66 BALENIDE. 
Baleen, more commonly but erroneously called ‘ whale-bone,” 
consists of numerous transversely placed flattened horny lamine, 
numbering between three hundred and four hundred on either 
side of the palate. Each of these lamine is composed of many 
soft vascular papille, circular in outline, each of which is surrounded 
by concentrically arranged epidermic cells, the whole being bound 
together by other cells of a similar character, which constitute 
the smooth cortical surface of the blade, erroneously considered 
to be enamel, and which, by the disintegration of its free margin 
allows the individual fibres to become loose and assume a hair-like 
appearance. The baleen only makes its appearance after the birth 
of the young Whale, these in the feetal state possessing numerous 
minute calcified teeth which are absorbed before birth. Its fune- 
tion is to strain the water from the small marine animals on 
which the whales subsist and at the same time prevent the escape 
of the enclosed prey. 
Family 1.—BALASNIDAS. 
’ Characters similar to those of the Suborder. 
Genus I.— BALAENA, Linneus (1735). 
Skin of throat smooth. Head very large. No dorsal fin. Fore 
limb short, broad, pentadactylous. Baleen very long and narrow, 
highly elastic, black. Cervical vertebrie united into a single mass. 
Scapula high, with a distinct coracoid and coronoid process. 
Vertebre.—C. 7, D. 14, L. 10, Cd. 23; total 54. 
1. BALHNA AUSTRALIS, Desmoulins (1822). 
Southern Right Whale. 
General color black or blackish-gray ; the anterior part of the 
lower jaw, and part of the throat and belly white. 
Dimensions.—Attains to a length of from sixty to seventy feet. 
Habitat.—Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans south of the 
tropics. 
References.—Gray, B.M. Catal. Seals and Whales, p. 91; Scott, 
Seals and Whales, p. 136. 
Note.—The food of the Right Whales consists principally of 
minute molluscous and crustaceous animals. 
Genus IIL.—NEOBALAENA, Gray (1871). 
Skin of throat smooth. A small falcate dorsal fin. Fore limb 
tetradactylous, the pollex absent. Skull rather depressed ; brain 
cavity nearly as long as the beak, depressed, much expanded on the 
sides, with a very deep notch on the middle of each side over the 
condyles of the lower jaw, and with a subtriangular crown-plate. 
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