36 



W. LlLLJEBORG, 



of the ribs, which, as far as we are aware, agrees only with that of the 

 genus Ilunterius Gray, we consider that the Whale to which these bones 

 have belonged ought to be classed under that genus. We have unfortu- 

 nately not been able to perfect by personal examination our knowledge of 

 the skeleton of the only known species of this genus, Ilunterius Tem- 

 minckii, preserved in the great museum at Leyden, and consequently we know 

 the form of its bones only from the description given by Dr Flower in 

 the above-mentioned treatise, and some rapidly made sketches, which Dr 

 Flower has had the kindness to communicate. Dr Flower has indeed 

 only described the first and second pairs of ribs, both of which are missing 

 from among the Swedenborgian Whale's bones, but the 3 rd , 4 th and 5 th 

 are among those found, and the first of these, as is well known, differs 

 from the 2 nd pair only in being somewhat narrower and longer, and both 

 it and the two following pairs show, allowing for this normal difference, a 

 close agreement with Flower's description of the second pair, "very thick 

 and broad at the lower end." We know of no other genus in the whole 

 group of Whalebone Whales whose foremost ribs present so thick a form 

 at the lower end. The bladebone of the Swedenborgian Whale differs so 

 widely in the form and position of the acromion from that of the Hunterius 

 Temminckii, that it is immediately evident that they belong to different spe- 

 cies. Moreover the former is distinguished by its unusual thickness, which 

 however may perhaps be ascribed to the circumstance of its having be- 

 longed to a very young individual. 



We have in the above mentioned treatise on the Scandinavian Whales 

 given an account of the circumstances under which the bones of the Swe- 

 denborgian Whale were found, and shall therefore only recite here, that 

 they were in November 1705 dug up at Wanga in West Gothland, 12 

 Sweedish miles (about 80 English miles) from the coast, and 330 feet above 

 the level of the sea, and that, little more than a century after, the late 

 Major L. Gyllenhal, when digging a spring at the same spot, on the 

 estate Hoberg, chanced "at a deep cutting in of a brook" *) to meet with a 

 vertebra of the same skeleton, fitting exactly to the others, and presented 

 it to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm 1823. This latter dis- 

 covery is a most useful guide in identifying the spot where the original 

 discovery took place, and where a renewal of the diggings might lead to 

 results of the highest interest both to zoological and geological science. 



') According to a kind communication in a letter from Lector N. E. Forssell at 

 Skara the name of the brook is Fjolbrobacken. 



