20 Guide to Whales, Porpotses, and Dolphins. 
stations. The skeleton exhibited is that of an adult male (sixty- 
nine feet long) taken in the Moray Firth, Scotland, on the 22nd of 
March, 1880: upon this has been built a half-model of the animal 
itself. The flukes, or tail, and the back-fin of the same specimen 
hang upon the wall at the end of the room; the whalebone is 
preserved in its natural position in the mouth. 
Attention may be directed to a set of the seven cervical 
vertebrae of this Rorqual, which were taken from an adult male, 
sixty feet long, stranded near Stornoway, Lewis, in November, 
1871; they were presented to the Museum by Sir John Struthers 
in 1889, and serve to show the complete separation of each 
element in the series, whereby the Rorquals are distinguished from 
the Right- Whales. 
The Northern Rorqual, or Rudolphi’s Whale (Balzenoptera 
borealis), which, as already mentioned, never exceeds fifty feet in 
length, was formerly considered to be one of the rarest of all 
Whales, and was only known from a few individuals stranded on 
the coasts of Northern Europe at long intervals. The skeleton of 
the type specimen, which was taken in the Baltic in 1819, and is 
now in the Berlin Museum, was described by the Italian naturalist, 
Rudolphi, under the name of B. rostrata; but upon it was subse- 
quently founded Cuvier’s Rorqual du Nord, latinized by Lesson into 
B. borealis. Since the establishment of the whaling stations near 
the North Cape, this Whale has been shown to be a regular 
summer visitant to the coast of Finmark, and in 1885 as many as 
771 individuals were captured there. It feeds chiefly upon minute 
crustaceans, and not on fish. The specimen shown is the skeleton 
of a nearly full grown male, taken in the Thames, near Tilbury, 
19th October, 1887; and upon it has been built a half-model of 
the animal itself. The whalebone is longer than in the common 
species, and of some commercial value. 
The smallest European member of the group is the Lesser 
Rorqual, or Pike- Whale (Balenoptera rostrata), which never exceeds 
thirty feet in length. The whalebone is yellowish white, and the 
outer surface of the flippers marked by a transverse white band. 
As in Rudolphi’s Whale, the back-fin is relatively tall, and placed 
far forwards on the body. This Whale is of common occurrence 
in the fjords of Norway, frequently visits the British shores, and 
has been taken, although rarely, in the Mediterranean, and its 
range extends as far north as Davis Strait. At one time it was 
represented in the gallery by an immature female, captured off 
