SCANDINAVIAN CETACEA. 243 



The superior maxillaries extend bebind the nasal bone. The right intermaxillary bone reaches 

 someAvhat further back than the left one, and neither of them touches the nasal bone. The upper 

 margin of the facial section arcuate. . The triangular area on the intermaxillarj^ bones, before the 

 blowers, rough, somewhat concave in the middle, convex forward, and on each side limited by a 

 deep furrow. Its width in front of the blowers 4i". Teeth ^zi, obtuse, and worn down. 

 Cervical vertebræ separate. Dorsal vertcbræ 11 ; lumbo-sacral vertebræ 10; caudal vertcbræ 22. 

 In all, including the 7 cervical vertebræ, 50 vertebræ. Processus spinosi inferiores 12. The 

 sternum consists of 3 bones; 4 pairs of the 11 pairs of ribs^ are costæ veræ. The carpus and 

 the metacarpus have 5 bones each. The fingers are 5, the thumb has 1, the fore-finger 5, the 

 middle finger 4, the 4th finger 3, and the little finger 3 phalanges. 



The Beluga, as it is called in Russian, is common in the northern parts of the Polar Sea, as 

 at Greenland, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, the northern and north-eastern coasts of Siberia, where 

 it sometimes runs up the mouths of the northern rivers (Pallas), and at the northern coasts of 

 North America ; it is therefore circumpolar. It thus does not properly belong to our Pauna. I 

 have not received any information of its being found off Norwegian Pinmark, but Quennerstedt 

 (' Dissertatio pro Gradu Philos.' May, 1862, p. 17) states that he has heard that it appears there 

 sometimes, probably during the migrations which it makes in winter, like all other toothed-whales. 

 It feeds principally upon fish, cephalopodes, and other marine animals. Pabricius and Pallas 

 state that fish is its food ; Ilolboll, according to Eschricht, adds Crustaceans and Cephalopodes ; 

 and a specimen that was caught in the Firth of Porth (Scotland) in 1815 had, according to 

 Neill and Barclay, been attracted there by the salmon, which it eagerly pursued. I was, never- 

 theless, informed at Tromso by a seaman, Avho had frequently visited the seas near Spitzbergen, 

 and had served as pilot on the Prench scientific expedition, and caught several belugas, that 

 he had never found anything but fucaceous vegetables ("tarre") in their stomach. 



of/i Gcmis. MoNODON, Liniic. 



Cetacea belonging to this genus are distinguished by having only one or two, more or less 

 developed, teeth in the anterior part of the upper jaw ; they are, with this exception, without teeth. 

 The transverse common opening for the blowers is on the upper side of the head, far behind the 

 point of the snout. The back is without fin, as in the preceding genus, to which it in many 

 respects approaches. The head, anteriorly, has much the same obtuse and convex form, and the 

 body is tolerably thick, with its greatest thickness about the middle. The mouth is small, and 

 the pectoral fins small and short. 



The skull resembles in form that of the next preceding rather than any other, but is more 

 oblique, at least in the older males, where that side of the upper jaw which carries the long 

 tusk is longer and wider than the other, and the hinder lateral angle on the superior maxillary 

 of tlie former projects further than that of the latter. The beak is rather short and obtuse, and 



' The ribs :>rc said to be sometimes 12 pairs. 



