“Fingers four, elongate. Cervical vertebræ ⸺? Lumbar and anterior caudal vertebræ longer than their greatest diameter. Dorsal fin wanting. Gular and pectoral region without folds. Scapula with well-developed acromion and coracoid. Baleen narrow, short, curved.
“The baleen is peculiar; throughout the length of the maxillary bone it nowhere exceeded one foot in length, and the width of the band, or length of the base of each plate, four inches. It is of a creamy white; the fringe very coarse, white, and resembling hogs’ bristles.
“The ear-bone is much compressed, with an inferior carina, towards which the lip of dense bone is suddenly decurved. The longitudinal opening is much contracted, especially anteriorly, where the bone is pinched up into a keel; and there is no abrupt concavity of the inner lip at that point. External surface not very rugose. Total length 3 in. 2·5 lines.
“The scapula preserved is low and elongate, with well-developed acromion and coracoid process. It is evidently of the type of Balænoptera and Physalus; the ulna and radius relatively less elongate than in Sibbaldius laticeps and borealis, being 1·5 as long as the humerus, thus resembling Physalus.
“The four fingers, with the second much the longest, form a fin of the type of those genera.
“The ear-bone is much more compressed than in Physalus antiquorum or Sibbaldius laticeps.
“The mandibular ramus is rather massive, moderately curved, and with a more elevated coronoid process than in any Whale that I have seen.
“The greatest peculiarity is in the form of the lumbar and anterior caudal vertebræ; they are of a much more elongate form than any I have seen or found figured, excepting those of the Balænoptera rostrata (as figured by Gaimard in ‘Voyage de la Recherche’), which, however, are relatively shorter. Those of the present species are of greater length than transverse diameter, the lumbars most elongate; all furnished with an acute hypapophysial keel and concave sides, and entirely transverse diapophyses. This peculiarity is consistent with the account of my informant, who stated the animal to have been of an unusually elongate and slender form. When it came ashore it had perhaps been dead ten days; the flukes and muscular region as far as the third caudal vertebra had been devoured, probably by Sharks and Killers, and the abdominal region much lacerated; the edge of a fin preserved was slit by the teeth of some carnivorous enemy. The measurement from the end of the muzzle to the end of the third caudal was 35 feet, which may be reduced to 33 feet axial. Up to this point the dorsal line was, according to my informant, entirely smooth, without knob or fin, or scar of one; hence I suppose the fin (if present) to have been situated, as in Sibbaldius &c., at the posterior fourth of the length, and not, as in Balænoptera, on the posterior third. It may then be safely assumed, bearing in mind the form of vertebræ, that ten feet of the whale’s length had been removed, making in all 43 feet. That the species attains over 50 feet is probable, as the present individual was quite young, the epiphyses separating from the vertebræ with the greatest ease. The slender form of the animal is corroborated by the slenderness and slight curvature of the ribs, one attached beneath the scapula, probably the second, being narrower than the corresponding ones in Sibbaldius. I therefore think it most probable that in this form the anterior ribs are single-headed.”—Cope, l. c. p. 223.
1. Agaphelus gibbosus. The Scrag Whale.
Agaphelus gibbosus, Cope.