XI A STRANDED RORQUAL 355 
above the waves the lamellae fell and covered the eyes.” Whale- 
bone, too, has been often spoken of as “the fin of a whale,” “ the 
finnes that stand forth of their mouths.’ The value of whale- 
bone is still great, in spite of various substitutes which are now 
used in its place. In the year 1897, for example, the value of 
this article was £2000 per ton. As a single Whale may produce 
several tons of this material, it is not surprising to find that the 
results of a whaling voyage may be very profitable. 
Fam. 1. Balaenopteridae.—This genus Lalaenoptera includes 
the Rorquals, which are Whalebone Whales of large size, differing 
from the Right Whales in three important external characters : 
the head is comparatively small; there is a dorsal fin; the throat 
is marked by numerous longitudinal furrows. The bones of the 
cranium are not so arched as in the Right Whales, and as a 
consequence the plates of baleen are shorter. The hand is only 
four-fingered. The cervical vertebrae are for the most part all 
free. One of the earhest records of a Whale stranded in the 
Thames was probably of a species of this genus in the year 1658, 
and is thus described by John Evelyn :—“ A large whale was 
taken betwixt my land butting on the Thames and Greenewich, 
which drew an infinite concourse to see it, by water, horse, coach, 
and on foot, from London and all parts. . . . It was killed with 
a harping yron, struck in the head, out cf which spouted blood 
and water by two tunnells, and after an horrid grone it ran 
quite on shore and died. Its length was 58 foot, heighth 16 ; 
black skinn’d like coach leather, very small eyes, greate taile, 
onely two small finns, a picked snout, and a mouth so wide that 
divers men might have stood upright in it; no teeth, but suck’d 
shme onely as thro’ a grate of that bone which we call whale- 
bone, the throate yet so narrow as would not have admitted the 
least of fishes . . . all of it prodigious, but in nothing more 
wonderful that an animal of so greate a bulk should be nourished 
onely by slime thro’ those grates.” 
Professor Collett has recently given! an elaborate account of the 
characters and habits of this great Whale (Balaenoptera musculus). 
Though a large beast (44 to 67 feet in length) it is exceeded by 
other Rorquals; it is of a dark grey blue colour above, white, for 
the most part, below. The dorsal fin is large and high; the 
flippers relatively slender and small. The whole throat from the 
1 In Proc. Zool. Soc. 1886, p. 243. 
