142 BAL-i;NOPTEHIDJE. 



direction, with its upper jaw above the water, blowing with great 

 violence and noise, and diving sometimes tranquilly, sometimes in a 

 seething wave created by its hn and tail. It was evidently feeding 

 on herrings, as every now and then it would rush headlong into por- 

 tions of the sea where the smooth surface was broken by the shoals 

 of fish. The blowholes were at times flat and unprojecting, at others 

 boldly prominent, the animal evidently having the power of raising 

 or depressing these organs. The Ein-whalcs of Orkney and Caithness 

 every season are observed in pursuit of herrings." — Heddle, P. Z. S. 

 1856. 



These animals are often called Mazor -backs and Piked Whales by 

 the sailors. 



The baleen or fin of the Finners is only used to split into false 

 bristles, but for this purpose they are inferior to the Southern or 

 lowest kind of baleen of the Balcence. 



Martens (Spitz. 125. t. 2. f. c) figures a whale, under the name 

 of Fin-Jish, which agrees in all points with this group ; biit, as there 

 are no folds on the belly in the figure, Ray, and after him Brisson and 

 Linnaeus, established for it a species under the name of Balixna Phy- 

 salus (S. N. i. 186). As, however, the name Fin-fish, used by Mar- 

 tens, is the one now given by the Greenland whalers to these fin-backed 

 whales with plaited bellies, and a^ Martens does not mention the 

 colour, nor say a word about the belly, and as Scoresby says, from 

 report, that the skin of the Fin-fish is smooth, "except about the 

 sides of the thorax, where longitudinal rugae or sulci occur," I 

 think there can be little doubt that this whale was only a common 

 Tinner, and that the absence of the plaits arose from a mistake of 

 the artist. This renders the existence of the section which Lacepede 

 calls Rorquals a ventre lisse, and which Dr. Fleming transformed into 

 a genus under the name of Phi/salis, very doubtful. 



Lacepede referred to the smooth-belhed Rorquals the " Hunch- 

 back " of Dudley, who distinctly says the belly is " reeved " ; but 

 Lacepede did not understand that word to be synonymous with 

 plaited. 



Sibbald (Phalaenologia Nova, 1692) figures two specimens of Fin- 

 ners, caught on the coast of Scotland. Ray (Hist. Piscium, 17) 

 noticed these specimens. Brisson and Linnaeus regarded them as 

 separate species. Linnaeus designated the one with the skin under 

 the throat dilated, probably by the gas in the abdominal cavity, B. 

 muscuhis, and the other with this part contracted and flat, B. Boops. 

 I proved, by the examination of the specimen we have in the British 

 Museum, when alive, and M. Ravin observes (Ann. Sci. Nat. v. 275), 

 that this skin is very dilatable ; so that these characters appear to 

 depend on the manner in which the specimen might lie when drawn, 

 and the quantity of gas which might have been produced by the 

 decomposition of the interior. These species have been retained by 

 Turton, Fleming, Jenyns, and other authors who have compiled 

 works on the British fauna, except Bell, who cut the Gordian knot 

 by uniting them and the Bala'na rosfrafa of Hunter into a single 

 species ! The author who appears to have best understood the 



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