HA R D WICKE'S S CIENCE - G O SSI P. 



245 



constitute distinct specific characters ; on the other 

 hand, a Fin-whale from Java so closely resembles 

 our Balicnoptera latkeps that Professor Flower, after 

 the most careful examination and comparison almost 

 bone by bone, hesitates to pronounce it distinct, and 

 only separates it provisionally. On our own coast 

 this species has been met with in numerous instances. 

 In feeding, the Rorquals are not so restricted to 

 minute marine animals as the Right-whales, but 

 devour large quantities of fish of various sizes, from 

 herrings up to cod. In the stomach of the New- 

 castle Humpbacked-whale (the species mentioned 

 immediately before the present one) were found six 

 cormorants, but a seventh, found in its throat, was 



of the baleen is to form a screening apparatus through 

 which the water is ejected, leaving its minute prey 

 behind ; and in the toothed whales it would not be re- 

 quired. What appears like a jet of water is, in reality, 

 dense vapour — in fact, the breath issuing from the 

 lungs of the animal, highly charged with moisture, 

 which becomes condensed upon exposure to the 

 atmosphere. The figure of this species is copied, by 

 kind permission of Professor Flower, from the illus- 

 tration to his paper in the " Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society of London" for 1869, p. 604, 

 et scq. 



Sibbald's Rorqual {Baldnoptera Sibbaldii, J. E. 

 Gray) has several times been met with in British 



Fig. 180. The Lesser Rorqual {Baheno^tera rostrata, p'ab.). 



iupposed to have caused its death by choking it. 

 The blowing is accompanied by a loud noise, which, 

 on a still night, may be heard at a considerable dis- 

 tance. It was formerly supposed that in "blowing " 

 the whale ejected from its nostrils a very considerable 

 quantity of water, which might be seen to spout up 

 into the air like a fountain ; and in the performance 

 of this remarkable feat they were generally depicted. 

 Beall, however, in his "Natural History of the Sperm 

 Whale," as early as 1838, shows that this is not the 

 case, and the truth of his observations is now 

 generally acknowledged. The power so to eject 

 water taken into its capacious mouth could be of no 

 service to the Whalebone-whales, as the very purpose 



waters. It is the largest of this gigantic family, 

 measuring from 80 to perhaps lOO feet in length. 

 The famous " Ostend Whale," which was found 

 floating dead in the North Sea in 1S27, and taken 

 into Ostend, belonged to this species ; its skeleton 

 was long exhibited in this country, and afterwards in 

 America. Dr. Gray says it is now in St. Petersburg, 

 and gives the total length as 102 feet ; as, however, 

 several of the vertebrce are missing, the exact length 

 is uncertain. Professor Turner gives the length of 

 a specimen stranded in the Firth of Forth as 78 

 feet 9 inches, and the girth behind the flippers about 

 45 feet : this animal was gravid, but notwithstand- 

 ing this fact, the bulk must have been enormous. 



