168 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF MAMjMALIA. 



Avhich was on the advance, rose accidentally beneath it, 

 struck it with its head, and threw the boat, men, and 

 apparatus about fifteen feet into the air. It was inverted 

 by the stroke, and fell into the water with its keel 

 upwards. All the people were picked' up alive by the 

 fourth boat, excepting one man, who, having got en- 

 tangled in the boat, fell beneath it, and was unfortunately 

 drowned." 



110.— New Zealand Whale. 



The Rorqual 



{BalcEnoptera Boops, Flem. ; Balaiioptera Rorqual, 

 Lace'p.). 



The Rorquals, constituting the genus Balaenoptera, 

 differ from the Greenland whale and its allies in the 

 possession of a small dorsal fin on the lower part of the 

 back (not seen in the position of the pictorial specimen), 

 and a series of longitudinal folds on the skin of the under 

 surface of the body, and particularly the throat and 

 chest. The plates of baleen are short. The food of 

 these animals consists of fishes, and especially herrings 

 and other species which go in shoals, and they engulf 

 multitudes at once in the abyss of their capacious mouth. 

 They are remarkable for the rapidity and ease of their 

 movements : they dart along or dive with almost un- 

 equalled impetuosity, and are dangerous to attack. 

 From this cause, as well as from the small quantity of 

 blubber they afibrd, and the inferior quality of the ba- 



