210 
REINHARDT ON 
If we return again to the vertebral column, we still find the size of the vertebrae uniformly 
increasing as we pass backwards in the lumbar region; we saw in the dorsal, the vertebral 
bodies becoming continually wider, and at the same time increasing in length, at least, 
as far as the two or three hindmost ones, and even these are by no means shorter than those 
nearest preceding them ; therefore the lumbar region is considerably longer than the dorsal 
region, the proportion between them being about that of three to two, though the lumbar 
are not more numerous than the dorsal vertebrae. It is almost superfluous to remark that 
the vertebral arches become gradually smaller, and the spinal canal more narrow as the 
vertebral bodies increase in size. Besides the character which the vertebral bodies possess in the 
lumbar region in their long and massive form, they are in this species, as in many others, 
distinguished by still another, of w r hich, however, we have found slight traces also in the 
posterior dorsal vertebrae ; for a longitudinal keel is found along the under side, which is already 
distinguishable, though not very prominent, in the first lumbar vertebra, but very conspicuous in 
the third, and wdiich then is continued in the same manner in all the following lumbar vertebrae, 
down to the very last, but again disappearing in the caudal vertebrae. It has already been 
mentioned that the species treated of here is distinguished by the inferior height of all the 
spines; though these are not so low as in the narwhal, not to speak of the beluga, yet there is 
at any rate a striking difference between the relative height of the spines of our species and those 
of the killers, and especially those of the ca’ing-whales, and this difference in addition to the 
considerable length of the vertebral bodies gives, especially to the lumbar vertebrae, a somewhat 
different appearance from that of the allied forms 1 just mentioned; a comparison of the measure- 
in other parts of the skeleton besides the skull. For in his Catodon Australis he has discovered an 
asymmetry, not indeed in the sternum (where, however, it is also most probably to be found), but 
in the pectoral fins and the ribs, the right pectoral and the right ribs being larger than the pectoral 
and the ribs of the left side ; and of his genus Euphysetes ( Kogia , Gray), he states that the middle 
piece of the sternum (the foremost one had been lost), is asymmetrical. All the left ribs, one only 
excepted, being wanting in the only skeleton existing of this singular form, he has not been able to 
inform us whether the asymmetry here, as in his Catodon , also extended to the ribs; nor does he 
state whether the pectorals are of different sizes, probably in consequence of their being both more or 
less defective. (See ‘ Description of a new Sperm Whale, together with some Account of a new Genus 
of Sperm Whales, called Euphysetes/ Sydney, 1851, pp. 5, 25, and 52.) But as regards the dolphins, 
no one seems to have mentioned anything of the kind. The only statement that might contain 
any evidence of an earlier observation of such a deformity is, as far as I know, to be found in a passage 
of Eschricht’s essay on the Ganges-dolphin ( Platanista ), in the ‘ Transactions of the Royal Danish 
Academy of Sciences' (Fifth series, 2nd volume). For here the “ sternal body " properly so-called, of 
the skeleton described (a young female), is said to consist of two osseous lateral pieces, of which the 
left one “ is only half as large as the right/' but Mr. Eschricht does not add anything to inform us, 
whether he considers this difference in size as normal or accidental, or whether, generally speaking, 
he considers it to be of any importance; and he has overlooked or, at least, not mentioned, the fact, 
that the manubrium, too, is somewhat, though not very much, deformed. [The description of the 
skeleton of Catodon Australis quoted above, though published under the name of Wall, was really 
written by the late Mr. W. S. M‘Leav. See Dr. G. Bennetts ‘Gatherings of a Naturalist in 
Australia/ 1860, p. 1G2.—W. H. F.] 
1 llow great, or how small the similarity existing between the vertebra: of our species and those 
