110 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



description, especially with a view of pointing out the specific differences between the Greenland 

 whale and the Cape whale, or the remaining species of right-^vhales. According to Cuvier's and 

 Schlegel's descriptions of the cervical vertebras of the Cape whale the difference is considerable, 

 especially in the following respects : 



1. The ankylosis comprised, in the Parisian specimen of the Cape whale, as in all our 

 specimens of the Greenland whale, all seven cervical vertebræ, but in the Leyden specimen of 

 the Cape whale only the four foremost. A difference which has not appeared in our North whale 

 skeletons, seems accordingly to occur in the Southern species in this respect, provided the Leyden 

 skeleton is really of the same species as that described by Cuvier. 



2. The spinous processes of the cervical vertebræ in the Cape whale are ankylosed in one 

 single ridge ; in all our North whale skeletons, some interruption takes place between them. 



3. In the Cape whale inferior transverse processes are wanting in all the four hindmost 

 cervical vertebræ, in the North whale only in the seventh. 



4. The superior transverse processes of the atlas and the axis are ankylosed in the Cape 

 whale, but not in the North whale.^ 



5. A difference occurring in the first dorsal vertebra, may perhaps most conveniently be 

 mentioned in this place in connection with the differences in the cervical vertebræ, we mean the 

 pecuharity that the long and flat transverse processes of the first dorsal vertebra, which in the 

 North whale are turned in a manner so characteristic obliquely forwards, to meet the transverse 

 processes of the two foremost cervical vertebræ, are not placed at all in this manner in the 

 Cape whale." 



In the dorsal region the length of the vertebræ uniformly increases, so that in the forty-four 

 and a half feet long skeleton it augments from two inches and three quarters to six inches and 

 three quarters. The bodies of the dorsal vertebræ do not increase so much by far in breadth. 



Of the dorsal vertebræ of the Greenland whale we have already examined the foremost 

 one in its ankylosis with the cervical vertebræ. It is almost as compressed in its disk-like form 

 ■as the last cervical vertebra ; in our forty-four and a half feet long skeleton its body occupied 

 only two inches and three quarters of the length of the spinal column, but then it was eight 

 inches high and ten inches broad. Seen from either end it had the form of a broad symmetrical 

 heart, its superior surface (the one forming the floor of the spinal canal) being excavated in the 

 shape of a groove in its middle line, whereas its inferior free surface was slightly carinated in a 

 longitudinal direction. The arch of this foremost dorsal vertebra arises in common with the 

 transverse processes on either side from the two uppermost corners of the body (see the 

 woodcut, page 107) ; and as its two lateral branches are far more slender than these processes, 

 the lateral branches of the arch may rather be said to issue from the transverse processes than 

 vice versa. Arising from these processes, the two lateral branches of the arch extend in an 

 ^ [In the British Museum is a specimen consisting of the ankylosed cervical vertebræ of a right- 

 whale, dredged up in 1860 near Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire. In all the above-mentioned characters it agrees 

 with the southern group of whales, rather than with Balæna mysticetus. It therefore probably belonged 

 to the " Nordkaper " or " Sarde" {Balæna biscayensis, Eschr.), so frequently spoken of in the first part of 

 this memoir. Although the hinder part of the united bodies is fully as large as in the Greenland whale, 

 the comparatively small size of the articular surface for the occipital condyles, indicates an animal with 

 a considerably smaller head. — (See J. E. Gray, 'Proc. Zooh Soc./ 1864, p. 591). — W. H. F.] 

 ^ Cuvier, ' Ossemens foss./ v, page 380. 



