THE RIGHT WHALE OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 901 
line across the mesial ridge, was about 2 feet 6 inches. The pair of palate bones 
formed the hinder part of the hard palate; they articulated with each other mesially, 
and both the anterior and the outer borders articulated with the superior maxilla. 
The pterygoids were seen behind the palates and the posterior surface of each was 
hollowed into a sinus-like chamber. 
The posterior nares had a transverse diameter about one-third greater than the 
vertical. The sharp posterior mesial border of the vomer, which did not extend so far 
back as the opening, was seen ; it articulated below with the mesial borders of the palate 
bones, and in this region separated the nasal chambers from each other. 
The Mandible consisted of two distinct rami not fused at the symphysis. The rami 
arched strongly outwards, and they enclosed a buccal chamber of large dimensions for the 
lodgment of the tongue, whilst the high arching of the palate permitted the vertical 
growth of the long baleen plates in this cetacean. ‘he outer surface of the ramus was 
convex ; the inner, almost a plane surface, had a large dental foramen, the edge of 
which projected upwards in front of the condyl, also other smaller foramina for vessels 
and nerves; the upper and lower borders were narrow. A horizontal line drawn from 
the condyl to the tip of the arched ramus gave the chord of the arc, and a perpendicular 
from it to the upper border of the bone measured 1 foot 9 inches. The condyl was 
smooth and was defined by a neck; the coronoid process was not developed. The rami 
were free and pointed at their anterior ends, which had doubtless been connected 
together by fibrous bands. 
Hyoid bone.—The body, great cornua (thyro-hyals), small cornua (cerato-hyals) 
were fused together and formed a bone, convex on the ventral, concave on the superior 
Fre. 17.—Hyoid bone. 
surface (fig. 17). It measured between the tips of the great cornua 2 feet 4 inches 
along the convex surface, and 1 foot 114 inches in a straight line. The great cornu 
was somewhat cylindriform, 1 foot 14 inch in girth. The small cornua projected for 
14 inch from the anterior border close to the mesial plane, and were ouly one inch 
asunder. The stylo-hyals had not been preserved. 
In the general form and construction of its skull B. bascayensis corresponded with 
B. mysticetus, but owing to the much longer baleen plates in the latter the head was 
