214 MAMMALIA. 



enormous animals feed exclusively on very small Mollusca, 

 which abound, it is true, in the seas they inhabit. Their excre- 

 ment is of a beautiful red colour, and affords a tolerable die.(l) 

 Other species (Bal^noptera, Lacep.) have a dorsal fin: they are 



also again subdivided into such as have a smooth belly, and those in 



which it is wrinkled. The 



Baljenoptera, with a smooth belly, 



Are closely allied to the Whales proper. One only is cited, the 

 Balxna physalus, Finnjisch of the Hollanders ; copied from 

 Martens by Anderson, Bonnaterre, and others ; Lacep. I, fig. ii. 

 (The Gibbar.) As long as the Common Whale, but more 

 slender; very common in the same latitudes, but shunned by the 

 fishermen on account of its extreme ferocity, and the paucity of 

 its oil; to capture it is a difficult, and for small vessels a danger- 

 ous undertaking, on account of the violence of its motions when 

 attacked. It is far from certain that it is not a Jubarta, whose 

 name has been corrupted. The 



Bal^noptera, ivith a wrinkled belly, or Rorquals,(2) 



Have the skin of the underpartof the throat and chest folded longi- 

 tudinally into plicje, forming very deep wrinkles, and consequently 

 susceptible of great dilatation, the use of which is unknown. It 

 appears that the seas of Europe contain two species. 



Bal boops, L. ; Jubarte of the Biscayans j Lacep. I, f. 3, 

 IV, f. 1 and 2, V, f. 1, and VIII, 1 and 2. (The Jubarta.) 



Superior in length to the Common Whale, but has all the 



dangerous propensities of the Gibbar. 



Bal. rmisculus, Lin.; Lacep. pi. vi and vii. (The Rorqual of 



the Mediterranean.) Which only differs from the Jubarta in 



some of the details of its proportions. (2) 



(1) It is from an erroneous Interpretation of certain passages of Martens and 

 Zorgdrager, that naturalists have made a peculiar species of the Nord-Caper, which 

 should be a northern whale more slender than the common one ; but in the Antarc- 

 tic Seas there is a species very similar to the Common Whale, which the Hollanders 

 of the Cape also call Nord-Caper. See Oss. Foss. p. 361, 363. 



(2) Rorqual, whale with tubes, from its plicae. 



(3) The Balsena rostrata of Hunter, of Fabricius and of Bonnaterre, or the Boops, 

 is very different from that of Pennant and of Pontoppidan, which is the IIyperoo- 

 noN. 



The Balaena gibhosa and the gihhosa B. or nodosa of Bonnaterre, should be better 

 determined; but they are only known through Dudley, Phil. Trans. 387, and 

 we are not sure they were precisely in their natural state. See Oss. Foss. loc. cit. 



