200 REINHARDT ON 



osseous palate of Phocæna crassidens in the same placcj and to the same extent as in the 

 common porpoise.^ If this statement is to be interpreted according to the strictest sense of the 

 words, it would, perhaps, point out a difference between the fossil form and the dolphins from 

 our shores, for the vomer does not exactly resemble that of the common porpoise in any of the 

 crania. In the common porpoise the visible piece of the vomer is considerably broader, in 

 proportion to its length, than in our specimens ; and, besides, it is placed on a level with the bones 

 between which it appears, whereas in our dolphin it is seen lying deeper than the latter, as it 

 were, at the bottom of a fissure between them, when we look down from above upon the palatine 

 surface. But we suppose that Owen's words are not to be explained quite literally. It must 

 be remembered, that he does not compare his fossil form with the common porpoise ; but with 

 the great Northern dolphins, the killer, the ca'ing whale, the beluga, and the Grampus griseus, in 

 all of which the vomer does not appear at all on the palatine surface. It was, therefore, of little 

 importance to him to lay much stress on any slight possible difference between his fossil form 

 and the common porpoise, relative to their vomers ; but only, by a comparison taken from an 

 animal generally known, to state briefly and generally, that the vomer is visible on the palatine 

 sm-face in the fossil form, in opposition to what is the case in the other great Northern species, 

 and this opinion of ours is corroborated by his own figure, which does not seem to represent 

 the vomer as it appears in the common porpoise. When we take all this into consideration, we 

 shall hardly find sufiicient reason to derive, from what Owen states about the vomer of his 

 Phocæna crassidens, a difference between it and the dolphin thrown ashore on our coasts, the 

 less so, as individual peculiarities are to be found, at least in the latter, as to the appearance, 

 of this bone, which must render it very unsafe to found any characters upon it. Por it 

 is only in the dolphins stranded at Middelfart and Refsnæs, that the vomer appears in the 

 manner described above ; not the slightest portion of this bone appears on the palate of the very 

 old individual thrown ashore on the southern side of Asnæs. 



The large powerful teeth with which our dolphin, as well as the killers, is provided have 

 caused that the lower jaw, not less than in the latter, is distinguished by a massive thickness and 

 weight, forming a striking contrast to its slender structure in the ca'ing-whales. The difierence 

 between our dolphin and the ca'ing-whale is so great in this respect, that the lower jaw of 

 the individual stranded at Refsnæs weighs almost twice as much as the lower jaw, one inch 

 longer, of a Faroe ca'ing-whale ; the former being about four pounds, the latter only two 

 pounds and one eighth. It is, however, not only by its great weight and thickness that the lower 

 jaw reminds us of the loM^er jaw of an Orca, also in its shape it more resembles the 

 latter, than the lower jaw of a ca'ing-whale. If we look at it from the side, we shall find 

 that the inferior edges of its rami are almost straight, as in the Orcas ; whereas the 

 same edge of the lower jaw of the ca'ing-whale is very much curved, so as to describe 

 an arc with the convexity turned upwards, the uppermost point of which is found nearly 

 below the posterior extremity of the dental row, so that the jaw, when placed on a level 

 surface, only rests on two points, that is to say, quite at the posterior extremity, and in 

 front at the point where the symphysis commences. This same cm'vature is also found in the 

 lower jaw of Gramjms grisens, and further in that of the beluga {Delphinapterus leucas), and 

 partly also in that of the narwhal {Monodon monoceros) ; thus, it seems to be characteristic of the 



^ ' Hist, of British Fossil Mamm. and Birds,' p. 518. 



