112 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Monday , 21st April 1879. 
Professor MACLAGAN, Vice-President, in the Chair. 
The following Communications were read : — 
1. The Anatomy of the Northern Beluga (B. Catodon ) compared 
with that of other Whales. By Morrison Watson, M.D., 
F.R.S.E., and Alfred H. Young, M.B., &c., Owens College, 
Manchester. 
[Abstract.) 
The specimen which formed the subject of this memoir was one 
of three, imported into England by Mr Farini of London. 
The skeleton being already well known, and the state of the 
parts preventing an examination of the muscular anatomy, attention 
was directed solely to that of the viscera, of which no complete 
description had hitherto been given. Drs Barclay and Neill in 
this country, and subsequently Professor Wyman in America, had 
previously investigated some points in the anatomy of the soft 
parts of Beluga, but their descriptions are so fragmentary as to 
necessitate a more accurate and extended investigation of the 
viscera. 
In addition to a full description of the various organs, a com- 
parison is instituted between these and the corresponding structures 
of other Cetaceans. 
With regard to the relation in which Beluga stands to other 
genera, the comparative observations detailed in the memoir show 
that, so far as the soft parts are concerned, Beluga in many respects 
presents a close resemblance to Grampus and to Globio-cephalus, 
whilst it differs from both in several minor points. From an 
examination of the skeleton, Professor Flower 1 concludes that “ the 
Narwhal and the Beluga appear to separate themselves from all the 
rest, by certain well-marked structural conditions, especially in the 
characters of the cervical vertebrae. As these two animals are in 
almost every part of their skeleton nearly identical,” Professor 
Flower is disposed “ to unite the two genera into a distinct sub- 
family, placing it next to the Platanistidae.” Unfortunately, such 
information as we possess regarding the soft parts of the Narwhal is 
of too imperfect a character to admit of the comparison being fol- 
1 Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. vi. p. 115. 
