FAUNA AMERICANA. 297 



Char. Essent. Body thick and short; tail short; 

 no prominence on the back ; upper jaw furnished 

 with about seven hundred transverse corneous 

 plates. 



Dimensions. Total length from fifty to ninety 

 feet. 



For description see Bonnaterre, loc. cit. The 

 size of this species has been overrated at a hun- 

 dred feet. Of three hundred and twenty-two indi- 

 viduals measured by Captain Scoresby, not one 

 exceeded sixty feet The average size is fifty feet. 



Inhabit the Atlantic Ocean, particularly the 

 Polar Sea, in the neighbourhood of Greenland. 

 According to Scoresby, feeding on actinia, medu- 

 sa, snails, crabs, shrimps, &c. 



Species. 



2. Balcena glacialis, Klein, Miss. Pise. 2. p. 12, 

 BalcBna islandica, bipinnis ex nigro candicans, 

 dorso levi, Briss. Regn. Anim. p. 350. No. 2, 

 JSTord-caper, Anderson, Island, p. 219. Baleine 

 nord-caper, Bonn. Encycl. Cetolog. p. 3. No. 2. 



Balmna mysticetiis, var. /?. Gmel. 



Baleine nord-caper, Lacep. p. 103. pi. 2 and 3. 



Char. Essent. Inferior jaw rounded, very high 

 and broad; body and tail elongated; no promi- 

 nence on the back ; general colour more or less 

 clear gray ; beneath the head a large oval surface, 

 of a shining white appearance, with some blackish 

 and grayish spots around it and in its centre. 



38 



