16 CETACEA. “a 
measurement of a female whale of this species taken at False Bay — . 
Fishery, said to be full-grown, and considered by the whalers as — 
of large size :— J 
ft. in. 
af" oe 1 alg a ARCH Be 68 0 
Picignt of the body? i633... 002-0 14 0 
ENON REAM eo. eee bees 16 0 
wks gh So EGS AS RSIS Me an Ai 15 6 
Length of ribs..... yey rates Rance Ph, 10 6 
Diameter of gullet...... BS te aPitk 0 2 
* T could not pass my hand through it. Number of vertebree 52. 
From all the conversations I have had with the whalers, Ido not — 
think the Cape Whale ever attains the size of the Greenland spe- 
cies. These whales of the Cape, I constantly found covered with 
Tubicinella Balenarum and Coronula Balenaris; but the Sper- — 
macett Whale was seldom or never so covered: they occur prin- 
cipally on the head, where they are crowded, and but rarely on — 
the body, and then only single scattered ones.” 
In False Bay they carry on the fishery from the shore, and 
during the time Mr. Warwick was there, only one bull out of sixty 
specimens was killed, the females coming into the bay to bring 
forth their young. He skinned one, which was supposed to be 
not more than eight or ten days old; it was 20 feet long. 
The baleen of this animal is sometimes called the Whale-fin of — 
the “‘ Black Fish,” the name that is sometimes applied to the — 
Physeter Microps. 
There are sometimes imported with these baleen, a few yel- 
lowish white “fins,” which seldom exceed 2 feet in length; in 
these, the fibres as well as the enamel are white ; they are not so 
transparent as the pale variety of the Greenland fins before re- — 
ferred to; they have the same coarse texture, and are brittle like 
the black southern specimens ; and as they do not take so good a 
polish, they cannot be used for making shavings for plaiting, &e. 
There has lately been brought by the South Sea ships several 
hundredweight of a very small kmd of whalebone, which is im- 
planted in the remains of the palate, im three or four series, gra- __ 
dually diminishing in size towards the imnermost series; each 
piece is linear, compressed, almost 7 to 4 of an inch wide, rounded ~ 
on the edge, varying from 5 to 8 inches in length, and endimg in 
a tuft of black hair-like fibres; in texture, colour, and external 
appearance it exactly agrees with the baleen of the Southern ~ 
Whales, and I suspect it must form the inner part of the “ screen- 
ing apparatus” of that animal; and if that is the case, the exist- — 
ence of these separate pieces near the middle of the roof of the — 
mouth will form a very peculiar character in this kind of whale. — 
I am further strengthened in this belief by perceiving amongst — 
a 
