126 ESCHRICIIT AND REINHARDT 



belonged to a Greenland whale or to another large species. We may, however, always find it 

 possible to do so, as the alterations of the form of the different parts of the vertebræ neither take 

 place in the same degree, nor do they follow each other according to the same order, as in the 

 other species. The vertebral bodies increase in size in the rorquals, as in the Greenland 

 whale, up to the first caudal vertebra, and then again decrease, but in the former their cir- 

 cumference at the same time becomes larger both absolutely speaking, and especially in pro- 

 portion to the remaining parts of the vertebræ ; the transverse processes, on the contrary, do 

 not become nearly so prominent. The anterior articular processes ascend in all the rorquals, as 

 in the Greenland whale, gradually from the transverse processes upwards on the arches, where, 

 however, they arrive much earlier, in the fin-whales already in the third or fourth dorsal 

 vertebra, and, generally speaking, they also clasp more closely round the preceding spinous 

 process. Of the ribs, the two foremost pairs are attached in the same manner in the rorquals as 

 in the Greenland whale ; the third and fourth pairs have also, in the rorquals, a neck ; but in the 

 succeeding pairs this neck is wanting, and the articular surfaces on the transverse processes of the 

 corresponding vertebræ do not so much resemble those cotyloid cavities which, in the Greenland 

 whale, are found on the inferior surface of the transverse processes of the middle dorsal vertebræ, 

 but they are more similar to those, not concave, articular facets which are to be found in the 

 outer margin of its two most posterior ones. 



Unable as we are, therefore, to give any distinguishing mark common to all the dorsal, 

 lumbar, and caudal vertebræ of the Greenland whale, in opposition to those of the rorquals, yet it 

 will hardly ever be found impossible to determine whether a vertebra belongs to a rorqual 

 rather than to a Greenland whale, or the reverse. The question is only, whether in the latter case 

 we shall also always be successful in deciding, whether it does not rather belong to another species 

 of right- whale, and this question we are at present unable to answer. In order to answer it in 

 a satisfactory manner, it would probably be necessary to have complete skeletons of the different 

 species placed before us, in such a way, as would admit of a free examination from all sides of 

 every single bone of either of them. Of the vertebral column of the Cape whale, Cuvier has 

 given us figures, besides of the ankylosed cervical vertebræ, of the fourth and eleventh dorsal, 

 the first lumbar, and the first caudal vertebra.^ This circumstance has caused us to prefer 

 the corresponding ones in the vertebral column of the Greenland whale, in our selection of the 

 woodcuts for the illustration of the text above. If we compare these vertebræ with each 

 other, it will undoubtedly be found that they are more or less different, even in every 

 single part of each of the vertebræ, and that in form as well as in the proportions of the 

 different parts ; but to take special characters for each of them from these differences would be to 

 raise a structure on too uncertain a foundation. We shall only direct the attention of our 

 readers to what we have pointed out before, namely, to the less massive form of the vertebræ of 

 Greenland whale, generally speaking, and more especially of its spinous and articular processes. 

 In Cuvier's ' Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles,' this part of the skeleton of the whalebone- 

 whales has not only been treated very briefly, but partially, no doubt, also rather carelessly, 

 and in particular, we cannot think but that the statement (quarto edit., p. 379), that all the 

 spinous processes have a forward inclination (inclinées en avant) must only be a slip of the pen, 

 as it is completely at variance with the figures, nevertheless, it will be clear from Cuvier's 



' See figs. 14, 15, 16, and 17, in the often-quoted plate ia ' Recli. sur les ossem. foss.' 



