NORTHERN SPECIES OF ORCA. 155 



wanting. Nor does it seem, that in the killer, described in 1851, by Professor Nilsson,^ which 

 I shall presently have to examine more particularly, either the longitudinal stripe, or the light spot 

 at the root of the pectoral fins were present, but on the other hand this specimen shows another 

 white spot on the back of the head which is not known ever to have been discovered before. 

 During a short stay at Lund, I examined the two figures drawn by the Rev. Mr. Lundberg from 

 Professor Nilsson's specimen, differing from each other only in a few unessential particulars, and 

 then I found this anomaly, also, that the large white spot behind the eye had still another, 

 but smaller one before it. Thus we see, that much as all the killers of the northern seas re- 

 semble each other as to their colours generally speaking, yet several smaller differences may 

 occur in them, especially relative to some white spots on the dark ground. How far tliese 

 differences must be considered, either as merely individual, or as the characters of different ages, 

 sexes, or species, we cannot at present stop to examine. 



It was a specimen considerably larger and fatter than that from which Schlegel's illustration 

 had been drawn. For this. Dr. Schlegel inform us, was only sixteen and a quarter feet long, yielding 

 scarcely forty guldens' worth (thirty Danish dollars) of oil, whereas the subject of the present dis- 

 sertation was twenty-one feet four inches long, and its blubber yielded 210 "potter-" (about forty- 

 five English gallons) of oil, to the value of eighty-seven dollars. Besides, our specimen being a male, 

 while Dr. Schlegel's was a female, I was not surprised that the extremely powerful bodily frame, 

 peculiar to this genus of Cetaceans, was still more conspicuous in this instance than in Dr. 

 Schlegel's figure, as not only the head was larger and more massive, and the body less 

 tapering behind, but all the fins were far more powerfully developed. This might even be said 

 of the pectoral fins, which showed already, in Dr. Schlegel's figure, a very characteristic breadth 

 in proportion to the pectoral fins of all the rest of the toothed-whales ; but still more, it might be 

 said of the caudal fin, and especially of the back fin, which had not, indeed, the slightest 

 resemblance to that of Dr. Schlegel's specimen, but, on the contrary, immediately reminded us of 

 the description given by Bishop Gunnerus, of the back fin of the so-called " Stourvang."^ In 

 Dr. Schlegel's illustration, the back fin has its point inclined in a backward direction, the anterior 

 margin being convex and the posterior concave, but in our specimen it arose quite vertically, 

 especially in its anterior margin ; the posterior edge was, indeed, slightly concave at its 

 base, but afterwards it arose almost vertically, meeting the anterior margin in an obtuse extremity 

 pointing straight upwards, and instead of its height being, as in Dr. Schlegel's figure, only 

 between one eighth and one ninth of the total length of the animal,* it was almost one fifth. 

 In these respects, the individual before us not only differed from Dr. Schlegel's figure, but 

 also from two other later illustrations, both of females, namely, the one mentioned above, by 

 Mr. Thomsen, and an outline drawn by Mr. Bloch, formerly a physician in South Greenland, 

 from a killer stranded there in 1844, copies of which have been left to Professor Nilsson, as well 

 as myself, by the late Dr. Pingel. Both these figures, Mr. Thomsen's as well as Mr. Blocli's, 

 seem to agree in all their measurements with Dr. Schlegel's. The only point in which this 

 cannot be said to be the case is the form of the head, and I cannot help believing that Schlegel's 

 figure has not been very successful in this respect, the snout having been represented too pointed, 

 and the upper jaw too low. 



^ ' Forhandlingar vid de Skandinaviske Naturforskarnes, 6te Mote,' i, 1851, p. 56. 



^ ' Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskabs Skrifter,' "éde. Deel. Kbhvn., 1768, p. 103. 



^ One foot eleven inches in sixteen feet three inches, or ~-^. 



