420 ON THE ORKNEY ANIMAL. 



Another remarkable appearance, and whicr? 

 still may be observed in those vertebrae which 

 are preserved in the Museum of the Univer- 

 sity, is the difference of diameter, and the 

 difference of length, that occur alternately as 

 you pass in succession from the one to the 

 other ; a larger vertebrae being interposed be- 

 tween two that are smaller, and a smaller inter- 

 posed between two that are larger *. In the 

 first set of vertebrae which I saw, taken from the 

 caudal or sacral extremity, according to what I 

 conceive a most accurate report, (that of Mr Ur- 

 quhart, a gentleman who saw the animal, and a* 

 gentleman, too, of respectability and education, 

 and well-known to our President and Secretary to 

 be ardent in his pursuit of natural history), none 

 of them seemed to taper like a eoile, but regular- 

 ly preserved the cylindrical form, the larger and 

 the smaller vertebrae, as they occurred alternate- 

 ly, gradually becoming less and less than the pre- 

 ceding of the same kind, as they approached the 

 caudal extremity. The cause of this singular 

 structure I cannot explain, unless it be to favour 

 the action of the muscular fibres, which, by this 

 contrivance, must have entered the two contigu- 

 ous vertebrae at less acute angles than if they had 

 been more parallel to the axis. If this be the rea- 

 son, the difference of diameter in contiguous ver- 

 tebrae becomes a substitute for the processes that 

 are wanting, and, like the processes, is made to 



* Plate x. fig. 3* 



