PSEUDORCA CRASSIDENS. 
211 
ments of one of the lumbar vertebrae in each of the species mentioned, will, perhaps, give 
an adequate idea as to this point, better than a long description, and I have chosen for this 
purpose to give the dimensions of the fifth lumbar vertebra, as one of those provided with the 
highest spines: 
1 
In the speci¬ 
men from 
Refsnaes. 
In the speci¬ 
men from 
Middelfart. 
In a large 
Orca gladiator. 
In a very large 
ca’ing-whale 
from the 
Faroe Islands. 
Total height 
8" S'" 
9" 
15" 10"' 
13" 6'" 
',, breadth 
. 
11" S'" 
12" 
17" 6'" 
14" S'" 
Height of the vertebral spine 
* 
4" 2'" 
5" V" 
6" 9'" 
rift <y'ft 
1 sw 
Transverse process . 
. 
4" 
4" 7"' 
5" 6'" 
5" 4'" 
Length of the vertebral body 
• 
S" S'" 
4" 
£// 
5 
4" V" 
Breadth of the same 
, • 
S" 2'" 
3" 
5" 9'" 
4" 2'" 
In the anterior lumbar vertebrae the spines lean continually more and more backwards; 
but from the fifth the spines, as well as the arch itself, begin gradually to be placed in a some¬ 
what more vertical position, without, however, proceeding so far that either the arch, or any of 
the spines (not even farther backwards in the caudal vertebrae) are inclined in a forward 
direction, and thus becoming, in this respect, directly opposed to the preceding ones, as is other¬ 
wise generally the case, more especially in forms nearly related with ours. The peculiarity may 
possibly, as far as the spines are concerned, be partly a consequence of their decreasing very 
considerably in length; but whatever its cause may be, it is very characteristic of our dolphin, 
when compared with the allied forms, and it is only in the more distantly related beluga that 
the anticline in the vertebral column has also as it were disappeared. The transverse process of 
the first lumbar is inclined in a forward direction, contrary to the transverse processes of the 
dorsal vertebrae, which point in rather a backward direction; the angle, however, which this 
process thus forms with the vertebral body has only a very slight deviation from a right one ; 
this deviation, becomes still smaller in the nearest succeeding vertebrae, and the greater part 
of the transverse processes of the lumbar vertebrae must be said to be placed at right angles 
with their respective vertebrae. They preserve the same breadth throughout without becoming 
broader towards their free extremities (as in certain other dolphins, for instance the narwhal), 
the first of them may, indeed, be said to be the longest; but there is only very little difference in 
this respect between this one and those nearest succeeding it. 
The foremost of the caudal vertebrae have bodies still thicker and as long as the hindmost 
lumbar vertebrae, but from the fifth they become progressively shorter, and at the same time more 
compressed, until finally the height of the bodies becomes greater than their breadth; this shape 
is then retained up to the place where the haemapophyses disappear (between the fifteenth and 
sixteenth caudal vertebrae) ; here, as usual in the dolphins, the appearance of the vertebrae is 
of the Delphinus griseus may be, can only be decided by an examination of the skeleton itself of the 
last mentioned, preserved in the Paris Museum; in his remarks upon the osteology of this species, 
Cuvier mentions the vertebral column only very briefly, and does not give us any detailed description 
of the vertebrae. A new and more accurate description of the skeleton of this remarkable form 
would therefore remove an essential defect in Cetology. 
