36 BALiENlDJE. 



1846, 1 separated the Eight Whales, orBalamidae, into two divisions — 

 the one having very slender, long, polished whalebone with a single 

 series of fringe, and the second with coarser, shorter, and broader 

 whalebone and a thick coarse fringe. The first was afterwards 

 called Balcena, and the second Eubalcena. M. Beneden seems 

 inclined to adopt this division (see ' Osteographie,' Cetaces, p. 144), 

 observing that the former are confined to the Arctic regions and 

 the other to the more temperate zones ; but this is not correct, 

 for Balcena marginata, as I stated in my first essay, has the whale- 

 bone quite as polished and as fine as that of the Greenland Whale. 

 It lives on the west coast of Australia and New Zealand, in com- 

 pany with the Black Whale of Australia and the Black Whale of 

 New Zealand (both of which, I have no doubt, have short coarse 

 whalebone). The Whale of the most northern parts of the Pacific 

 yields the north-west-coast whalebone, which is of a very coarse 

 character. 



The first section of Whales, with long, slender, elastic, polished, 

 finely fringed whalebone, contains two genera, Balcena and Neo- 

 balceaa. 



The Whales of the second section, which have rough, brittle whale- 

 bone, with a thick fringe of coarse hairs, includes four genera, viz. 

 Eubalcena, Hunterius, Oaperea, and Macleayius. 



It is very true that I have only seen the whalebone in one of these 

 genera, Eubalcena, in connexion with the bones of the animal ; but 

 as " the So'uth-sea whalers " (that is to say, those who fish in the 

 Southern and Pacific oceans) have only brought various examples of 

 this kind of whalebone from any of their voyages (except a few 

 blades of the whalebone of B. marginata, which they call " sea- 

 tassel "), we may naturally conclude that all the large Bight Whales 

 found in those seas have this kind of whalebone. 



Suborder I. BAL^NOIDEA (cf. p. 46). 



Head large. Body stout. Dorsal fin none. Chest and belly 

 smooth, without plaits. Pectoral fin broad, truncated ; fingers 5, 

 graduated. Aimi-bones very short, thick ; radius and humerus of 

 equal length. Baleen elongate, slender. Tympanic bones rhombic. 

 Cervical vertebras united. 



Balaenoidea, Gray, Synops. Whales cy Dolph. p. 1. 



Family 1. BALJENIDiE. Right Whales. 



Balamidae, Gray, Cat. Seals fy Whales B. M. pp. 61, 75 ; Synops. 

 Whales Sf Dolph. p. 1 ; Lilljebory, N. Acta Upsal. 1867, vi. 



Head very large, and body short. Dorsal fin none. Belly smooth. 

 Baleen elongate, slender. Vertebrae of the neck anchylosed. Pec- 



