68 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



Thus, as we may venture to state that in all rorquals, humpbacks as well as fin-whales, the 

 two sets of whalebone meet in the mesial line on the anterior tip of the palate, we might feel the 

 more incHned to suppose that the same was the case with the baleen of the right-whales, and 

 especially with that of the Greenland whale, as Zorgdrager has even given a special illustration 

 to show the position of the baleen in this species,^ in which the two sets are quite distinctly 

 seen to meet in front, and neither Captain Scoresby nor any other person of authority on the 

 subject has made any objection to the correctness of this illustration. 



Nevertheless, the condition of the skin of the palate in the newborn Greenland whale showed 

 distinctly enough that the two sets of whalebone, far from meeting each other at the tip of 

 the jaw, on the contrary receded from each other, each of them terminating in a point (Plate I, 

 fig. 7). In the individual twenty-two feet long, the whalebone of which was still attached to 

 the palate, we also found this observation completely confirmed, and having finally, in 1860, 

 received with the full-sized skeleton the foremost and hindmost parts of both sets of whalebone 

 of the same individual still adhering to the gum or matrix, and finding our observations confirmed 

 in this case also, it must be considered a matter of fact that the two sets of whalebone of 

 the Greenland whale are completely separated in front, contrary to what has been stated by the 

 experienced whalefisher Zorgdrager. That this character is not peculiar to the North whale alone, 

 but to the riffht-iohales in general in opposition to the rorquals, is quite probable in itself, but is 

 further corroborated by its having been as it seems indicated in Cuvier's small figure of the newborn 

 Cape-whale in his " Ossemens Fossiles," though he makes no mention of the fact in his text. 



As to the relative position of the two sets of whalebone at their posterior ends just before 

 the gullet, it can, as far as the rorquals are concerned, be proved with the same certainty that 

 they here remain separated from each other, as that they meet at the tip of the jaw.^ That the 

 same is the case in the Greenland whales, that even here no connection exists between the pos- 

 terior ends of the two sets of whalebone, has been most clearly proved to us by the complete 

 sets of whalebone of the twenty-two feet long individual, as well as by the extremities of those of 

 the full-grown animal. 



The foremost enlarged part of the naked skin of the palate, especially as far as it is situated 

 in front of the anterior ends of both sets of whalebone, evidently corresponds to that part of the 

 palate which in the rorquals is situated before the coalesced sets of baleen ; and indeed, we see 

 in the newborn whale two blind pits hke those described in a former essay,^ and supposed 

 according to our interpretation of them to be traces of the Stensonian ducts, only that they 

 have a different form, being narrow transverse fissm^es on either side with their concavity turned 

 forwards. 



Passing to the consideration of the pulps of the whalebone, and comparing them with those 

 of the rorquals, we shall, in this respect too, discover rather an interesting difference. 



In every whalebone whale the mucous membrane of the palate, as far as it is clothed by an 



^ ' Bloeyende Opkomst der Aloude en Hedendaagsclie Groenlandsclie Visschery,' &c., Amsterdam, 

 1720, p. 81. In the German translation printed in Leipsic, 1723, p. 129. 



" Ravin's figure, 1. c., shows the two sets of whalebone of the fin-whale, examined by him, meeting 

 both before and behind. By this latter erroneous statement the importance of the former correct 

 one is, no doubt, not a little diminished. 



^ ' Kong. Dansk. Videnskab. Selskab. Nat. og Math. Afh.' 12te Deel, p. 360. 



