206 REINHARDT ON 



of the preceding fourth cervical vertebra, so the posterior epiphysis of the fifth vertebra would 

 not only in time have become united with the middle piece, if the animal had grown older, but 

 an ankylosis of the contiguous epiphyses of the fifth and sixth vertebral bodies would also have 

 taken place during the process of ossification. But it may be doubted, whether the ankylosis 

 of the body of the seventh cervical vertebra with the other six, is to be considered as a conse- 

 quence of the increasing age of the animal, or whether an individual difference, independent of 

 age, does not prevail in this particular ; at all events, there is not any other reason to consider 

 the individual thrown ashore at Middelfart to be older than the one from Asnæs ; it must on 

 the contrary, be supposed to be younger ; for, in the Middelfart specimen, the epiphyses of the 

 vertebral bodies are much farther from being united with the middle pieces in the remaining 

 part of the spine, and especially in the dorsal region, than in the Asnæs dolphin, where the 

 growth of the vertebræ is all but completed. In the five foremost cervical vertebræ, the 

 arches are ankylosed partly by means of their processus obliqui, partly by the points of the 

 spines, though not exactly in the same manner in all individuals ; but the arches of the two 

 posterior cervical vertebræ are not united with those of the preceding ones in any of the three 

 individuals which I have been able to examine, and the ankylosis of the cervical vertebræ seems 

 to be fully as much advanced in the bodies themselves, as in the arches, contrary to what is 

 otherwise usually the case. There are also some peculiar characters in the transverse processes ; 

 in the atlas we find as usual a thick transverse process ; but the axis, which in the killers and in 

 the ca'ing-whales (at least in G. melas) is also furnished with a powerfully developed transverse 

 process, not much inferior in size to that of the first cervical vertebra, presents in our dolphin 

 only a slight trace of such a process in a projecting ridge ; this, however, as well as the well- 

 developed process itself of the allied forms of dolphins, must be supposed to correspond to both 

 the superior and inferior transverse processes of the succeeding cervical vertebræ. Such double 

 transverse processes are also found in our species, though only in quite a rudimentary condition 

 in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth cervical vertebræ ; the superior ones appear like thin, 

 vertically placed, osseous laminæ, subject to individual differences, that on the third cervical 

 vertebra being the largest; the inferior ones are more knob- or knot -like, but about 

 these, too, it holds true that they are hardly found quite similar in size and form in any 

 two individuals, and one or another of them may even sometimes be entirely wanting. As to 

 these last-mentioned processes, our dolphin may be said to have a middle place between the 

 killers, in which they have also the form of irregular osseous knobs, but are, however, 

 considerably larger than those of our dolphin, and the ca'ing-whale, in which they may almost be 

 said to have totally disappeared. But in the structure of the seventh cervical vertebra a striking 

 resemblance appears again between the ca'ing-whale and our species ; for this vertebra, which 

 has no inferior transverse process, is (like that of the ca'ing-whale) provided with a superior 

 transverse process turned obliquely forwards, several times longer and thicker than the pre- 

 ceding ones, whereas, in the killers, the same process is as rudimentary as those immediately 

 preceding it. Thus, generally speaking, and contrary to what appears to be the case in many 

 oiher parts of the skeleton, the cervical vertebræ resemble those of the ca'ing whale much more 

 than those of the killers, and the most essential and conspicuous difference between our dolphin 

 and the ca'ing-whale in this portion of the vertebral column is, properly speaking, limited to the 

 one already alluded to, which appears in the very different development of the transverse 

 processes of the second cervical vertebra. It must be left undecided how far our dolphin and 



