39 



long baleen. The largest of these animals is the Bowhead, or Arctic 

 Right Whale, B. mysticetus, which yields more oil and a better 

 quantity of whalebone than any other species. Although huge in 

 bulk, its gullet is not over two inches in diameter, and its food consists 

 of microscopic organisms, millions of which are swallowed at a time. 

 It is emphatically an ice whale, living amid floes and vast fields of 

 ice of the Polar regions. Various species of these whales, arranged 

 under separate genera, frequent the different seas. 



Fam. I. Balieiiiclre. Baleen Whales. 



F. W. True, On the nomenclature of the Whalebone Whales of the 

 tenth edition of Linnceus, Systema Natures. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 

 1898, p. 617. 



FIG. 10. BAL/ENA QLACIALIS BALEEN. 



Riverside Nat. History. 



Teeth absent in both jaws, present in fcetal life; palate furnished 

 with whalebone. Rami of mandible greatly arched outward, meet- 

 ing at an angle at apex, there connected by fibrous tissues. Skull 

 symmetrical. First pair of ribs alone joined to the sternum; the 

 others are fastened to the vertebrae by ligaments. Nasals roofing the 

 anterior nasal passages. 



