BALiENOPTEEA. 



)57 



As these differences then in dimensions are not ascribable to age, they certainly 

 indicate the existence of another Whale attaining to only half the size of Balcenoptera 

 indica. And, as I have already said, the skull in the Medical College which Blyth 

 regarded as the young of B. indica is not the skull of J3. indica, hut is specifically 

 identical with the skull from Sittang. 



The features which characterize the vertebral column of this smaller form, 

 £. edeni, shall now be considered somewhat in detail. Forty-seven vertebrae have 

 been preserved, and a careful observation of these in position does not reveal the 

 absence of any of the principal vertebrae, with the exception of two probably after 

 the forty-first vertebra, and, at the termination of the caudal portion, three appear 

 to be wanting. Hence, the total number of segments would be fifty-two, only 

 one vertebra less than in B. schlegeli. The vertebral formula of tliis Whale is 

 as follows — C.7, D.IO, L.14, C.21 = 52. The caudal region has been determined by 

 the first appearance of chevron bones. 



The vertebral column measures, as it now is, 25 feet 5 inches, and if another 

 foot is allowed for the missing vertebrge, we find that the skull has the propor- 

 tion of one-fourth of the entire length of the animal, the proportion that generally 

 prevails in the genus Balcenoptera. 



The bodies of the vertebrae increase in length up to the penultimate lumbar 

 and also in depth, but beyond that point they gradually decrease in length, increas- 

 ing, however, in depth to the third caudal, from which they again diminish in height ; 

 the caudal vertebrae, after the tenth, rapidly decrease in size, in this respect resembling 

 the vertebral column of B. rostrata. The spinous processes generally are directed 

 considerably backwards, and they all dilate more or less towards their ends, more 

 especially in the last portion of the dorsal and in the lumbar region. 



With regard to the special characters of the different regions of the vertebral 

 column, all the cervical vertebrae are free from one another (Plate XLIV, fig. 6). 

 Their spinous processes, with the exception of those of the first two, have much 

 the characters of the spinous processes of B. schlegeli and of Pin- Whales generally ; 

 but the spinous process of the atlas (fig. 5) has greater antero-posterior breadth. 



