ON THE GREENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 107 



whales, especially in consequence of the great distance between their superior and inferior roots ; 

 but, it is less essential, whether the ring becomes completely ossified (as is most commonly the 

 case in the fin- whales), or remains cartilaginous in its outer part throughout the life of the animal 

 (as in the hump-backs). Of the two roots of the transverse processes, the superior, as our readers 

 may know, are never wanting, whereas the inferior are usually only found in the five middle 

 cervical vertebræ. Such is also the case in the Greenland whale ; yet traces of them have even in 

 some cases been discovered in the seventh cervical vertebra also (although in the hurap-back they 

 are wanting even in the sixth). But a complete ossification of the two roots, by which the 

 transverse processes become bony rings, does not take place in the Greenland whale in any of 

 the vertebræ, not even in the axis. 



These vertebræ of the Greenland whale agree in another respect with the corresponding ones, 

 both of the fin-whales and of the hump-backs — the transverse processes of the axis and those of 

 all the succeeding cervical and the first dorsal vertebræ, approach each other so closely on 

 either side, that all these processes assist one another in forming a point of attachment for the 

 first rib. But while this approximation is brought about in the fin-whales and hump-backs by 

 the ring-like transverse process of the axis being bent backwards over the succeeding transverse 

 processes, which are at all events only slightly turned forwards to meet it, the case is quite reversed 

 in the Greenland whale. For, in the latter, the transverse processes of the axis are directed only 

 very shghtly backwards, but those of the other cervical vertebræ, especially that of the seventh 

 cervical, together with that of the first dorsal, are turned very much in a forward direction 

 (see Plate II, fig. 3), and the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth cervical vertebræ being greatly 

 compressed, and the whole neck also being very short, these processes reach as far upwards 

 as the superior root of the transverse processes of the axis. All this anterior part of 

 the vertebral column has on this account a very different appearance in the Greenland whale 

 from that in the rorquals (see the adjoining woodcut, representing the seven cervical vertebræ, 

 together with the first dorsal vertebra of our largest Greenland whale skeleton from the right side, 

 thirteen times diminished, and the two following woodcuts in the next page and page 109, show- 

 ing these ankylosed bones from below and from above). Not less characteristic is the appearance of 

 the cervical region of the Greenland whale's vertebral column from the ankylosis of its individual 

 vertebra. Such an ankylosis of the cervical vertebræ, so com- 

 mon in the toothed whales that it is never wanting in them 

 as far as the two foremost ones are concerned, except in the 

 narwal, the beluga, and the platanista, is, on the contrary, so rare 

 in the rorquals, that we have never ourselves found any traces of 

 it in others among them, than in the little fin-whale, and that 

 even only in the Greenland variety (Tikagulik, B. rostrata 

 Fabr.), and in these more especially or only between the second 

 and third cervical vertebræ. In the Greenland whale, on the 

 contrary, the ankylosis of the cervical vertebræ is even more 

 complete than in the porpoises, the true dolphins, and the 

 hyperoodons. 



Considered more minutely, the ankylosis will be found especially marked in the following 

 places. In the ventral surface of the vertebræ it is complete between the atlas and the axis. 

 Between the latter and the four succeeding vertebræ the division becomes gradually distinguish- 



