THE RORQUAL. 169 



Icen, they are seldom chased by the crews of the whaling- 

 vessels. The species do not seem to be as yet well 

 determined. 



The Great Rorqual is one of the largest, if not the 

 largest, of this gigantic race of beings, often exceeding 

 a hundred feet in length. Its native regions are the 

 polar seas, where it is seen both in troops and pairs, the 

 paired males and females exhibiting devoted attachment 

 to each other. The rorqual is more restless, more sus- 

 picious, and fiercer than the common whale, and, when 

 struck by the harpoon, descends with such velocity as 

 often to snap the line. It was an individual of this spe- 

 cies which, in the month of November, 1827, was 

 stranded near Ostend, and of which the skeleton was 

 subsequently exhibited in London and Paris. The 

 length of the skeleton was ninety-five feet ; the head 

 measured twenty-two feet. The spinal column consisted 

 of sixty-two vertebrae ; the ribs were fourteen on each 

 side. The expanse of the caudal paddle was twenty-two 

 feet and a half. The opportunity of examining the in- 

 ternal anatomy of this animal was lost, a circumstance 

 lamented in indignant but just terms by M. Van Breda, 

 whose memoir on the subject is published in Cuvier's 

 ' Histoire Naturelle des Cetacees.' This writer states 

 that, besides the usual plates of baleen, theaninud had at 

 the tip of its muzzle a thick tuft of rounded horny fila- 

 ments, or rather coarse hairs, united at the root by a 

 common membrane, and divided into finer threads at 

 their points ; these filaments were of different length, 

 some exceeding three feet. This peculiarity had not, 

 we believe, been previously noticed. The weight of this 

 individual when captured was 480,000 pounds, and 4000 

 gallons of oil were extracted from the blubber. Weight 

 of the skeleton alone, 70,000 pounds. Fig. Ill repre- 

 sents the skeleton. 



Here we close our survey of the Cetacea. It is a 

 class which yet requires much elucidation ; its species 

 are still involved in confusion, and of many almost 

 everything is yet to be learned. They have seldom in- 

 deed been contemplated in their native regions by j)ro- 



