4:>() Remarks on Miscellaneous Subjects. 



ed regarding this interesting species, and unfortunately the 

 two preserved by Colonel Powney, (the female in particular,) 

 are so injured by the manner in which they are prepared, 

 as to render it difficult to glean much information from 

 them. 



The Cetacea, of all animals, are those which exhibit the 

 widest range of analogies with other classes. Their form, 

 and the element they inhabit so closely correspond with 

 those of fishes as to induce ordinary observers to consider 

 them as belonging to that class, and to regard it as an 

 absurdity in naturalists to place them in any other. From 

 the fact of their living in the ocean and the large rivers, 

 in which their motions are performed by fins, it is difficult 

 to conceive that they present a skeleton corresponding with 

 that of Mammalia, that the pectoral fins present an os hume- 

 rus, a radius and«w ulna, bones of the carpus and phalanges 

 of the fingers, the latter corresponding both in the number 

 of fingers and articulations with the bones of the human 

 hand. Nor can ordinary observers, unacquainted with na- 

 tural history, be made to understand, without a doubt as to 

 the credulity of naturalists, that these animals which though 

 consigned to inhabit the ocean, breath elastic air by means 

 of nostrils and lungs, the same as land animals, and like 

 them would be drowned if prevented from rising above the 

 surface to respire. The male Gangetic porpoise is five feet 

 in length, th.e female about eight inches shorter, and is every 

 way proportionally more slender ; and this is almost the only 

 information we can derive from the two specimens before us 

 that has not been given in Dr. Roxburgh's description of the 

 male. There is however much to be yet learnt regarding the 

 structure of both sexes of this species, for which fresh 

 specimens would be necessary. They are seldom caught, 

 but should this happen again by any accident, we trust the 

 opportunity of supplying many interesting questions con- 

 nected with their organization, will not be lost sight of. 



