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Baleen, more commonly but erroneously called "whale-bone" 

 consists of numerous transversely placed flattened horny laminse, 

 numbering between three hundred and four hundred on either 

 side of the palate. Each of these laminte is composed of many 

 soft vascular papillae, circular in outline, each of which is surrounded 

 by concentrically arranged epidermic cells, the whole being bound 

 together by other cells of a similar character, which constitute 

 the smooth cortical surface of the blade, erroneously considered 

 to be enamel, and which, by the disintegration of its free margin 

 allows the individual fibres to become loose and assume a hair-like 

 appearance. The baleen only makes its appearance after the birth 

 of the young Whale, these in the fcetal state possessing numerous 

 minute calcified teeth which are absorbed before birth. Its func- 

 tion is to strain the water from the small marine animals on 

 which the whales subsist and at the same time prevent the escape 

 of the enclosed prey. 



Family I. BALJENHXE. 



Characters similar to those of the Suborder. 



Genus I. BALyENA, Linncens (1735). 



Skin of throat smooth. Head very large. No dorsal fin. Fore 

 limb short, broad, pentadactylous. Baleen very long and narrow, 

 highly elastic, black. Cervical vertebrae united into a single mass. 

 Scapula high, with a distinct coracoid and coronoid process. 



Vertebra. C. 7, D. 14, L. 10, Cd. 23; total 54. 



1. BALDEN A AUSTBALIS, Desmoulins (1822). 

 Southern Right Whale. 



General color black or blackish-gray ; the anterior part of the 

 lower jaw, and part of the throat and belly white. 



Dimensions. Attains, to a length of from sixty to seventy feet. 



Habitat. Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans south of the 

 tropics. 



References. Gray, B.M. Catal. Seals and Whales, p. 91 ; Scott, 

 Seals and Whales, p. 136. 



Note. The food of the Right Whales consists principally of 

 minute molluscous and crustaceous animals. 



Genus II. NEOBAUENA, Gray (1871). 



Skin of throat smooth. A small falcate dorsal fin. Fore limb 

 tetradactylous, the pollex absent. Skull rather depressed ; brain 

 cavity nearly as long as the beak, depressed, much expanded on the 

 sides, with a very deep notch on the middle of each side over the 

 condyles of the lower jaw, and with a subtriangular crown-plate. 



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