CETACEANS. 231 



are for the most part equipped from ports in the 

 United States of America, New Holland,* and France. 

 They cruise (consistently with the habits of the animal 

 they seek) in the vicinity of the southern coasts of 

 Africa and America occasionally extending their re- 

 searches on the latter coast to the western side of 

 Cape Horn and off the shores of New South Wales 

 and New Zealand. The method they adopt of capturing 

 the whale, and obtaining its oil " clear/' is the same as 

 that practised in the Sperm Whale Fishery. 



BAL^NOPTERA SP. 



(Balaena gibbosa, Gmel. ? The Humpback of Southern 

 Whalers.) 



This whale (which is a Rorqual, between thirty and 

 forty feet in length,) derives its trivial name from an 

 embossed appendage, or hump, on the posterior part of 

 the back. It has two spiracles, or nostrils, On the 

 summit of the head ; and its mouth is furnished with 

 plates of short whalebone. 



When seen on the surface of the water, it bears a 

 close resemblance to the Sperm Whale in colour and 

 the appearance of its hump, as well as in a habit it has 

 of casting its tail vertically in the air when about to 

 dive. Experienced whalers, however, readily distin- 



* The British fishery for southern black-oil was formerly considerable, 

 but has, within the last few years, declined, almost to nonentity ; whilst, 

 on the part of the British colonies, the same fishery has proportionately 

 advanced ; thus, in the year 1820, 5,061 tuns of southern black-oil were 

 imported to this country by the British fishery, and none by the colonial. 

 In 1832, 402 tuns only of the same oil were imported by the British, 

 and 1,785 tuns by the colonial fisheries. In 1835, the colony of New 

 South Wales, alone, exported 1,477 tuns of black-oil, valued at J 1 9,357. 

 In 1836, but one ship was despatched from Britain, exclusively for the 

 capture of the Southern Right Whale. 



