ON THE GREENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 1S7 



description that in some respects there is no shght resemblance between the vertebral column of 

 the Greenland whale and that of the Cape whale. Thus, when it is stated, that in the Cape whale 

 the five or six of the last articular processes are almost as high as the spinous processes, with 

 which, in each vertebra, they form a three-lobed prominence, this is evidently the same cha- 

 racteristic position of these parts which has been described above in the Greenland whale, in the 

 three or four last lumbar vertebræ and all those caudal vertebræ in which these processes 

 are still to be found, and from this we can therefore hardly derive any special character; and, 

 when fiuther it is stated, about the fifteen pairs of ribs of the Cape whale, that the two foremost 

 and the four last are not attached to the bodies of the vertebræ but only to the transverse 

 processes, it follows, of course, that all the intermediate ones are joined to the body of the same 

 or the preceding vertebra. 



The sternum of the large Cape whale skeleton in the Paris Museum seems, according to the 

 figure given of it (loc. cit., fig. 11), to difi'er from all our North whale sternums, inasmuch that 

 it is terminated posteriorly in a straight edge; but, perhaps, it ought to be more closely 

 examined to ascertain whether the obtuse hinder point may not have been knocked off. 



Of the anterior extremities of the Greenland whale, the scapula has already been described 

 and figured by Cuvier,^ from a specimen in the Paris Museum, supposed to belong to this 

 species. Like that of the Cape whale, it can immediately be distinguished from those of the 

 rorquals and the hump-backs, by its considerable height, quite disproportionate to its breadth, 

 the former measured from the middle of the glenoid cavity to the middle of the convex base, 

 the latter by a straight line between the two angles which this convex margin forms with the 

 anterior and posterior ones ; again it may be distinguished from that of the Cape whale by being 

 not only still higher in proportion to its breadth than the latter, and by having further a much 

 longer acromion, but especially by having, besides this, a very distinctly developed coracoid. 

 It is true, that neither the scapula of any of our Greenland whale skeletons, nor the four 

 other additional specimens that have been at our disposal, are so high, comparatively speaking, 

 as the one figured by Cuvier. But it is proved distinctly enough by a comparison of our 

 different specimens, that considerable individual difi'erences are to be found in the proportion 

 between the height and breadth of this bone. 



As Cuvier has given several measurements of the scapula of his Cape right-whale, we shall 

 here give the corresponding ones of those of our forty-four and a half feet long Greenland whale 

 skeleton for comparison. 



' Loc. cit., fig. 8. 



