Balbna. mammalia. CETACEA. M 



B. Back destitute of a protuberance or Jin. 

 Gen. XXXI. BALiENA. WHALE.—Upper lip whiskered 

 Head large. 

 48. B. Mysticetus. Common Whale. Gape of the mouth 

 arched. 



Scoreshy^s Arct. Keg. i. 449. tab. xii. 

 The intelligent author whom we have now quoted, and whose figure is the 

 only one worth quoting, considers a full grown whale of the ordinary size as 

 not exceeding 60 feet in length, and 40 feet in circumference, and as weighing 

 about 70 tons, the blubber 30 tons. " The upper jaw, including the crown bone 

 or skull, is bent down at the extremity so far as to shut the front and upper 

 parts of the cavity of the mouth, and is overlapped by the lips in a squamous 

 manner at the sides." The swimmers are placed about 2 feet behind the angle 

 of the mouth. The tail reaches to 26 feet in breadth. Laminae of baleen 300 

 in number in each series, and sometimes 15 feet in length ; tlie whole weighing 

 a ton and half. A slight beard, consisting of a few short scattered white 

 hairs, surmounts the anterior extremity of both jaws. Its food consists of 

 small marine insects. Sir Charles Giesecke (Article Greenland, Ed. En, x. 

 499.) states the length of a female, killed in the spring of 1813, at 6? feet- 

 Another killed in 1811, measured as follows t "From the centre of the mouth 

 to the point of the tail 56 feet. From the point of the under lip to the roct 

 of the fins, 23| feet. From the fins to the point between the two lobes or 

 wings of the tail 33 feet. The length of the head was 18 feet. From the 

 middle point of the upper lip to the blowholes IC^ feet. The length of one 

 of the fins 8 feet 4 inches. The thickness of a fin, on its thickest part, 1 foot 

 9 inches. The breadth of the tail from one extremity of its wings to the 

 other, 22 feet 7 inches. The length of one of the blowholes 1 1 inches. There 

 were thirteen ribs on each side." 



Sibbald (Fhal. p. 65.) states, that an individual of this species came ashore 

 near Peterhead in 1682, and measured 70 feet. The species referred to bv 

 Willoughby (Ichthyologia, p. 37.), as having come ashore at Tynemouth, was 

 probably a Physalis, as it is stated to have been 30 yards in length, and to 

 have had 30 ribs. 



Though the whale appears formerly to have been frequently met with in 

 our seas, yet now, when the fishery is prosecuted with zeal and success, and 

 the geographical limits of the species, in consequence, greatly reduced, it scarce- 

 ly merits a place among British animals, as it occurs only "at distant intervals 

 as a straggler. 



I. Palate destitute of baleen. Furnished with teeth, external 

 orijice of the blow-hole single. 



A. Blow-hole double, being divided within by a bony sep- 

 tum. 



a. Teeth, numerous, in both Jaws. 



Gen. XXXII. DELPHIxNUS. DoLPHrN.— A dorsal fin. 

 Destitute of a caecum. 



1. Snout short and blunt. Phoccena qfCnv. 

 49. D. PlioccBna. Porpess. — Teeth compressed and oblique. 

 Sibb. Scot. 23 — Will. Ich. p. ^M.—Borl, Corn. p. 264. tab. xxvij. f. 2._ 

 Monro, Phys. Fishes, p. 45. tab. xxxv — Fleminy, Phil. Zool. ii. p. 200 

 VOL. I. C 



