210 REINHARDT ON 



If wc return again to the vertebral column, Ave still find the size of the vertebrae uniformly 

 increasinjT as we pass backwards in the lumbar region ; we saw in the dorsal, the vertebral 

 bodies becoming continually wider, and at the same time increasing in length, at least, 

 as far as the two or three hindmost ones, and even these are by no means shorter than those 

 nearest preceding them ; therefore the lumbar region is considerably longer than the dorsal 

 region, the proportion between them being about that of three to two, though the lumbar 

 are not more numerous than the dorsal vertebrae. It is almost superfluous to remark that 

 the vertebral arches become gradually smaller, and the spinal canal more narrow as the 

 vertebral bodies increase in size. Besides the character which the vertebral bodies possess in the 

 lumbar region in their long and massive form, they are in this species, as in many others, 

 distinguished by still another, of which, however, we have found slight traces also in the 

 posterior dorsal vertebrae ; for a longitudinal keel is found along the under side, which is already 

 distinguishable, though not very prominent, in the first lumbar vertebra, but very conspicuous in 

 the tliii'd. and which then is continued in the same manner in all the following lumbar vertebrae, 

 down to the very last, but again disappearing in the caudal vertebrae. It has already been 

 mentioned that the species treated of here is distinguished by the inferior height of all the 

 spines ; though these are not so low as in the narwhal, not to speak of the beluga, yet there is 

 at any rate a striking difference between the relative height of the spines of our species and those 

 of the killers, and especially those of the ca'ing-whales, and this difference in addition to the 

 considerable length of the vertebral bodies gives, especially to the lumbar vertebrae, a somewhat 

 dififerent appearance from that of the aUied forms^ just mentioned ; a comparison of the measure- 

 in other parts of the skeleton besides the skull. For in his Catodon Australis he has discovered an 

 asymmetry, not indeed in the sternum (where, however, it is also most probably to be found), but 

 in the pectoral fins and the ribs, the right pectoral and the right ribs being larger than the pectoral 

 and the ribs of the left side ; and of his genus Euphysetes {Kogia, Gray), he states that the middle 

 piece of the sternum (the foremost one had been lost), is asymmetrical. All the left ribs^ one only 

 excepted, being wanting in the only skeleton existing of this singular form, he has not been able to 

 inform us whether the asymmetry here, as in his Catodon, also extended to the ribs ; nor does he 

 state whether the pectorals are of different sizes, probably in consequence of their being both more or 

 less defective. (See ' Description of a new Sperm Whale, together with some Account of a new Genus 

 of Sperm Whales, called Euphysetes/ Sydney, 1851, pp. 5, 25, and 52.) But as regards the dolphins, 

 no one seems to have mentioned anything of the kind. The only statement that might contain 

 any evidence of an earlier observation of such a deformity is, as far as I know, to be found in a passage 

 of Eschricht's essay on the Ganges-dolphin [Platunista) , in the ' Transactions of the Royal Danish 

 Academy of Sciences' (Fifth series, 2nd volume). For here the "'sternal body" properly so-called, of 

 the skeleton described (a young female), is said to consist of two osseous lateral pieces, of which the 

 left one " is only half as large as the right ;" but Mr. Eschricht does not add anything to inform us, 

 whether he considers this difference in size as normal or accidental, or whether, generally speaking, 

 he considers it to be of any importance ; and he has overlooked or, at least, not mentioned, the fact, 

 that the manubrium, too, is somewhat, though not very much, deformed. [The description of the 

 skeleton of Catodon Australis quoted above, though published under the name of Wall, was really 

 written by the late Mr. W. S. M'Leay. See Dr. G. Bennett's ' Gatherings of a Naturahst iu 

 Australia,' 1860, p. 162.— W. H. F.] 



^ How great, or how small the similarity existing between the vertebræ of our species and those 



