2 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.66 



{Bakvnoptera horealis Lesson)," (Monographs of the Pacific Cetacea, 

 11).^ These 'authors have so fully covered this part of the sub- 

 ject that it seems unnecessar}' to repeat the details in the present 

 connection, especially as I have no new observations to record. The 

 Pollack Whale was first described in 1822 from an individual cast 

 up three years before at Gromitz, on the Baltic coast of the Province 

 of Holstein, Germany. Since then it has become rather well known 

 as a summer visitant to the coastal waters of the North Sea, where 

 it is frequently taken at whaling stations in Norway, Ireland, and 

 Iceland. The fact of its occurrence in the western North Atlantic 

 was not established until the publication of a note by True in 1903,* 

 recording the caf)ture of four individuals in Placentia Bay, New- 

 foundland, during the previous summer. It is now known to fre- 

 quent the Newfoundland coast regularly in small numbers. One was 

 stranded at Chatham, Massachusetts in August, 1910, and this speci- 

 men, represented, unfortunately, by nothing more than a photograph 

 and a few pieces of baleen and bone, is the only one hitherto recorded 

 from the coast of the United States. ^Miile the range of the true 

 Pollack Whale is centered in the North Atlantic, that of the group 

 to which the animal belongs has recently been found to be much 

 more extensive, embracing the South Atlantic,^ the Antarctic Ocean," 

 the Indian Ocean, and the North Pacific. (See the paper by 

 Andrews already referred to.) Whether the one species Balce- 

 nofteiu horealis occurs throughout this area or whether there are two 

 or more nearly related local forms are questions which can not now 

 be answered. Probably they must remain unanswered until a suffi- 

 cient number of skulls from some one locality can be studied to give 

 a definite idea of the limits of individual variation. In habits the 

 Pollack Wliale does not appear to differ conspicuously from the 

 other finbacks. It undoubtedly moves about extensively as the sea- 

 sonal food supply changes, and it may perform regular migrations; 

 but accurate data on these subjects are at present lacking. The 

 bristles of its baleen are fine in texture, and this may indicate that 

 unusually much of its food consists of pelagic crustaceans. It is 

 known, however, to feed occasionally on small fish. 



I have prepared the following account of the Jacksonville speci- 

 men somewhat in the form of a supplement to Dr. F. W. True's 

 monograph of the whalebone whales of the North Atlantic, adopt- 

 ing so far as possible the plan of arrangement and treatment fol- 

 lowed in this well-known work. 



»Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., n. s.. vol. 1 pt. 4, pp. 291-460, pis. 29-42. 1916. 

 * Science, n. s., vol. 17, p. 150. January 23, 1903. 



B Saldanha Bay, near Capetown ; Olsen, Bergens Museiini.=? Aarbog, No. 5, p. 52. 1915. 

 " Liouville, Deuxifeme Exped. Ant. Frangaise, Cetacea, pp. 100-110. 1913. 



