SOME HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED PHOTOGRAPHS AND 

 MEASUREMENTS OF THE BLXtE WHALE. 



By Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., 



Curator, Division of Mammals, United States National Museum. 



Two noteworthy specimens of the blue whale were collected for the 

 National Museum in Newfoundland during the summer of 1903 by 

 Dr. F. A. Lucas assisted by Mr. J. W. Scollick and Mr. William 

 Palmer, Both were taken in the vicinity of Balena Station, Her- 

 mitage Bay. One is the cast of an adult female, 79 feet in length 

 (No. 237567), obtained through the courtesy of the Cabot Steam 

 Whaling Co. The other is the skeleton of an adult male 75 feet long 

 (No. 49757), a gift from the Colonial Manufacturing Co. of St. Johns. 

 They were received in Washington too late to be mentioned in Dr. 

 F. W. True's monograph of the Whalebone Whales of the Western 

 North Atlantic.^ Before the skeleton was placed on exhibition in 

 the Museum nine photographs were made by Mr. T. W. Smillie 

 under the direction of Doctor True. None of these has yet appeared 

 in print. Figures of the skull and other bones of Sihlaldus musculus 

 are not easy to find, a fact which is particularly emphasized by their 

 absence from tlie important work to which allusion has just been 

 made. It has therefore seemed desirable to publish Mr. Smillie's 

 remarkably fine photographs together with some measurements 

 found among the MS. notes left by Doctor True. 



Table of measurements of Sibbaldus musculus. No. 49757 U. S. National Museum. 



Measure- 

 ments. 



Per cent 



of greatest 



length. 



Skull. 



Tip of beak to condyles (straight) meters 



Greatest breadth at orbital processes of temporal do-_ 



Diameter of foramen magnum millimeters 



Length of rostrum meters 



Breadth of rostrum at middle (curved) do__ 



Breadth of rostrum at base (curved) do__ 



Breadth of skull at summit millimeters 



Height of occipital from top of foramen magnum meters 



Length of maxilla from tip to end of nasal process do__ 



Length of maxilla from tip to end of malar process. _do._ 



' Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. 33. August 29, 19(M. 



5. 79 



2. 74 

 110 



3. 99 

 1.63 

 2.06 



570 

 1. 16 



4. 57 

 4.20 



100 

 47.4 



68. 9 

 28.2 

 35. 6 

 10. 

 20. 

 78. 9 

 72.5 



No. 2544.— Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 66, Art. 7. 



94991— 24t 



