42 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



Genus Bal^na Linnaeus. 



Right Whales. 

 Balaena glacialis Bonaterre. 



Black Whale. 

 Plate 2. 



Head enormous, equal to one-third of the total length ; highly- 

 arched above the level of the back ; mouth cavity large and whale- 

 bone very long. Bones of the neck always fused together. Color 

 black, sometimes slightly varied with white below. Length 50 

 to 60 feet. 



This whale variously known as the Black Whale, Atlantic 

 Right Whale and Nordcaper is distributed all over the North 

 Atlantic, and was one of the species much hunted by whalers of 

 the north. It was undoubtedly much more common on the New 

 Jerse}^ coast in former 3^ears than it is to-day. Several speci- 

 mens have been recorded on our coasts. In George Ord's Amer- 

 ican Z6o\og}r, Guthrie's Geography, 181 5, p. 292, he says: "A 

 young whale of this species was taken in the Delaware in the 

 vicinity of the Falls (/. e., Trenton) in the latter part of the 

 year 1814, and exhibited at Philadelphia." Another one came 

 up the river in 1862 and was captured opposite Philadelphia. It 

 was presented to the Academy of Natural Sciences of that city 

 by Mr. George Davidson, and its skeleton may still be seen in the 

 Museum. It measured 37 feet in length. Still another was 

 captured off the New Jersey coast by a crew of experienced Egg 

 Harbor Whalers in the spring of 1882 and was brought to New 

 York City where it was exhibited for several weeks. 



A skeleton in the Rutger's College Museum is said by Mr. 

 Rhoads to- be of this species, probably the one whose capture 

 is described in an article in the New York Sim, reprinted in For- 

 est and Stream, July 4th, 1874, p. 26"/. It came up the Raritan 

 nearly to South Amboy, where it was "shot with a rifle, hacked 

 with an axe, and at last killed with a harpoon !" 



