264 MamMatia OF INDIA. 
all parts are cleared. The baleen is then cut out, and the carcase 
abandoned to the sharks, killer whales, and sea birds. 
The baleen whales are not found in the intertropical seas. Of the 
known species there are the Greenland whale (2. mysticetus), the 
Biscay whale (B. Biscayensis), the Japan whale (BL. Japonica), the Cape 
whale (Z. australis), and the South Pacific whale (4. antipodarum). 
GENUS BALAZ:NOPTERA—FINBACK WHALES OR 
RORQUALS. 
Are distinguished by their longer and narrower bodies, smaller heads, 
being one-fourth instead of one-third the length of the body, smaller 
mouths, shorter baleen, plaited throats, and smaller flippers ; they have 
a dorsal fin behind the middle of the back, and the root of the tail is 
compressed laterally. They also present certain osteological differences 
from the right whales; the latter have the whole of the seven cervical 
vertebrze anchylosed, that is to say generally, for sometimes the seventh 
is free. In the finbacks the cervical vertebre are, as a rule, all distinct 
and free, although occasionally anchylosis may take place between two 
or more of them. The sternum of the Salvena consists of a broad, 
flattened, heart-shaped or oval presternum. “In the fin whales 
(Balenoptera) it is transversely oval or trilobate, with a projecting back- 
ward xiphoid process” (Professor Flower). The ulna and radius in 
the rorquals are also comparatively longer than in the baleen whales. 
In the skull the supraorbital processes of the frontals are broader in the 
rorquals than in others, and the olfactory fossa is less elongated. 
They are more muscular and active animals than the right whales, 
and have a less amount of blubber and much ‘shorter whalebone, 
consequently are not so much sought after by whalers, as the risk in 
attacking them is not compensated for by the commercial results. 
Many of them grow to enormous size, far exceeding any of the baleen 
whales. ‘The common rorqual, razorback, or pike-whale of the English 
coasts (B. musculus) attains a length of seventy feet; it is black above 
and pure white below. The sulphur-bottom whale (2. sw/fureus) is 
known by its yellowish belly, and with Sibbald’s whale (B. S7ddaldii) 
grows to a length of one hundred feet, to which size our Indian 
species also approaches. 
No. 271. BALZNOPTERA INDICA. 
The Indian Rorqual ( Jerdon’s No. 147). 
Hapitat.—The Indian Ocean. 
DESCRIPTION.—External characteristics those of the genus, but from 
Mr. Blyth’s observations the lower jaw of this species is more slender 
