324. Prof. J. Reinhardt on the Fin- Whale 
succeeded in distinguishing these species. About the exterior 
of the living animal very little is known in most cases, nay, 
absolutely nothing as far as certain species are concerned. 
Even the colour of the different species, though so much more 
easily distinguished and represented than the variations in the 
external conformation of such huge animals, is still far from 
being known with the accuracy that might be desired. It is 
even still undecided to what extent characters can bedrawn from 
the colour of these cetaceans, and at present zoologists seem 
inclined to consider great differences in this respect to be of 
little or no importance. This may be shown by a few in- 
stances. Thus, when of late years the gigantic fin-whale found 
near Ostend, and described in the pamphlets and papers of 
Dubar, Van Breda, and Van der Linden, was considered 
(and no doubt justly) specifically distinct from Balenoptera 
laticeps, Gray, and called by some Balenoptera gigas, by others 
Sibbaldius borealis, the great difference in size seems to have 
been the principal motive for doing so; and a few years 
ago a learned cetologist thought himself obliged to grant that 
the two species just mentioned may still prove identical, with- 
out having thought it necessary in settling this question to 
pay any regard to the difference in their colour. Further, 
there has apparently been no hesitation in referring fin-whales 
so differently coloured as the black-and-white male observed 
in 1841 by Schlegel, and the two more or less grey males 
described by Companyo and Eschricht, to one and the same 
species, Physalus antiquorum, Gray. 
Under these circumstances it happens rather fortunately that 
the attempts made during the last two years to establish a 
regular fishery of fin-whales and humpbacks in the sea round 
Iceland have provided us with some means of answering this 
question and of forming a tolerably well-grounded idea of the 
extent of the variations of colour in one species at least; for 
Mr. §. Hallas, surgeon to the whaler ‘Thomas Roys,’ has 
from his cruise of last summer (1867) brought home with him 
descriptions and measurements of several specimens of that 
fin-whale which his ship had most frequently fallen in with, 
viz. the one which the Icelanders call ‘‘ Steypirey%r ;” and his 
statements have a particular interest, as they furnish us with 
some useful information about a species hitherto only imper- 
fectly known. 
From Mr. Hallas’s notes on the different individuals which 
he had the opportunity of examining closely, it appears that 
the “ SteypireySr ”’ is a very dark-coloured whale. The upper 
parts have a blackish-grey colour, in which somewhat lighter 
stains or specks are sometimes found; down the sides the 
