26f4 REINHARDT ON 



Vcary between fifty-eight^ and sixty, and with this number agree the greater part and the best 

 authenticated of the earlier enumerations of the vertebrae of this species ; in some of our Northern 

 Orcas, finally, we find fifty-two, in others fifty-four or fifty-five vertebrae. In this respect, also, 

 our dolphin agrees with its kindred species ; nay, its vertebrae are even a little less numerous 

 than those of the Orcas themselves ; for in the individual found at Middelfart, we count fifty-one 

 vertebrae, the Refsnæs specimen had altogether fifty. So small a number of vertebrae 

 as this is otherwise only found, within the group of the dolphins, in the beluga, and 

 in the platanista,^ which deviates in so many respects from the common type. There is 

 some reason to suppose that of the numbers just mentioned, the latter (fifty) will most 

 likely be the normal one, whereas the former seems only to be owing to a supernumerary 

 vertebra, which in the Middelfart dolphin has accidentally increased the number of the dorsal 

 vertebrae beyond the usual number. Por in the skeleton of the individual found at Refsnæs, the 

 caudal vertebrae are not, indeed, all present ; but if we compare this skeleton with the one from 

 Middelfart, having all its caudal vertebrae, we may easily be satisfied that no more than the last 

 three of them are wanting in the former skeleton, and that the caudal vertebrae have originally 

 been present in both individuals in the same number, viz., twenty-three :^ in front of the caudal 

 vertebrae, on the other hand, we find altogether twenty-eight vertebrae in the Middelfart 

 dolphin, but only twenty-seven in the one from Refsnæs. A more minute examination will show 

 that the number of the lumbar vertebræ is the same in both individuals, but that the Refsnæs 

 dolphin has ten pairs of ribs, and accordingly as many dorsal vertebra, whereas in the Middelfart 

 dolphin an eleventh dorsal vertebra is to be found behind the tenth, and to this additional 

 vertebra an eleventh rib belongs, lying loose in the flesh on the right side, to which we find no cor- 

 responding rib in the left side, a defect which, according to Professor Eschricht's express assurance, 

 is original. The question will therefore be, whether we are rather to suppose that one dorsal 

 vertebra is wanting in the Refsnæs dolphin, or that a supernumerary one exists in the 

 Middelfart specimen ; but as, generally speaking, it is certainly more frequently the case that 

 supernumerary vertebræ are to be found in this part of the spine than that any should he 

 wanting, and as the circumstance of the eleventh dorsal vertebra in the case treated of being only 

 provided with one rib, seems further to speak in favour of the first supposition, and as, finally, I 

 have been informed that no more than ten pairs of ribs are to be found in the skeleton of the 



^ In the skeleton, where this number of vertebræ is counted, the last caudal vertebra is evidently 

 ankylosed with the penultimate into one bone, which has been reckoned here as two vertebræ ; if it is 

 only counted as one, the whole number will, of course, be only fifty-seven. 



^ The Hyperoodontes or Ziphioideæ have, indeed, still fewer vertebræ ; but they do not, accord- 

 ing to my opinion, belong to the dolphins at all, but, in analogy, with the cachalots {Physeteres) 

 constitute a group by themselves, equally distinct from the latter, and from the dolphins properly so 

 called, all within the great section or sub-order of the toothed-whales ; and when we leave these 

 unnoticed, our statement, as expressed above, is correct. 



^ I consider the hindmost of the two vertebræ to which the first chevron bone (hæmapophysis) is 

 affixed, to be the first caudal vertebra, as is also done in the essay by Eschricht and myself on the 

 Greenland whale, published by this Society. In his earlier essays upon the Cetaceans, and especially 

 in the one on the Ganges dolphin, Professor Eschricht has included the foremost of the two said 

 vertebræ among the caudal vertebræ, whereas, according to the mode of computation followed here, it 

 must be called the hindmost lumbar vertebra. 



