On the anatomy of a fin-whale (Physalus antiquorum, Gray) captured near Gravesend / by James Murie.

  • Murie, James.
Date:
[1865]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the anatomy of a fin-whale (Physalus antiquorum, Gray) captured near Gravesend / by James Murie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    give a total of somewhere about one hundred. Although parallel to each other and to the long diameter of the body, they were not in perfect straight lines, hut adapted themselves to the curve of the throat and chest, being shortest as they ascended towards the hack. They commenced a short distance from the mouth or lower lip, and did not extend quite so far back as the penis. The breadth of each of these folds varied from 2 to 5 inches, and their height was about an inch. The interspaces or furrows were one or more inches wide, according to the manner in which the part was stretched. Here and there these plications joined each other at acute angles. Fig. 1. a. Skin, showing larger-sized folds, with intervening furrows aud wrinkles. b. Vertical section through four of the smaller ridges and grooves. A vertical section of the skin showed that the crown of each ridge had a thick cap of hard cuticle covering it, and which was of greatest depth at its centre, shelving off on either side (see fig. 1 b). The furrows themselves were lined with thinner soft cuticle, and, as best seen in the smaller grooves, they became widened at the bottom, where the skin was raised in several puckerings or folds. These last, as well as numerous wrinkles of the free edges of some ot the ridges, no doubt admitted of the easy distention of the parts. The woodcuts (fig. 1 a and b), drawn from nature, show these several points. Heddle has given a couple of linear diagrams to illustrate [4]