most prominent parts, generally speaking it will lose about as much of its 

 natural shape whether the cartilaginous parts have shrunk from having been dried or have 

 fallen off from putrefaction. 



We have made use of our rich materials with the best of our ability in order to give in this 

 essay a description as complete as possible of the external form of the Greenland whale^ the cavity 

 of its mouth and its whalebone, its skeleton, and its separate bones. Convinced, as we are, that 

 the peculiarities of the right-whale family are most distinctly visible in the Greenland whale, as • 

 contrasted to the rorquals, we have, in describing it, continually compared it with the latter 

 species ; but supposing 'at the same time that the Greenland whale and the Cape whale are 

 each representatives of a special group of the family of right-whales, we have not less continually 

 had our attention fixed on the Cape whale, at least as far as it conld be done through Cuvier's 

 description and figures. 



The Greenland whale must, no doubt, be considered one of the most colossal of all animated 

 beings. The much greater length of the large fin-whales is compensated for in it by a far more 

 considerable thickness. The humpbacks sometimes exceed it in length, but then they are 

 not so thick ; the South whales, at least the greater part of them, are inferior to it both in 

 length and in thickiress ; and among the toothed-whales only one animal is found which ma}^, 

 perhaps, in both respects, equal the North whale, i. e. the male cachalot. 



In order to answer the question as to the size the full-grown Greenland whale aiiay attain, we 

 shall here give a few statements. The extraordinarily experienced and trustworthy whale-fisher 

 Scoresby has, as is well known, stated, that the largest he ever saw were about sixty English feet 

 or about fifty-eight Danish feet long ; at the same time he is not sure but that they may exceed 

 that length. From this statement, certainly, no one would infer that every Greenland whale 

 which has not attained a length of fifty-eight feet or more is not full grown ; it is a matter of 

 course that among them, as among animals in general, larger and smaller individuals may be 

 found. But the materials in our possession seem to prove that the individual differences 

 in this respect may possibly be more considerable than might have been imagined. 



