ON THE GREENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 



129- 



dinarily elongated, and with the comparatively very slender anterior extremities of the fin-whales, 

 those of the Greenland whale have no resemblance ; for in 

 proportion to their length they deserve to be called broad, as 

 well as heavy. 



Of the arms of our two large Greenland whale skeletons 

 those of the forty-four and a half feet long one were much 

 better preserved than those of the other, especially as to 

 the carpus and the remaining parts still cartilaginous. We 

 shall therefore here give a figure of the left arm of this 

 skeleton twenty-four times diminished.^ 



The humerus is very short and thick, almost as broad as 

 long (as 4 to 5), its anterior margin (the arm is supposed to 

 be hanging straight downwards) is very slightly concave, its 

 posterior one has an exceedingly deep concavity, the head is 

 only loosely attached to the flat glenoid cavity of the scapula, 

 admitting of very free motion ; the tubercuhim is placed 

 almost at the same height as the head, and only separated 

 from it by a slight depression. The two articular surfaces at 

 the distal end form an obtuse angle with each other, that 

 of the ulna ascending obliquely upwards towards the posterior 

 edge. 



The forearm is considerably longer than the humerus (as 

 23 to 16) ; its two bones are of almost equal length, the ulna, 

 however, a little longer. The radius has an anterior, almost 

 straight, and a posterior concave, margin, so that it is thinnest 



in the middle, where its breadth is only a third, while at its lower extremity it is equal to half, its 

 length. The ulna is much thinner, especially in its upper third, which is very concave pos- 

 teriorly. Its breadth is here only one fifth of the length. These bones are, on the whole, both 

 of them compressed, as in the Cetaceans generally. In the middle they are somewhat separated 

 from each other, whereas they are quite contiguous above and below. In conformity with the 

 above-mentioned direction of the two articular surfaces in the humerus, the superior end of the 

 ulna is posteriorly considerably higher than the radius, and it is here prolonged into an olecranon, 

 very prominent, but compressed in the same way as the rest of the bone, in consequence of which 

 the deep excavation of the posterior margin of the humerus, as well as that of the ulna itself, 

 appears still deeper. In the articulation with the humerus a synovial capsule is inserted for each 

 of the^ bones of the forearm ; but that the mobility in their articulation must be most limited 

 may be perceived immediately from their articular surfaces being almost flat, if it were not 

 already shown by the compressed form of the bones. Not only the radius, but the ulna 

 also, Avidens considerably at the distal extremity ; and though they are totally ossified 



^ The humerus is covered with abnormal osseous protuberances, by which it is very much 

 deformed; as to this bone we must therefore refer our readers to the figure of the forty-seven 

 and a half feet long skeleton (Plate II), in which the carpus, however, has been copied from the 

 woodcut above. 



17 



