82 THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 
he thereupon named Sibbaldius tuberosus. The account of it first given, in 1866, is 
as follows (23, 8): 
“The whale alluded to (Proceedings, 1865, p. 168) as having been seen in 
Mobjack Bay, Virginia, was stated to have been captured by Dr. P. A. Taliaferro, 
of William and Mary College, Williamsburg, and prepared and set up. It is a 
short-finned Megaptera, probably of the species JZ. osphyia. Prof. T. has kindly 
furnished me with the following details as to its structure, carefully drawn up by 
himself. 
“Length from end of muzzle over convexity of back, forty-three feet nine 
inches; girth about nineteen feet; length from end of muzzle to axilla (external 
measurement), fifteen feet; breadth of head across inferior margin of jaws, eight 
feet. Length of the pectoral extremity, four feet; greatest breadth fifteen inches ; 
they were situated close behind the angle of the mouth. There were three hun- 
dred and sixty lamin of baleen, extending on either side of the mouth about six 
feet along the jaw, the longest about eighteen to twenty inches. The head was 
acute. The folds of the throat many and capacious. The dorsal fin was repre- 
sented by a conical mass covered by horny integument, without any membranous 
appendage, situated well posteriorly. The body near the tail very slender. The 
flukes suddenly expand to a breadth of ten feet. The cervical vertebree were all 
distinct. Color: jet black above, white on the belly; sides beautifully marbled by 
the combination of the two colors. 
“The most striking feature in this specimen is the shortness of the pectoral 
limbs, being relatively nearly half less than in the specimen of the osphyta at 
Niagara, one-half the length of the cranium, and only one-tenth the total. This is 
very different from any of the hitherto known species, and without doubt distinct.” 
Cope stated in 1866, as just quoted, that the skeleton had been prepared and 
set up, but did not say where, or by whom. Later in the same year he stated that 
the skeleton was in the museum of the Philadelphia Academy, but in 1869 remarked 
again that the deposit of the specimen in the Academy had been delayed, but was 
expected in a short time. He left it uncertain, therefore, whether the skeleton of 
the type was or was not in Philadelphia. In 1899, and again in 1900, I visited the 
Academy of Natural Sciences, and through the kindness of Dr. Dixon and Mr. 
Stone was enabled to look over all, or nearly all, the bones of whales then in the 
museum.» I did not find any corresponding to S. fuberosus, and it would seem 
probable that the skeleton never reached Philadelphia. This view is strengthened 
by the fact that a writer in the American Field in 1889,’ repeating the story of the 
capture of the whale, as he had heard it from the lips of Dr. Taliaferro, who 
pursued and killed the animal, proceeds as follows: 
“T[Dr. Taliaferro] took the whalebone out of his mouth, and bade the servants 
help themselves to his blubber if they wanted to. . . . Although we got all 
the servants and dug huge holes and buried the carcass in sections, yet, like Ban- 
uo’s ghost, it would not down. . . . His jawbones now ornament the doors 
of my [Dr. Taliaferro’s ?] carriage-house and I have several of his vertebrae, which 
come in handy as footstools.” 
>“ ReYNARD,” American Field, March 2, 1889, pp. 196-198. 
