74 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
has disappeared in fall, and that no marked seasonal plumage can be 
distinguished, except the white plumage of the winter and the dark 
one of the summer. 
But it will be well to recollect here that the moulting of these birds de- 
pends so much upon the climate that one can hardly conclude from obser- 
vations made in one country what the condition in another is. The 
many unpleasant quarrels about this theme have arisen from want of 
understanding the fact that it does not follow that an observation made 
in the north is erroneous because it differs from another made in the 
south, or vice versa. 
I must confess, however, that the theory of a change of color from 
winter to summer plumage, without change of feathers, and the obser- 
vations upon which it rests, is an insolvable problem to me. 
The past four months form a season during which I had very little 
opportunity for observing or collecting cetaceans, and consequently I 
have but little to report about them. It is, however, to be expected that 
the fall and winter will prove richer, and that I may be able to satisfy 
you better in this repect next year. But as the natives have no means 
of capturing the living animals, I shall have to depend exclusively upon 
what may occasionally be cast on shore. 
The female finback whale which we found during our boat expedition 
at Lissonkavaja Buchta, on the 23d of August, seems to me to belong 
to Balenoptera velifera Cope, agreeing tolerably well with it in dimen- 
sions and proportions, of which I give a table below. The baleen, of 
which I have secured some pieces (No. 1629) for comparison with speci- 
mens of the above-named species in the National Museum, has on the 
shorter layers a whitish color, with dark bluish-gray longitudinal and 
parallel stripes. These stripes increase in breadth, number, and dark- 
ness of color towards the longest baleen, which is dark bluish-gray 
with light stripes. 
The base of the dorsal fin commences about at the terminal third of 
the body, and is placed almost directly above the anus. Its height—that 
is, the vertical from its tip to the back—is about 545 of the total length of 
the body, which is about 64 times the length of the pectorals. 
From this it will be seen that the exterior proportions are somewhat 
similar to those of Sibbaldius laticeps Gray, except that the pectorals are 
smaller in the latter species. 
The dorsal fin is perfectly faleate with deeply incised posterior edge, 
showing that the animal does not belong to the var. borealis. 
The color could not be ascertained, as the animal had been lying so 
long on the beach that it was perfectly yellowish white with the excep- 
tion of some blackish patches on the shoulder region. 
The impossibility of moving or lifting the colossal body prevented me 
‘from taking measurements in a straight line. For the same reason 1 
could not obtain any measurement of the circumference. 
