

THE SMOOTH-SKINNED WHALES—GREENLAND. 



565 



THE BEAKED WHALES. 



The last genus of the family comprises the Beaked 

 Whales (Balcenoptera) which are, as far as is now 

 known, the smallest and most gracefully built of all 

 Whalebone Whales. 

 The Pike Whale the The best known representative of 



Smallest of its this genus is the Pike Whale (Balce- 

 Fanuly. noptera rostrata), the smallest known 



member of its family, for its length hardly exceeds 

 thirty-three feet. A sombre slate black is the hue 

 of the entire upper surface, from the extremity of 

 the upper jaw to the angle of the flippers of the tail, 

 including the pectoral fin; a more or less reddish 

 white color prevails on the lower surface; the flip- 

 pers have the same hue as that of the back above, 

 relieved by a white transverse stripe in the middle; 

 their under surface is white 

 like the abdomen. The 

 range of the Pike Whale 

 extends over all oceans 

 surrounding the north pole. 

 From there it wanders 

 southward at the com- 

 mencement of winter and 

 then appears also on the 

 European, east and west 

 American and east Asiatic 

 coasts. 



In respect to habits and 

 mode of life it greatly re- 

 sembles the Razorback. 

 Generally it lives singly, 

 very rarely in couples, and 

 hardly ever consorts in 

 greater numbers. It feeds 

 preferably if not exclu- 

 sively on small fish, per- 

 haps also on cephalopods, 

 and pursues its prey with 

 such avidity that it often 

 strands itself in the act of 

 pursuit and in many cases 

 loses its life in this way. 



Along the American 

 coast the Pike Whale is 

 not generally hunted, and 

 along the coasts of north or central Europe only 

 when it shows itself near the shore. 



twenty-two feet four inches; length of the largest 

 plate of whalebone, ten feet ten inches. Yet it can 

 not be denied that larger specimens have been found 

 and still exist in remote parts of the sea. Karl 

 Giesecke tells of a Whale, taken in 1813, which was 

 sixty-eight feet long, and in the commencement of 

 this century one was killed near Spitzbergen, which 

 was of about the same length and had whalebone 

 sixteen and one-half feet long. 



Proportions of the A Whale sixty feet in length is really 

 Greenland an awe-inspiring monster. On an 

 Whale. average, the shapeless head includes 



one-third of the total length of the animal; the 

 mouth might easily admit a boat of moderate size 

 with her crew, being from sixteen to twenty feet 

 long and from eight and one-third to ten feet wide. 



Gbe £mootb*£kinnefc Mbalee. 



SECOND FAMILY : Bal^nim:. 



The Smooth-skinned Whales (BaUenida), which 

 form the last family of the suborder, are of heavier 

 and at the same time more awkward organization 

 than any of the Furrowed Whales; they possess 

 neither dorsal fin, nor furrows in the skin; their flip- 

 pers are broad and truncated, their baleen plates 

 long and narrow. 



THE GREENLAND WHALE. 



We must consider the most important of all 

 Whales, the Greenland Whale {Balcena mysticctits), as 

 the type of this family; it is a shapeless creature, 

 which exhibits a lack of proportion in all its parts 

 and members. 



Pechuel-Loesche gives the proportions of a speci- 

 men caught north of Behring Straits as follows: 

 Length, fifty-four feet eight inches, spread of tail, 



In comparison with all of its relatives in the order 

 that have so far been described, this Whale is of ex- 

 tremely clumsy build. The body is short, thick and 

 round, tapering strongly towards the tail, and show- 

 ing an elevation in the middle of the head where 

 the blow-holes terminate. The eyes, which hardly 

 exceed those of an Ox in size, are placed immedi- 

 ately above the beginning of the lower jaw, the ears, 

 the outer auditory tubes of which have about the 

 diameter of a goose-quill, lie a little farther behind. 

 The two narrow, slit-like, S-shaped blow-holes, which 

 are about eighteen inches long, are placed about ten 

 feet from the extremity of the upper jaw on the 

 highest point of projection in the center of the head. 

 The baleen plates are from three hundred to three 

 hundred and sixty in number and those situated in 

 the middle may attain a length of about sixteen feet 

 eight inches and weigh from six to seven pounds 

 apiece. The soft tongue, with its whole lower sur- 

 face grown fast to the jaw, lies immobile in the 

 gigantic mouth. Except a few bristles at the ex- 

 tremity of the muzzle, some soft hairs on each side of 

 the head, and two or three rows of very short hairs 

 between the blow-holes, the skin is completely 

 naked. 



