SCANDINAVIAN CETACEA. 301 



its width 15i", and its height 9|", and it must, therefore, have belonged to a whale of 

 unusually large size. If it was from the same animal as the shoulder-blade, it belonged to a 

 B. mysticetus that had strayed into the Baltic, but it may possibly have belonged to a Nortli 

 Caper.^ 



The case is similar with the vertebra that Professor C. J. Sundevall, according to 'Ofversigt 

 af Kongl. Wetensk. Akad. Forhandlingar' for 1861, p. 157, exhibited in that academy on 

 17th April, 1861. It is one of the caudal vertebrae provided with processes of a large Balæna. 

 It was found in the ground in digging at the Ladugardsland,^ in Stockholm, and is preserved 

 at the National Zoological Museum there, where I have had the opportunity of seeing it. It is 

 not known whether it had been carried to the place where it was found or not. 



Professor S. Loven, in his remarks on Crustaceæ'' found in Wettern and Wennern, men- 

 tions a rib preserved in the Orberga church, in Ostergothland, near Wettern, which is said to be 

 from a whale that, according to an old tradition, was stranded in the vicinity. I have received 

 some information in regard to this rib through Dr. H. Widegren. It is only a part of a rib, 

 about 3' long; its circumference, at the lowest end, is 6^". It is of a light grey colour, and very 

 well preserved, so that its surface, on the inner side, and below partly on the outside, is smooth 

 and shining. It is somewhat decayed by the air on the upper part of the outside ; its appear- 

 ance also indicates that it has not been in the ground for any great length of time, but that it 

 may have been in the water for a considerable period. As both the upper and the lower end 

 are missing, it is difficult to say to what species of whale it belongs. Its small calibre and 

 more rounded form, and its nearly equal width at both ends, seem to show that it is not one 

 of the anterior ribs, but probably one of the middle ones, as it is rather strongly curved. It 

 approaches, by its rounded form, most to the Swedenborgian whale ; its upper end denotes that 

 the rib has been more compressed and bent there than in the Balænopteræ. It probably 

 belonged to a Balæna, and possibly to the same apecies as the Swedenborgian whale. 



Linné mentions, in his 'Westgotha Resa,' p. 19, that there had been some "shin-bones of 

 3 feet in length in Forsheni church ;'' but they were not there when he visited the place. These 

 " shin-bones" were probably pieces of ribs of some whale. 



An OS petrosum of a "large species of whale" was, according to Professor A. Retzius,* 

 found in the ground near Kinnekulle, in Westergothland, in 1853. 



It is not known to what species the whale belonged that, according to E. Alrot's descrip- 

 tion of Gestrikland, was stranded at Nåtra, in Angermanland, in 1658. Part of the bones 

 were, at the time when the description was written, preserved in the parish of Gefie ; but I am 

 informed that they were destroyed during the fire in 1728. 



As the Nordcaper is described by older authors, for instance Martens, as smaller than the 

 Greenlaud whale, it does not seem probable that it has belonged to that species. 

 ^ One of the suburbs of Stockholm. 



' ' Ofversigt af Kongl. Vetensk. Akad. Foi-h.,' 1861, p. 305. 

 * Id., 1854., p. 111. 



