Structure and Oeconomy of Whales. 
3*3 
-other; but in both the large and fmall Whalebone Whales, 
the Ihape differs confiderably. The number of fome parti- 
cular bones varies likewife very much. 
The Piked Whale has feven vertebrae in the neck, twelve 
which may be reckoned to the back, and twenty-feven to the 
tail, making forty- fix in the whole. 
In the porpoife there are five cervical vertebrae, and one com- 
mon to the neck and back, fourteen proper to the back, and 30 
to the tail, making in the whole fifty-one. 
The fmall Bottle-nofe Whale, caught near Berkeley, in 
the number of cervical vertebrae refembled the Porpoife; it had 
feventeen in the back, and thirty- feven in the tail, in all 
fixty. 
I11 the Porpoife, four of the vertebrae of the neck are an- 
chylofed ; and in every animal of this order, which I have 
examined, the atlas is by much the thickeft, and feems to be 
made up of two joined together, for the fecond cervical nerve 
paffes through a foramen in this vertebra. There is no arti- 
culation for rotatory motion between the firft and fecond ver- 
tebrae of the neck. 
The fmall Bottle-nofe Whale had eighteen ribs on each fide, 
the Porpoife fixteen. The ends of the ribs that have two arti- 
culations, in the whole of this tribe, I believe, are articulated 
with the body of the vertebrae above, and with the tranfverfe 
procefles below, by the angles ; fo that there is one vertebra com- 
mon to the neck and back. In the large Whalebone Whale 
the firft rib is bifurcated, and confequently articulated to two 
vertebras. 
The fternum is very flat in the Piked Whale ; it is only 
one very fhort bone ; and in the Porpoife it is a good deal 
longer. In the fmall Bottle-nofe it is compofed of three 
Vol. LXXVII. 
I i i 
bones, 
