200 
REINHARDT ON 
osseous palate of Phoccsna crassidens in the same place, and to the same extent as in the 
common porpoise. 1 If this statement is to be interpreted according to the strictest sense of the 
words, it would, perhaps, point out a difference between the fossil form and the dolphins from 
our shores, for the vomer does not exactly resemble that of the common porpoise in any of the 
crania. In the common porpoise the visible piece of the vomer is considerably broader, in 
proportion to its length, than in our specimens ; and, besides, it is placed on a level with the bones 
between which it appears, whereas in our dolphin it is seen lying deeper than the latter, as it 
were, at the bottom of a fissure between them, when we look down from above upon the palatine 
surface. But we suppose that Owen’s words are not to be explained quite literally. It must 
be remembered, that he does not compare his fossil form with the common porpoise; but with 
the great Northern dolphins, the killer, the ca’ing whale, the beluga, and the Grampus griseus, in 
all of which the vomer does not appear at all on the palatine surface. It was, therefore, of little 
importance to him to lay much stress on any slight possible difference between his fossil form 
and the common porpoise, relative to their vomers; but only, by a comparison taken from an 
animal generally known, to state briefly and generally, that the vomer is visible on the palatine 
surface in the fossil form, in opposition to what is the case in the other great Northern species, 
and this opinion of ours is corroborated by his own figure, which does not seem to represent 
the vomer as it appears in the common porpoise. When we take all this into consideration, w r e 
shall hardly find sufficient reason to derive, from w r hat Owen states about the vomer of his 
Phoccena crassidens, a difference between it and the dolphin thrown ashore on our coasts, the 
less so, as individual peculiarities are to be found, at least in the latter, as to the appearance, 
of this bone, which must render it very unsafe to found any characters upon it. For it 
is only in the dolphins stranded at Middelfart and Refsnses, that the vomer appears in the 
manner described above; not the slightest portion of this bone appears on the palate of the very 
old individual thrown ashore on the southern side of Asnoes. 
The large powerful teeth with which our dolphin, as well as the killers, is provided have 
caused that the lower jaw, not less than in the latter, is distinguished by a massive thickness and 
weight, forming a striking contrast to its slender structure in the ca’ing-w r hales. The difference 
between our dolphin and the ca’ing-whale is so great in this respect, that the lower jaw of 
the individual stranded at Refsnms weighs almost twice as much as the lower jaw, one inch 
longer, of a Faroe ca’ing-whale; the former being about four pounds, the latter only two 
pounds and one eighth. It is, however, not only by its great weight and thickness that the lower 
jaw reminds us of the lower jaw of an Orca, also in its shape it more resembles the 
latter, than the lower jaw of a ca’ing-whale. If we look at it from the side, we shall find 
that the inferior edges of its rami are almost straight, as in the Orcas; whereas the 
same edge of the lower jaw r of the ca’ing-whale is very much curved, so as to describe 
an arc with the convexity turned upwards, the uppermost point of which is found nearly 
below the posterior extremity of the dental row, so that the jaw, when placed on a level 
surface, only rests on two points, that is to say, quite at the posterior extremity, and in 
front at the point where the symphysis commences. This same curvature is also found in the 
lower jaw of Grampus griseus, and further in that of the beluga {Belphinapterus leucas), and 
partly also in that of the narwhal (. Monodon monoceros); thus, it seems to be characteristic of the 
1 ‘ Hist, of British Fossil Mamm. and Birds,’ p. 518. 
