| OCR Text |
Show 514 PROF, FLOWER O N RUDOLPHI'S RORQUAL. [NOV. 20, Mr. J. T. Carrington, who saw it within two days of its describes the colour of its back as a rich glossy black, which shaded to a brilliant white on the underparts, the flippers being black. The animal was a male. When roughly cleaned, under Mr. Gerrard's superintendence, the bones and some other parts were removed to the prosector's room in the Society's gardens, where I had an opportunity of examining them on the 1 7th. It then became perfectly evident that the animal was a characteristic specimen of the species named above, apparently not quite adult. The skull measured 6 feet 2 inches (1*880 m.) in length, and the complete vertebral column 22 feet 3 inches (6*780 m.), giving 28 feet 5 inches (8*660 m.) from the apex of the rostrum to the end of the last caudal vertebra in a straight line, all the intervertebral substances being preserved. The length of the animal in the flesh may therefore be taken at about 29 feet (8*840 m.). The numbers of the vertebrae of the different regions of the column were : cervical 7, dorsal 13, lumbar 15, and caudal 21 ; or 56 in all. The upper end of the first rib of both sides was deeply cleft into two distinct heads1, the posterior of which was directly articulated to the end of the transverse process of the first dorsal vertebra; the anterior was connected by a considerable mass of ligamentous substance to the approximated terminations of the upper and lower transverse processes of the posterior cervical vertebrae. It may therefore be regarded as a cervical rib, the distal end of which has coalesced with the first thoracic rib, a condition well illustrated by the specimen in the Brussels Museum, described by me in the 'Proceedings' of the Zoological Society, 1864, p. 417, where, on the right side, it is still free2. The thirteenth rib had a very small head, and was not directly attached to the transverse process of the corresponding dorsal vertebra, which showed no appreciable articular expansion at its extremity as in all the preceding ribs. The sternum was small and mainly cartilaginous; its length is but 7 inches, and its greatest breadth not quite so much. Its form and mode of attachment to the broad ends of the first pair of ribs are shown in the annexed figure (p. 515) from a sketch made while they were still in connexion. The ossified portion was a broad lozenge-shaped or oval nucleus, which is all that remains in the hitherto described skeletons of immature individuals, and gives very little idea of the real form of this part of the skeleton. In perfectly adult animals the whole would probably ossify, and give a shape of sternum like that of Balanoptera rostrata, but with a shorter posterior limb to the cross. The chevron bones were twelve in number. The stylo-hyals had the 1 As in all the specimens of this species hitherto described, except that recorded by Turner (Journ. Anat. & Physiol. April 1882). 2 As an additional illustration to the numerous cases already recorded of the presence of cervical ribs in the Cetacea, I m a y mention that in a specimen of Tursiops tursio, prepared during the present year for'the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons, there is a pair of such ribs, each 52 millim. in length, articulated to the extremities of the transverse processes of the seventh cervical vertebra. |
