48 
WEST WING. 
Fresh-water 
Dolphins. 
Narwhal 
Whalebone 
Whales. 
On the left side of the door, on entering, near the window, is a 
case containing a stuffed specimen, skeleton, and several skulls 
of the very curious fresh- water Dolphin of the rivers of India 
(Platanista gangetica), and in the next case the peculiar Dolphin 
of the river Amazon {Inia geojffrensis). Among the specimens 
on the same side of the room, one of the most interesting, on 
account of its remarkable dentition, is the Narwhal or Sea- 
Unicorn. It has only two teeth, which lie horizontally in the 
upper jaw. In the female both remain permanently concealed 
within the bone of the jaw, so that this sex is practically 
toothless ; but in the male, while the right tooth remains 
similarly concealed and abortive (as shown in the specimen, by 
removal of part of the bone which covered it), the left is immensely 
developed, attaining a length equal to that of half the entire 
animal, projecting horizontally from the head in the form of 
a long, straight, tapering and pointed tusk, spirally grooved 
oi; the surface. In some very rare cases both teeth are fully 
developed, as in the fine skull exhibited near the skeletons. 
Most of the largest Cetacea belong to the group called 
" Whalebone Whales," in which a series of horny plates called 
"baleen," or more familiarly ''whalebone," grow from the 
palate in place of teeth, and serve to strain the water taken into 
the mouth from the small marine animals on which the whales 
subsist. A fine representative of this group is the very perfect 
skeleton of the Common Eorqual or Fin-whale {Balsenoptera 
muscuhcs) near the further end of the middle of the room. It i& 
sixty-eight feet long, and was captured in 1882 in the Moray 
Firth, Scotland. The flukes of the tail and dorsal fin are pre- 
served with the skeleton and suspended in their natural position, 
and the small pelvic bones and a rudimentary nodule, represent- 
ing the femur or thigh bone, the only trace of the hind leg of 
this gigantic animal, are also preserved. Beyond this skeleton is 
a skull of the Greenland Eight-Whale {Balsena mysticetus), which 
yields most of the whalebone " of commerce, and also a small 
wooden model of the animal, of the scale of one inch to the foot» 
I 
