RIGHT WHALES 141 



captured. After the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century the industry seems to have decayed, on 

 account of the growing rarity of the whales. In the 

 nineteenth century but two or three records of its 

 occurrence in the Bay are to be found. 



The genus NEOBAL/ENA may be thus characterised: 

 Size small, 20 feet about. Head not laree. No 



o 



throat grooves. A small falcate dorsal fin. Frontals 

 broad. Seventeen pairs of ribs, very broad and flat. 

 Vertebra C. 7 (fused) D. 18, L. 2, Cau. 16. Whale- 

 bone long. Scapula broad, not high. 



This very remarkable genus of whalebone whales 

 bears the same kind of relation to the great Bala-no, 



o 



that Kogia does to its equally gigantic ally Physeter. 

 In both cases also the dwarf form is to some extent 

 intermediate in its characters, thus illustrating a 

 generalisation applicable to a good many groups 

 that archaic characters are not usually coupled with 

 extremes of size. 



To Dr. Gray may have been justly allowed some 

 jubilation concerning this whale. He separated it as 

 distinct on account of its whalebone, and, as it has 

 turned out, very rightly. As Neobalana is repre- 

 sented by but a single species it is clearly impossible 

 to disentangle from each other the characters which 

 belong to Neobalcena as a genus from those which 

 should be held to distinguish Neobalcena marginata 

 as a species. Indeed, the two skeletons of this whale 

 in the fine collection of Cetaceans in the British 



