STKANDED AT LONGNIDDRY. 223 



thing, when the animal was lying on the beach, to see a number of persons 

 standing within the left mandible on the dorsum of the tongue as it was exposed 

 by the falling over of the beak to the right side. The roof of the mouth was 

 formed by the palate and baleen plates ; its sides corresponded to the great 

 antero-posterior cleft between the upper and lower jaws ; its floor was formed 

 by the dorsum of the tongue included within the two halves of the mandible. 

 The dorsum of the tongue was almost flat near the front of the mouth, but 

 somewhat further back it presented a considerable elevation, which arose like 

 a hillock, and fitted within the concavity of the roof of the mouth between the 

 opposite wreaths of the baleen. The tongue was very compressible and elastic. 

 The mucous membrane on its surface was of a dark slate colour, and was at 

 once reflected from the dorsum at the tip and sides of the tongue to the inner 

 surface of the lower jaw, so that the tongue was tied to that bone, and obvi- 

 ously could not be protruded from the mouth. The surface of the mucous mem- 

 brane was firm and tough ; it was marked by ridges and furrows, which, for the 

 most part, were placed longitudinally, though some extended in the transverse 

 direction. 



The mouth rapidly narrowed towards the posterior buccal orifice. In the 

 adolescent animal the diameter of this orifice was 10 inches. The mucous 

 membrane was, in this locality, brownish-yellow in colour, and spotted with 

 patches of brown and black pigment. Numerous rounded or somewhat oblique 

 orifices opened on its free surface. These communicated with pits, the largest 

 of which formed depressions -fths of an inch deep in the mucous membrane, 

 big enough to admit peas ; these were obviously the mouths of gland follicles. 

 The upper boundary of the orifice was formed by the soft palate, which was 

 about an inch and a half thick, and distinct muscular fibres entered into its 

 construction. 



In the foetus the posterior buccal orifice was much more constricted, for its 

 diameter was only 2 inches. It was bounded above by a broad, well-defined velum, 

 which extended backwards for 6^ inches, and possessed a broad attachment on 

 each side to the pharyngeal wall, sending also a posterior pillar backwards on 

 each side as far as a line opposite the arytenoid cartilages (Plate VIII. fig. 30). 

 The greatest breadth of the soft palate was 7 inches. Its position was almost 

 horizontal ; mucous membrane covered its upper and lower surfaces and posterior 

 border, and from the latter no uvula projected. The absence of an uvula in the 

 lesser Pike "Whale had previously been noticed by Drs Carte and Macalister.* 

 Owing to the breadth of the attachment laterally of the velum, the passage from 

 the mouth to the pharynx was much more in the form of a canal, which may be 

 termed the bucco-pharyngeal canal, than a simple opening. This canal gradually 



* Philosophical Transactions, 1868, p. 232. 



