PORPOISES AND DOLPHINS 287 



its relative the White Whale has no dorsal fin, but is almost 

 unique amongst cetaceans in having, in an ill-defined con- 

 striction behind the head, some semblance of a neck. The 

 head itself is without a constricted beak, and its outline is 

 convex from tip of upper jaw to blowhole. The girth of the 

 body at the middle is somewhat greater than that of the 

 Narwhal, and the flippers are broader and more rounded than 

 in that species. 



Eight to 10 teeth are to be found on each side of upper and 

 lower jaws, and in the young animal they may bear little 

 lobular processes in front of and behind the apex. In a 

 specimen taken in the River Forth in 1932 some of the teeth 

 hr.d two lobes, one in front of and the other behind the main 

 cusp, and others had three little subsidiary cusps. The teeth 

 of the adult become worn down, are thicker and longer than in 

 immature specimens and have a diameter of about four-fifths 

 of an inch. 



The whiteness, without spots or markings of any kind, of 

 the adult Beluga distinguishes this species from all other 

 Cetaceans. The animal assumes this colour when it is four 

 or five years old, before which it is, when very young, very 

 dark grey; later it is mottled, and then yeilow, before becoming 

 completely unpigmented. 



The White Whale grows to a length of 12 to 14 feet, but 

 sometimes attains a rather larger size ; 18 feet has been 

 quoted as the upper limit. • 



Like the Narwhal it is a boreal species, circumpolar in its 

 distribution and usually limited in its range to high Arctic 

 latitudes. On the east coast of America it is abundant in 

 Davis Strait, Hudson Bay, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 going as far up river as Quebec. On the western side of 

 America it occurs off the coast of Alaska, and there is a record 

 of one taken by the Russians in 1863 at Nulato on the Yukon 

 River, about 700 miles from the open sea. It is plentiful in 

 the White, Kara and Okhotsk Seas, where it enters the mouths 

 of rivers, nets being used in its capture during a fishing season 

 which extends from June to September. It is to be seen, 

 according to the Norwegian authority, Collett, almost every 

 year off the northern Norwegian coast and in Veranger Fjord. 

 In hard winters it has been known to go further south, along 



