342 SUPPOSED NEW SPECIES OF BAL^NOPTERA. 



diverging posteriorly, to a distance of about 3 inches. They 

 were about 10 inches long, communicating with the nostrils, 

 and opening posteriorly into the pharynx. 



Colour of the head, back, tail, and outside of the pectoral 

 fins, black ; inside of pectoral fins, throat, breast, and belly, 

 beautifully white. Integuments of the three last-named 

 parts disposed in longitudinal folds, with the intervening 

 spaces pink. Inside of the under-jaw black ; tongue, palate, 

 &c., pink. 



Sex, female. 



The under-jaw is the widest, and projects 9 inches beyond 

 the point of the upper one. No teeth in either jaw ; the upper 

 jaw is furnished with about 250 plates of whalebone (baleen) 

 on each side. Point of each jaw rounded; the muzzle 

 longer and much more attenuated than in the genus Balcena ; 

 and the plates of whalebone comparatively short, and conse- 

 quently of Uttle or no value as an article of commerce. They 

 resemble horn rather than bone, and are tough, flexible, and 

 elastic if bent in one direction, but brittle, and easily split in 

 the other. Their colour blueish-black, and yellowish- white. 

 They are fiinged at the edges with loose fibres, resembling 

 hair or bristles, which serve to entangle and prevent the es- 

 cape of the marine insects, zoophytes, Mollusca, &c., on 

 which the animal chiefly subsisted. 



The blubber varied in thickness, from 3 to 5 inches, and 

 yielded three hogsheads of oil. 



Total weight of the animal, about 25 tons. 



SKELETON. 



Ft. 

 Whole length from point of under-jaw to tip of tail .... 41 



Length of head 11 



Vertebral column ; 30 



The vertebral column consists of sixty bones ; namely, 

 7 cervical, 15 dorsal, 16 lumbar, and 22 caudal ; 52 of these 

 are strictly spinal, the 53rd doubtful, and the remaining 7 

 appertain to the horizontal tail. The spinal canal terminates 

 at the 52nd; the 53rd has a deep groove, but no spinous pro- 

 cess, the arch being completed in the recent subject by car- 

 tilage or Ugament. 



Each of the principal vertehrce consists of a body, two 

 transverse processes, two oblique or articulating processes, 

 and the spinous process, surmounting and completing the 

 spinal arch, for the transmission and protection of the me- 

 dulla spinalis or spinal marrow. 



