126 Finger Muscles in Megaptera longimana, ete. [February, 
ON FINGER MUSCLES IN MEGAPTERA LONGIMANA 
AND IN OTHER WHALES’ 
BY JOHN STRUTHERS, M.D. 
aes author’s observation, showing the presence of finger mus- 
cles in Megaptera, was made on the individual beached at 
Stonehaven, near Aberdeen, on January 8, 1884, the description 
of the rudimentary hind limbs of which he had described at the 
meeting of the British Association at Montreal. The presence of 
muscles in the forearm of a whale had been first noticed by 
Flower (in Balenoptera musculus) in 1865, and described in the 
lesser fin-whale (B. rostrata) by Carte and Macalister in 1868, 
and by Perrin in 1870. The author had described these muscles 
in the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, in B. musculus, in 
1871; in Hyperoddon bidens in 1871 and 1873, and in the Green- 
land right whale, Balena mysticetis in 1878. In B. musculus the 
muscles present were the flexor carpi ulnaris, flexor digitorum 
ulnaris, flexor digitorum radialis, and gn extensor communis digi- 
torum. Hyperoddon bidens is the first and as yet only toothed 
whale in which they have been found, except in the common por- 
poise, in which he found the flexor carpi ulnaris present. In 
Hyperoddon the extensor was divided into two, and much more 
developed than in B. musculus, In the Greenland right whale he 
found also an extensor carpi ulnaris and a flexor carpi radialis. 
In the narwhal, Beluga and common pilot whale (Globicephalus 
melas) he found these muscles to be present morphologically, but 
histologically represented by fibrous tissue and therefore reduced 
to the condition of ligaments. 
Considering the enormous size of the pectoral fin in Megaptera 
longimana, he had been anxious to ascertain whether these finger 
muscles were present, and if so, whether they were more devel- 
oped than in other finners, or more rudimentary. He found the 
same flexor muscles present as in B, musculus, but the two flexor 
muscles of the fingers, instead of being larger were together not 
half so large as in B. musculus. Also that the proportions of 
these two muscles were reversed, the ulnar flexor being about 
one-third the size of the radial flexor, instead of larger than it, as 
in B. musculus. The extensor aspect of the limb was not yet dis- 
sected, as he had had time just to examine the flexor aspect before 
2 Read before the American Association at Philadelphia, on Sept. 9. j 
