RECORDS OF MEETINGS 289 



SECTION OF BIOLOGY 



12 May, 1913 



Section met at 8 :15 p. m., Vice-President \Y. D. Matthew presiding. 

 The minntes of the last meeting of the Section were read and approved. 



The following programme was then offered : 



• 



J. Gordon Wilson and F. H. Pike, A Gexeeal View of the Fuxction 



OF THE Semicircular Canals. 



Roy C. Andrews, The California Gray Whale 



(Rhachianectes glaucus Cope) : Its 

 History, Habits, Osteolog}^ and 

 Systematic Relationship. 



Summary of Papers 



The paper by Professor Wilson and Dr. Pike, presented by Dr. Pike, 

 was partly published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Eoyal So- 

 ciety of London, 1912, Series B, Vol. 203, pp. 127-160. Other papers in 

 press or in preparation. 



Mr. Andrews 's conclusions were as follows : The external and internal 

 anatomy of Rhachianectes glaucus present certain characters which seem 

 to demonstrate that this animal is more primitive than any other existing 

 baleen whale. These may be summarized as follows : 



1. Long hairs scattered over the entire head and mandible and not 

 confined to certain regions as in other whales. 



2. Baleen plates very short, fewer in number and more widely spaced 

 than in other whales. 



3. Skull: 



a. Exposure of a side strip of the frontals upon the vertex of the 

 skull. 



h. Long nasal bones. 



c. Comparatively small squamosal having a straight outer edge. 

 This is noticeably different from the concave squamosal of existing 

 baleen whales and is a character of fossil genera. 



d. Proximal ends of the premaxillae very broad, superiorly placed 

 and articulating with the frontals by a deep, interdigitating suture. 



e. Orbital processes of the frontals anteriorly overlapped by the 

 edges of the maxillae, posteriorly with irregular margins and trumpet 

 shaped ; all well marked characters of certain fossil baleen whales. 



/. A well emphasized temporal ridge. 



