230 The Ifish Nahwalist, November. 



bodies fisli-like. We can distingnisli two well-defined groups, 

 the toothless or Whai^ebone Whai.es and the Toothed 

 Whales. 



Hitherto the following five whalebone whales had been 

 observed on the Irish coast, viz. : — the Southern Right Whale, 

 the Hump-backed Whale, Sibbald's Rorqual, the Common 

 Rorqual, and the Lesser Rorqual. 



Whether we have two Irish Right Whales or only one kind 

 is still uncertain. The Norwegians, as Mr. Holt infi)rms me, 

 distinguish between the " Greenlandshvalen '' and the " Nord- 

 kaperen," two whales of the Right Whale type, but what they 

 captured and brought to Inishkea in June, 1908, were all 

 Nordkaperen, and were identified by Prof. Collett as Balaena 

 glacialis. It remains uncertain, therefore, whether the other 

 Right Whale {Balaena a2cst7-alis=B. biscayensis)^ frequents 

 our coasts, or whether the old records are applicable to the 

 ** Nordkaper." 



The Right Whale is distinguished from the other whalebone 

 whales by the absence of the dorsal fin and of the peculiar long 

 furrows found on the throat of the other species.^ 



The value of the five Irish Right Whales taken in 1908 was 

 estimated by Prof. Collett as amounting to from ;^i,5oo to 

 ;^3,ooo. A single one of the plates from the mouth of a 

 full grown whale is worth about two guineas, and as a 

 quarter of a ton of whalebone is sometimes obtained from 

 a large specimen, the value of that article alone is about 

 ;^400. I may mention that there is still a curious miscon. 

 ception as to the real nature of the substance called 

 " whalebone." Some people persist in believing that whale- 

 bones are the whale's ribs. Others, possibly misled by the 

 old feudal law that the tails of all whales belong to the Queen 

 as a perquisite, to furnish Her Majesty's wardrobe with whale- 

 bone, think that it comes from the animal's tail. The fact, 

 however, is that although all whalebone whales start life with 

 rudimentary teeth, these soon disappear and are replaced by 

 a horny substance which grows out from the upper jaw in 

 long sheets of triangular plates. The plates are attached to 

 the roof of the mouth and are longest towards the middle of 

 it. Their outer edge is smooth, the inner frayed into innum- 

 merable hair-like processes. When the whale opens its mouth 



* Collett, R. — Balaena glaciaHs. Proc, Zool. Soc, Loudon, 1909, i., 



pp. 91-98. 



