ii84 THE CETACEANS 



movable flukes, and containing an explosive in the head. When fired , the flukes lie flat 



on the sides of the harpoon, but on entering the flesh of the whale they open out so 



as to form a grapnel in its body; while the act of expansion also fires the explosive, 



by which the animal, if hit anywhere near a vital part, is generally killed outright. 



Although the whale of the North Atlantic has been separated as a 



Wh . distinct species from the one inhabiting the southern part of that 



ocean, while those of the North and South Pacific have likewise re- 

 ceived distinct names, it is, on the whole, probable that all these indicate only local 

 races of a single widespread species, which may be known as the southern right 

 whale (B. australis). This species differs from the last by its relatively-smaller 

 head, in which the contour of the lower lip is much more highly arched, and the 

 baleen considerably shorter; while the number of ribs is fifteen in place of twelve. 

 It is also of smaller size and yields less blubber. In its movements this whale is 

 said to be quicker, more active, and more violent than the other, and is thus more 

 difficult and dangerous to kill. In the North Atlantic it was still not unfrequent in 

 the latter part of the eighteenth century, and ranged as far north as Iceland and 

 Norway, but it is now all but exterminated in these regions. Several instances of 

 whales, probably belonging to this species, having been seen or captured off the 

 British coast previous to the commencement of the present century are on record, 

 and it is highly probable that whales seen off Peterhead in 1806 and 1872 were like- 

 wise of the same kind. An example was captured in the harbor of San Sebastian 

 in 1854, a second in the Gulf of Taranto in 1877, and a third on the Spanish coast 

 in the following year. The practical extermination of this species in European 

 waters, appears to be due to the Basque fishermen of the Biscayan ports, by whom 

 it was persistently hunted from the tenth to the sixteenth century. It was known 

 to them as the sletbag, and had become exceedingly scarce on the discovery of 

 Spitzbergen in 1596, when the Basque whalers turned their attention to the far 

 more valuable Greenland species. 



On the western side of the Atlantic, where it is known as the black whale, 

 examples are occasionally met with. In the North Pacific it occurs in Japanese 

 waters, and it likewise frequents the Australian and New Zealand seas, as well as 

 the regions around the Cape of Good Hope. The southern limits of the southern 

 right whale are not yet definitely known, but the species certainly does not pene- 

 trate the icebound Antartic Ocean. 



Several species of right whales have left their remains in the 

 08 Wh i Pliocene deposits of Belgium and the east coast of England. One of 



these extinct forms appears to have been allied to the Greenland, and 

 a second to the southern whales, while the other two are smaller species, unlike any 

 now living. 



THE PYGMY WHALE 

 Genus Neobal&na 



A rare whale (Neobal&na marginata), from the New Zealand, Australian, and 

 South- American seas, is the smallest representative of the family, and while most 



