898 PRINCIPAL SIR WILLIAM TURNER ON 
the average being 45°9 feet ; the cows ranged from 44 to 51 feet, with an average of 46°9 
feet ; the cows therefore exceeded in average length the bulls, but the maximum in each 
sex seemed to be about 51 feet. CoxniEerr’s measurements, which included those 
noted by HaLpans, ranged in 44 specimens from 36 to 48 feet in 24 bulls; from 31 feet 
(9°45 m.) to 50 feet (15°2 m.) in 20 cows, the average length in the females being a 
little more than in the males. 
Scorgssy, in his classical work on the Arctic Regions, stated that of 322 individuals of 
B. mysticetus, in the capture of which he was personally concerned, not one exceeded 60 
feet, though he had been told of one 67 feet long, and another as much as 70 feet ; but of 
six which he measured, four, apparently adults, ranged from 50 to 58 feet. In the animal 
58 feet long the head was 19 feet, therefore about one-third the total length of the animal. 
In B. biscayensis again, observers agree that the head bears a smaller proportion to 
the total length of the animal, about one-fourth. In being smaller, therefore, than 
mysticetus, as well as the head being proportionately less, biscayensis shows specific 
characters which distinguish it from the Right Whale of the Greenland seas. The large 
skull of B. biscayensis in the University Museum of Anatomy was from an animal whose 
length was stated by Mr Heruorson to be 51 feet. The skeletons, the skull included, of 
eleven American specimens of the North Atlantic Right Whale recorded by Trug, are 
stated to have ranged from 30 to 58 feet in length. 
SKELETON. 
The material at my disposal for purposes of study consisted of the skull and almost 
complete skeleton in the Royal Scottish Museum and a separate skull in the Anatomical 
Museum of the University, also three tympano-petrous bones. I have been aided in | 
making the measurements by Mr Rogert Retp, assistant in the Royal Scottish Museum, 
and by Mr Ernest J. Henperson, Assistant Conservator to the Anatomical Museum 
of the University, and I am indebted to the latter for the photographs of the bones 
from which most of the illustrations have been prepared. 
SKULL. 
In outline the skulls possessed the highly arched facial region characteristic of a 
Balena. In Table I. measurements are given of the two skulls, and in the same table 
are included. the measurements of two skulls of the Greenland Whale, B. mysticetus, 
in the Anatomical Museum of the University.* (See Plates.L., II.) 
The occipital bone in B. biscayensis formed a large proportion of the wall of the 
cranium. It mounted to the vertex and articulated with the thin edge of the frontal 
which ‘separated it from the nasals. The vertical and transverse diameters of the 
squama were almost equal; the posterior surface was convex and raised into a mesial 
vertical ridge in its upper part, but on each side it showed a shallow concavity which 
extended to the side of each condyl. The foramen magnum was almost circular. The 
* Marine Mammals in the Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh, pp. 21, 22, 1912. 
