CETACEA. 35 
- Ray calls these Balena tripennis, thus separating them from 
those which have no dorsal fin; but Polach misunderstood him, 
and says they have three fins on their back. 
_ Sibbald (Phalenologia Nova, 1692) figures two specimens of this 
"genus caught on the coast of Scotland. Ray (Hist. Piscium, 17) 
“notices these specimens ; and Brisson and Linnzus have regarded 
‘them as separate species. Linnzus designated the one with the 
skin under the throat dilated, Balena musculus, and the other, 
with this part contracted and flat, B. Boops. Now, as I proved 
by the examination of the specimen we have in the British Mu- 
seum, when alive, and as M. Ravin observes (Ann. Sev. Nat. v. 
275), this skin is very dilatable, so that these characters appear to 
depend on the manner in which the specimen might he when 
drawn, and the quantity of gas which might have been produced 
by the decomposition of the interior. Ray, and after him Bns- 
son and Linnzus, established a third species, B. Physalus (S. N. 
7. 186), on the Fin-fish of Martens (Spitz. 125. t. Q. fc), copied 
_E.M. t. 2. f. 2, which well represents this genus; yet as there 
are no folds on the belly in the figure, it has been regarded by 
most authors as distinct from the B. rostrata of Miller and 
‘Hunter, and the other species of Sibbald ; but the name used by 
_ Martens being the one now given by the Greenland whalers to these 
whales, I think at once shows that it properly belongs to this genus: 
and Martens neither mentions the colour, nor says a word about the 
belly. Scoresby,who calls the Fin-fish B. gibbar, after Bonnaterre, 
says from report that the “ skin is smooth, except about the sides of 
the thorax, where longitudinal rugz or sulci occur,” which at least 
must be a Ba/enoptera. Lacepéde formed the Fin-fish of Mar- 
tens, the Hunch-back and Scrag Whale of Dudley, into a section, 
which he calls Rorquai @ ventre lisse. The Hunch-back has a 
-“reeved” or plaited belly, and the Scrag Whale is shaped like, 
and doubtless is, a true Balena; yet these species are kept to- 
gether as a subgenus in Fischer and other modern systematic 
works: and Dr. Fleming has made Lacepéde’s section into a 
genus, under the name of Physalis. 
The examination of the skeleton has shown that there are 
‘several species found im the North Sea characterized by the bones 
of the neck and by the external colour ; and I think there is little 
doubt that, when we have had an opportunity of comparing the 
skeletons of the Finner Whales found in the other seas, espe- 
cially of those in the Southern hemisphere, we shall find that they 
are perfectly distinct from those here described. 
_ The following synonyma of Northern species of Fimners appear 
to belong to this genus, but it is not possible to apply them with 
any certainty to the species here described :— 
res 
» 
Ps ’ 
" 
: 
5 
‘4 
