116 BALENOPTERID-E. 



backwards. The bone (whalebone) is not worth much, though 

 somewhat better than the Fin-hacl-. His fin (pectoral) is sometimes 

 IS feet long, and very white. Both Fm-bacls and Humpbacks are 

 shaped in reeves (folds), longitudinally from head to tail, on their 

 beUy and sides, as far as their fins, which are about halfway up 

 the sides," 



This description is the origin of Balcena nodosa of Bonnaterre and 

 other authors. The French authors have evidently not undei-stood 

 the word " reeves," and have therefore arranged these with the 

 smooth-beUied finlcss whales ; and Bonnaterre translates the position 

 of the fins on the sides into " presque an milieu du corps," instead 

 of haKway up the sides. Dudley, when speaking of the Spermaceti 

 Whale, says, " He has a bunch on his back like a Humpback," 

 which explains what he means by a bunch. 



The Humpbacks are well known to the whalers, for Beale says, 

 " The Humpback Whale possesses, like the Greenland "VVTiale, the 

 baleen, and spouts from the top of the head, yet has a hump not 

 very dissimilar to that of the Sperm Whale." (p. 12.) 



Professor Eschricht, in the ' Danish Transactions,' 1846, has 

 figured the dorsal fin of this genus, and shows that it is more pro- 

 perly a hunch, as Dudley calls it, than a fin. 



Cuvier (Oss. Foss. v. 367) thinks that the Humpback "WTiale 

 was probably only a whale of another kind whose fins had been 

 injured, not recognizing in his Cape Rorqual the genus of whale 

 here noticed. 



Olafsen speaks of a whale under the name of Hnufuhal-i- (French 

 translation, iii. 22), which is said to have a smooth belly, and a horn 

 instead of a fin on the back ; but the account of the animals in this 

 work is evidently only a compilation, and this appears like an incor- 

 rect translation of Dudley. 



Dr. Bennett observes — " The Humpback of the southern whalers 

 derives its trivial name from an embossed appendage or hump 

 on the posterior part of the back. It has two spiracles or nostrils 

 on the summit of the head, and its mouth is furnished with 

 plates of short whalebone. When seen on the surface of the water, 

 it bears a close resemblance to the SjJerm Whale in colour and the 

 appearance of the hump, as well as in a habit it has of casting its 

 tail vertically in the air ; when about to dive, the hump slopes to- 

 wards the tail in a more oblique manner than does the similar 

 appendage in the Sperm Whale. 



"It is seldom molested by whalers, and is never a chief object of 

 their pursuit, although the oil it produces is superior to that from 

 the Right Whale (Balcena), and but little inferior to sperm oil. 



" It is a species (genus ?) frequently seen in the Atlantic and 

 Pacific Oceans, where it occurs in small herds, and seldom at any 

 considerable distance from land, although the vicinity of the most 

 abrupt coast would appear to be its favourite resort. Examples are 

 occasionally seen in the neighbourhood of the islands of the Pacific, 

 and very frequently in the deep water around the island of St. Helena. 



