RIGHT WHALES 133 



remains in perfect action, filling the whole of the 

 interval. The mechanical perfection of the arrange- 

 ment is completed by the great development of the 

 lower lip, which rises stiffly above the jawbone, and 

 prevents the long, slender, flexible ends of the baleen 

 being carried outwards by the rush of water from 

 the mouth, when its cavity is being diminished by 

 the closure of the jaws and raising of the tongue." 



The food thus filtered off by the action of the 

 whalebone and the raising of the tongue and shuttino- 



o o 3 



of the jaws is left stranded upon the gigantic tongue 

 and then swallowed down the narrow throat. It is 

 accordingly not advantageous that this tongue should 

 be mobile and muscular ; it is, as a matter of fact, 

 mainly formed of " a mass of spongy fat intermixed 

 with sinewy flesh." 



The second species, Baleena australis, Desmoulins,* 

 must probably include the following rather formidable 

 list of synonyms : 



B. biscayensis, Gray; B. sieboldi, Gray; B.japonica, 

 Gray; Hunterius temminckii, Gray; B. antipodarum, 

 Gray; B. antarctica, Schlegel ; B. mcditerranea, Gray; 

 B. angulata, Gray ; B. nordcaper, Gray ; B. capensis, 

 Gray ; B. cisarctica, Cope ; B. eubal&na. Flower ; 

 HunteriuS swedenborgi, Liljeborg; Macleayins austra- 

 liensis, Gray; M. britannicus, Gray; B. tarcntina, 

 Capellini ; B. alutiensis, van Beneden ; B. kuliomoch, 

 Chamisso ; B. cullamacha, Chamisso. 



* Diet. Class. tfHist. Nat., ii. (1822), p. 161. 



