16 CETACEA. 



measurement of a female whale of this species taken at False Bay 

 Fishery, said to be full-grown, and considered by the whalers as 

 of large size : 



ft. in. 



"Total length 68 



Height of the body 14 



Length of head 16 



Width of tail 15 6 



Length of ribs 10 6 



Diameter of gullet 2 



" I could not pass my hand through it. Number of vertebrae 52. 

 From all the conversations I have had with the whalers, I do not 

 think the Cape Whale ever attains the size of the Greenland spe- 

 cies. These whales of the Cape, I constantly found covered with 

 Tubicinella Bal&narum and Coronula Balaenaris ; but the Sper- 

 maceti Whale was seldom or never so covered : they occur prin- 

 cipally on the head, where they are crowded, and but rarely on 

 the body, and then only single scattered ones." 



In False Bay they carry on the fishery from the shore, and 

 during the time Mr. Warwick was there, only one bull out of sixty 

 specimens was killed, the females coming into the bay to bring 

 forth their young. He skinned one, which was supposed to be 

 not more than eight or ten days old ; it was 20 feet long. 



The baleen of this animal is sometimes called the Whale-fin of 

 the " Black Fish," the name that is sometimes applied to the 

 Physeter Microps. 



There are sometimes imported with these baleen, a few yel- 

 lowish white " fins," which seldom exceed 2 feet in length ; in 

 these, the fibres as well as the enamel are white ; they are not so 

 transparent as the pale variety of the Greenland fins before re- 

 ferred to ; they have the same coarse texture, and are brittle like 

 the black southern specimens ; and as they do not take so good a 

 polish, they cannot be used for making shavings for plaiting, &c. 



There has lately been brought by the South Sea ships several 

 hundredweight of a very small kind of whalebone, which is im- 

 planted in the remains of the palate, in three or four series, gra- 

 dually diminishing in size towards the innermost series; each 

 piece is linear, compressed, almost J to % of an inch wide, rounded 

 on the edge, varying from 5 to 8 inches in length, and ending in 

 a tuft of black hair-like fibres ; in texture, colour, and external 

 appearance it exactly agrees with the baleen of the Southern 

 Whales, and I suspect it must form the inner part of the " screen- 

 ing apparatus" of that animal; and if that is the case, the exist- 

 ence of these separate pieces near the middle of the roof of the 

 mouth will form a very peculiar character in this kind of whale. 

 I am further strengthened in this belief by perceiving amongst 



