NORTHERN SPECIES OF ORCA. 181 



Koren immediately informed me, that, indeed, all the teeth of the two skeletons are closed at the 

 i-oots, and the foremost worn off even in a considerable degree, but that he regretted to be unable 

 to tell me with certainty, whether these two skeletons belonged to males, as he had not seen 

 the sexual organs himself. " The fishermen who brought the skeletons," he writes, " told me 

 that they were those of males ; but I am sorry to say that experience has proved that their state- 

 ments are not always to be relied upon." 



After having received this information, I had almost come back to my former doubts ; for 

 the examination of the Bergen skeletons seemed scarcely to have given any result than this, that 

 a female killer can be full-grown, when its skeleton is scarcely fifteen feet long, as I already knew 

 from the skeleton of Mr. Bloch's specimen that it may be, when it is sixteen and a half feet long. 

 But, fortunately, Dr. Koren also received from the fishermen along with the two skeletons one of 

 the pelvic bones, of which he has been kind enough to send me a figure of the natural size. Like 

 those represented above, it is here given at a quarter of its natural size, and thus we leave it to 

 the reader's judgment, how far I am right in con- 

 sidering it as a decisive proof in favour of the statement 

 of the fishermen. It is true that it is not so thick by far 

 as the pelvic bones of Mr. Benzon's or Professor Nilsson's 

 specimens, nor does it quite resemble them, especially 

 in the anterior third ; but being of an individual so 

 much smaller, it could not well be expected to be fully 



as massive, nor as belonging to another species to have the same form, and yet, on the other 

 hand, it has still far less resemblance to all the pelvic bones oi female killers known to me, 

 especially in the hindmost two thirds, where it is far thicker and more strongly curved. This 

 will be seen when it is compared with the three pairs of slender pelvic bones among those sent 

 from the Faroe Islands, and with those of Mr. Thomsen's specimen ; and what seems to 

 me to settle the question, the same is also seen when it is compared with the pelvic bones of Bloch's 

 skeleton (woodcut p. 177). It is not only very unlike the latter in form, but, at the same time, 

 both larger and thicker, although this skeleton is that of a still larger low-finned female killer. 

 So let us give honour to the words of the fishermen, this time, at least ! These two Orca skeletons, 

 only fifteen or sixteen feet long, and yet full-grown, must, therefore, really be supposed to be 

 those of males, and it is now proved, that a species of killer exists in the northern seas, the males 

 of which are full-grown, at a length of about fifteen or sixteen feet. It must be different from 

 the " Stour-vang," the male of which is represented in the Museums of Copenhagen and Lund, 

 and whose skeletons have a length of nineteen and a quarter, or twenty and a half feet. So far, 

 I must declare myself to be of the same opinion as Dr. Koren and Professor Lilljeborg. The 

 correctness of that opinion is undoubtedly also confirmed by the circumstances already pointed 

 out by Professor Lilljeborg, that the type of the larger species (Professor Nilsson's specimen) 

 has twelve pair of ribs and six phalanges in the second finger, whereas, both the tj^pes of the 

 smaller species have only eleven pairs of ribs, and one or two phalanges less in that longest 

 finger. 



Granted, then, that Professor Nilsson's specimen, on the one hand, and the two Bergen 

 specimens on the other, are types of two different species of northern killers, it now remains to 

 determine, as far as possible, in the instance of any other known specimen, whether it belongs 

 to the one or the other of these species. 



