82 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



of the whole number of laminæ necessitates finally a corresponding strength in the structure of 

 the bones of the narrow upper jaw, and still more in that of the occiput, to which the upper jaw 

 is attached horizontally, and which therefore must support the whole weight of this enormous, 

 bone itself, and of both sides of baleen. 



The palate becomes more and more arched during the growth of the animal, though by no 

 means in the same proportion as the laminæ increase in length. In the newborn specimen, 

 the longest blades of which were four inches in length, the highest part of the palate was about 

 four inches removed from a horizontal line between its two extremities ; in the half-grown indi- 

 vidual, of which the longest laminæ were about three feet (thirty-six inches and a half) long, the 

 height of the palate had increased to nearly two feet (twenty-three inches), and in our forty-four 

 feet and a half long skeleton, of which the longest laminæ yvere eleven feet long, the height of the 

 palate was scarcely four feet. That the height of the palate in the newborn whale is almost equal 

 to the length of the whalebone, in the half-grown whale is only two thirds, and in the full-grown 

 one but little more than one third thereof, may be readily explained by the fact, that the Jaminse, 

 while growing, are turned in a more outward direction, which is indicated, partly by the two sides 

 of the palate to which they are attached gradually increasing in steepness, assuming an outward 

 instead of a downward direction, and partly by the rami of the lower jaw deviating continually 

 more and more from each other. Most probably it is only in the male, that the palate is so 

 strongly arched, as in our two largest skeletons, and not in the female, the whalebone of which 

 according to the description given above, seems to be considerably shorter, in comparison. That 

 the convexity of the palate of the Greenland vvhale skull in the British Museum, described and 

 figured by Cuvier, is so much smaller than that of our specimens, though, in other respects, it 

 has every mark of having belonged to a full-grown individual, may be interpreted on the sup- 

 position that this individual was a female. 



As the curvature of the upper jaw may already be discovered in the newborn Greenland whale, 

 and according to Cuvier's description and figure, also in the newborn Cape whale, while it never 

 becomes easily distinguishable in the comparatively broad upper jaw of the rorquals, it becomes 

 in itself a sure mark of distinction of the right-whales, generally speaking ; and as its height is 

 pretty uniformly proportional with the length of the whalebone, the different degree of its 

 development may at the same time, serve as indications of age and, as we presume, also of 

 sex. As to the distinction of the various species of right-whales, it seems, on the contrary, 

 that we must rather consider the different form, than the different degree of the curvature of the 

 upper jaw. 



We are here, of course, alluding to the distinguishing mark of the South whales pointed 

 out by Cuvier and Schlegel, that the side-edges of their upper jaws, in their posterior parts, 

 suddenly follow a downward and outward direction, while those of the Greenland whale, descend 

 gradually downwards. This, as is well known, is caused by the peculiarity that, especially in 

 the Cape whale, the orbital process on either side, both that of the superior maxillary bone 

 and that of the frontal bone, instead of being directed almost completely backwards, as is the case 

 with the Greenland whale, point rather transversely outwards, so that they almost form a right 

 angle with the middle line of the skull. But this distinguishing mark, so sure and easily to be 

 applied in older individuals, will not hold true when applied to the cranium of very young 

 specimens. In the newborn Greenland whale, the orbital process, at least of the superior maxillary 

 bone, points distinctly backwards, so that we find already the gradual descent of the lateral- 



