XII NEOBALAENA 361 
partly by the water which they throw out by a conduit which 
they possess in the middle of the forehead.” Several boats then 
set out in pursuit, some of which were reserved for men whose 
sole duty it was to pick out of the water their comrades who 
had overbalanced themselves in their excitement. The harpoons 
bore a mark by which their respective owners could recognise 
them, and the carease of the animal was shared in accordance 
with the numbers and owners of the harpoons found sticking in 
the dead body of the Whale. At this period the fishery was at 
its height. But it continued to be an occupation along those 
shores until the beginning of the eighteenth century, after which 
it gradually declined. The fishery of Whales began to be carried 
farther afield than the shore, and for a long time the Basques 
furnished expert harpooners to whaling vessels proceeding to the 
Arctic seas. A curious example of the continuance of the fishery 
until at least.1712 is given by Sir C. Markham.- In the parish 
records of Lequeito for that year, it is noted that a couple were 
married who possessed between them all the necessary outfit for 
a whaling cruise. 
The genus Neobalaena is interesting from more than one 
point of view. Its size compared with its gigantic relatives is 
small, some 16 or 17 feet. The genus bears the same kind of 
proportion to balaena that Kogia does to Physeter among the 
Physeteridae. It is one of those Whales which are very restricted 
in habitat ; up to the present it is only known from the Antarctic 
region in the neighbourhood of New Zealand and South Australia. 
Structurally it is in a few points intermediate between the Right 
Whales and the Rorquals. The head is proportionately (as well 
as, of course, actually) not so large as in Balaena. ‘There is a 
falcate dorsal fin; but the head in outhne is not Rorqual-like in 
spite of its sumilar proportions. The whalebone is long. The 
throat is not grooved. Neobalaena has forty-three vertebrae, of 
which the cervicals are all fused. There are as many as seventeen 
or eighteen dorsal vertebrae, the largest number in any Cetacean 
as far as is known. With these are articulated not eighteen but 
only seventeen ribs. The first’ dorsal vertebra appears to be with- 
out a rib. The ribs are very broad and flat. The body thus 
gets an appearance of a Sirenian. The lumbar vertebrae are 
fewer than in any other Cetacean, being only two. The scapula 
is more like that of the Rorquals than that of the Right Whales ; 
