293 LILLJEBORG ON THE 



The larger pelvic bones are long and narrow, and very much resemble those of B. rostrata. 

 They have, however, the hinder process somewhat longer. There is an obtuse angle at one 

 side of their middle piece, or corpus, and their anterior and posterior processes bend towards the 

 opposite side, so that the bone thereby becomes concave. The anterior process is somewhat 

 longer and narrower than the posterior. They were, on the skeleton of 43' length described by 

 Rudolphi, 9i" long in a straight line, without the cartilage at the ends. The scapida is very con- 

 siderably broader than long, with the upper edge strongly arcuate, and the anterior and posterior 

 corners obtuse. The acromion is altogether wanting, but there is sometimes a rudiment of a 

 processus coracoideus/ The os humeri has the caput almost terminal, and in a but slightly 

 oblique position. The ulna is perceptibly both narrower and shorter than the radius. Its ole- 

 cranon has a projecting short, truncated, conical form, with a conical extension of cartilage. Both 

 radius and ulna are curved somewhat backwards, particularly the latter.^ The carpal bones are 5. 

 The two middle fingers, which are of an unusual length, have, according to Eschricht, 9 phalanges 

 each, and the 1st and 4th each 3 phalanges. 



This whale has, as far as is known, very seldom been obtained on the coasts of Scandinavia, 

 and generally very seldom near Europe. It is oftener found on the coasts of Greenland. Accord- 

 ing to the statement of Governor Christie, mentioned by Eschricht,^ in the early part of April, 

 1846, a pregnant female, about 47' long (45' Norwegian measure) was stranded on an Island east 

 of Pao and Karmo, in Stavanger district (Norway). It had commenced bringing forth the foetus, 

 which was 14^' long, and had probably died from the difficulties connected with parturition, and 

 afterwards floated ashore. It was accompanied by two other whales, probably the male and a young 

 one. I know, with the exception of this specimen, only one that has been stranded on a Scandinavian 

 coast, viz., the one to which the bones found in the sand at the mouth of the Heljarp river,* in Scania, 

 belonged, if they, as they probably do, belong to this species, and not to that of the Cape, sup- 

 posing the latter to be really distinct. Eschricht mentions, besides the above, two others obtained on 

 the coast of Europe, viz., the one described by Rudolphi, which was stranded in November, 1834, 

 at Vogelsand at the mouth of the Elbe, and one that was stranded at Berwick, in England, in 



^ Eschricht says in his " 5th Afhandling," p. 534, that " Spina scapulæ og Akromion ere kun 

 meget svagtantydede (i mange Individer mangler den sidste endog ganske) ; Processus coracoideus 

 findes ikke." The figure of the shoulder-blade of this whale given by him in the same ' Afhandling,' 

 p. 316, does not show any sign of acromion, but a conspicuous rudiment of the processus coracoideus. 

 By comparing this with what is stated by the same author in his 6th ' Afhandling,' p. 99, in saying : 

 " eg at paa Skulderbladet ikke alene findes det sædvanhge bile Spor af processus coracoideus," Scc, we 

 see clearly that there must be a mistake in the first-quoted paragraph. 



The lower arm-bones found at Heljarp differ somewhat, by their more narrow and elongated form, 

 from the same boues of the skeleton oi M. boops in Lund; but as, according to Nilsson, they belonged 

 to the same skeleton as the before-mentioned fragment of the skull and atlas, they must belong 

 to this species, or at least to a species closely allied. They are so broken, and their edges so 

 decayed by the air, that their original form is partly lost. The olecranon seems to have resembled the 

 same part of Megaptera. The lower arm-bones of the skeleton of the Humpback whale from the Cape 

 seem, from G. Cuvier's figures^ to have been more slender than those of the skeleton at Lund, and we 

 find m this more correspondence with the bones from Heljarp. 



'Zool. Anat. Phys. Untersuchungen iiber die nordischen Wallthiere,' p. Yal. 



* These bones were first mentioned by A. J. Retzius in his ' Fauna Suecica/ p. 50. 



