OCCURRENCE OF THE COMMON RORQUAL 73 



Length of flipper along anterior edge barely . 5 ft- o in. 



Breadth of flipper at middle fully i o ,, 



Front of dorsal fin to end of tail about . . 12 o ,, 



Expanse of tail when entire (twice 4 ft. 9 in. being 

 distance from centre of tail to tip of left fluke), 



say 9 6 



Girth of body in front of flippers about . . 20 ,, o 

 (A bystander told me he made it 22 ft. the 



day it came ashore.) 



Girth in front of dorsal fin . . . 12 to 13 ,, o ,, 



Girth in front of expansion of tail . . . 5 ,, 4 



Length of aperture of eye . . . . o ,, 3 



11 



The body was much compressed laterally from the region 

 of the dorsal fin backwards, ending in a marked ridge both 

 above and below. The longitudinal plicae or folds on the 

 throat and chest were very well seen, owing to the position 

 in which the body lay. They constituted a series of 

 parallel furrows or grooves from half an inch to one inch 

 broad, with intervening flattened elevations or " ridges," vary- 

 ing in breadth from an inch on the forepart of the throat to 

 two inches farther back. The longest of these ridges 

 originated a little below the extremity of the lower jaw, and 

 extended backwards for about 25 feet, or fully half the 

 entire length of the animal. The shortest were the last 

 or highest ones passing just under the flippers. Division of 

 a ridge into two occurred here and there. Roughly counted, 

 the number of ridges was set down at about sixty. The 

 whole of the upper surface, that is of the head, body, tail, 

 and flippers, was of a grayish black or dark slate colour, 

 becoming darker and duller day by day, while the under 

 surfaces of these parts was white or yellowish white, the 

 two colours gradually merging into each other along the 

 sides roughly in a line between the corner of the mouth and 

 the ventral ridge at the tail. The skin in the grooves 

 of the throat and chest was of a pinkish tint, except in 

 the uppermost ones, where it was of a bluisL te colour. 

 The middle plates of the whalebone or baleen might be 

 described as slate coloured at the outer edge and yellowish 

 white at the inner, each colour being gradually invaded by a 

 series of vertical intrusions and bands of the other, thus pro- 

 ducing the variegated and striped appearance that characterises 



