4 
iiber die Bedeutung dieser Gebilde lasst sich also vor der Hånd 
nicht aussagen.“ 
As far as I am aware no author has later discussed the ques- 
tion: the Fjelstrup pore figures. And yet one only need to cast a 
glance at Fjelstrup’s sketches (1. c. tab. 8, figs. 10 a and b) to rea- 
lize their true nature. Such was the case to me at least when, 
as mentioned above, I became acquainted with the said treatise ten 
years ago. 
I here give (figs. 1 & 2) a copy of Fjelstrup’s figures and I 
think it will be admitted that they represent impressions in 
the whales’ skin caused by the suckers of ten-armed 
c u 111 efish. 
The suckers of the ten-armed Cephalopods (Decapoda) are, as 
is wellknown, furnished along the inner edge with a horny ring 
serrated at the edge (see figs. 3, 4 & 5). When the sucker of the 
cuttlefish is pressed against a yielding surface it will leave a cir- 
cular row of pores, marks of the teeth of the horny ring. Any 
one may produce similar figures by pressing the horny ring against 
paste or a similar substance. Figs. 6 & 7 are copies from a pho- 
tograph of the surface of a lump of paste against which I have 
pressed horny rings of cuttlefish suckers; it will be seen that the 
marks thus produced correspond to Fjelstrup’s sketches of the pore 
figures in the skin of the Caaing Whale. 
It is pretty well known that the Caaing Whale consumes cuttle¬ 
fish, as remains of these are often found in its stomach, viz. the 
indigestible horny jaws and crystalline lenses. That the cuttlefish, 
when it is seized by the whale, tries to protect itself with its ten- 
tacles, is obvious, and thereby “the circular pore figures“ are pro¬ 
duced in the surface of the skin as observed by Fjelstrup; and 
that these are especially found at the entrance to the whale’s 
mouth (“in the region of the lower and upper jaw“) is quite as 
comprehensible. 
Also the microscopic “structure“ of the pores as it is described 
by Fjelstrup shows that they are nothing but indentations pro¬ 
duced by a pressure from without on the whale-skin. Fjelstrup 
writes as follows: “Thin vertical cuts through the pores show 
when examined under the microscope (fig. 12) that the indentations 
only sink about 0.3 mm. into the stratum corneum, and that the 
