14 Guide to Whales, Porpoises, and Dolphins. 
North Polar Seas. The great size the head of this species may attain 
is shown by the pair of lower jaws and the blades of whalebone 
exhibited. The “fishery” of this Whale in the Greenland and 
Spitsbergen Seas was, during the last two centuries, of great com- 
mercial importance, but is now of very limited extent, owing to 
the scarcity of the species. Secondly, we have the Black Right- 
Whales (fig. 3), distinguished by the smaller head, shorter whale- 
bone, and the greater number of ribs and vertebrie. They are in- 
habitants of the temperate seas of both the Northern and Southern 
Hemispheres, but do not occur in the equatorial seas. They have 
been divided into several species, according to their geographical 
distribution, namely, B. australis, of the South Atlantic, B. glacialis 
or biscayensis, of the North Atlantic, B. antipodarum, of the South 
Pacific, and B. japonica, of the North Pacific; but these may 
perhaps be preferably regarded as local races of a single wide- 
spread species. 
The angulated form of the tympanic bone of the Right-Whales 
is Shown in fig. 1. 
In addition to several blades of whalebone exhibited on the 
western wall of the gallery, the Greenland Right-Whale is at 
present represented in the collection by the lower jaw-bones of a 
very large female killed in the Greenland Seas, lat. 73° 40 N., 
long. 16° 0 W., on the 21st June, 1887. This Whale was one of the 
largest Captain David Gray ever met with, and yielded 26 tons of 
oil, and 26 ewt. of whalebone. The jaw was presented by Captain 
Gray, of the s.s. “ Eclipse,” in 1887. 
The external form and colouring of the Greenland Right-Whale 
are shown by a miniature model, on the scale of one inch to one 
foot, made from a specimen taken on June 17th, 1878, in 80° N. 
lat., Greenland Seas, and presented to the Museum by Captain 
David Gray in 1885. The presence of a considerable amount of 
white on the lower jaw and at the root of the tail is a characteristic 
feature of the species, and serves to distinguish it from the Black 
Whales. 
Attention may be here directed to a piece of whalebone of the 
Greenland Right-Whale exhibited in a table-case at the north end 
of the gallery, upon which is incised a sketch of a Sperm-Whale- 
hunt in the Adriatic. The sketch shows the truncated form of the 
muzzle characteristic of the adult male Sperm-Whale. This 
interesting specimen was presented by Dr. J, W. Burbidge in 
1903. 
