FIELD BOOK OF MAMMALS 



data and, although these animals have served as the basis of a 

 great industry, few of the whalers troubled to write down their 

 observations, and not many competent observers have spent 

 the time necessary to learn much of cetacean life-histories. 

 One of the classical accounts from which a large part of our 

 knowledge is derived is Scammon's Marine Mammalia and 

 American Whale Fishery. 



Suborder MYSTICETI. Baleen Whales ^ 



Toothless Whales (no teeth present after birth) having 

 plates of baleen or whalebone along upper jaw; lower jaws not 

 united at symphysis by a bony suture but connected by fibrous 

 tissue; nostrils opening as paired "blow-holes"; olfactory lobe 

 developed. 



Family Balaenidse. Whalebone Whales 



Mandible deep; rostrum high and arched; cleft of mouth 

 a curved line; lumbar vertebrae ten or more. 



Genus Eubalaena 



North Atlantic Right Whale. — Eubalaena glacialis 



(Bonaterre) 



General Description. — A large Whale, length about fifty 

 feet, with large head; long, narrow baleen, black in color; 

 short, broad pectoral fin, enclosing the bones of all five fingers; 

 no dorsal fin; no furrows on skin of throat. 



Color. — Generally black, but sometimes mottled or pied 

 with white. 



Measurements. — Sexes about equal in size; True gives 

 lengths of American specimens varying from 30 feet to 53 

 feet. 



Geographical Distribution. — North Atlantic; has been 

 taken from shores of wSouth Carolina northward. 



^ See True, The Whalebone Whales of the Western North Atlantic, Smith- 

 sonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. 33, 1904, and G. M. Allen, 

 The Whalebone Whales of New England, Memoirs, Boston Society of 

 Natural History, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1916. 



55» 



