OCR Text |
Show 710 DR. H. BURMEISTER ON A NEW FINNER WHALE. [JllllC 27, behind. Each one has a large transverse process, which is perforated in the middle by a great elliptical opening. In the very strong second vertebra this opening is the smallest, and the horizontal diameter of the opening shorter (4| inches) than the outer end of the transverse process (5| inches) ; but in the two others the opening occupies nearly the whole process, surrounded only by a small osseous ring. The upper part, including the vertebral canal, is broader Fig. 2. Second, third, and fourth vertebra1 of B. bonaerensis. than high ; and this canal is of a depressed triangular figure. The arch is very strong and thick on the second vertebrae, and, in each of the three, armed with three small upright spines, of which the middle is the processus spinosus. The fifth vertebra of tbe neck has quite the same form ; its lateral process is a closed osseous ring ; but the sixth differs by being open in the middle of the under part of this ring, near the enlarged point, and the seventh by having no under part to the ring, but only the upper half circumference with the enlarged point at the end. In most of these characters the species differs from the European B. rostrata, as this has only in some cases the second and third cervical vertebrae united, and open rings on all, after the second, of which open ring the upper part is smaller than the under, and not provided with the enlarged point at the end, which is present in all the cervical vertebrae after the second of m y new species. The small erect spines on the vertebral arch are also wanting in the European species, and the lateral processes are much shorter in comparison with the transverse diameter of the bodies of the vertebrae. As an individual character of m y specimen I must remark that the upper parts of the lateral processes of the sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae are united together on the left side in their whole extent, which seems to me a consequence of disease during the |