36 Rudolphi's Rorqual. 



FIG. 5. 



Kudolphi's Rorqual, taken in the Medway, August, 1888.* 



(3.) RUDOLPHI'S RORQUAL (Balcenoptera borealis) is interme- 

 diate in size between the above two species, the adults ranging 

 from 40 to 50 feet long. There are several Norwegian whaling- 

 factories round the North Cape for their capture, where they 

 abound. They yield less oil than does the Common Rorqual, 

 but the blubber value is made up by the whalebone being of a 

 better sort. Besides, their flesh (and no others) is extensively 

 prepared in tins at the factories, and afterwards sold as human 

 food. It has been remarked that this whale, unlike the last, 

 seldom consumes fish ; but instead, its nourishment is derived 

 almost entirely from minute crustaceans, both Copepods and 

 Thysanopods.t Altogether, few of this Rorqual have been met 

 with on the British coasts. Of these, three specimens have 

 been taken in our Kent and Essex waters, a reputed fourth 

 (Laver, op. cit.) being of a certainty the Razor-back, mentioned 

 supra as slain at the Lower Hope, May, 1859. A male, 33 feet 

 long, was taken in the River Crouch, November, 1883, and the 

 body exhibited at Southend. But question of its true owner- 

 ship arose, resulting in a Chancery suit at the instance of the 

 Burnham Lord of the Manor, in whose favour judgment was 

 decided. Its skeleton is now in the museum, Sydney, N.S.W. 

 Another stranded in the Thames outside Tilbury Dock, October, 

 1887, and this also was a male, 35 feet 4 inches in length 

 (fig. 6). The third, a female, 32 feet long, was captured in the 



* Drawirgby W. Crouch, to whom we are obliged for loan of woodcut. 



t Collett, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1886 ; but the Tilbury Whale was supposed to be pur- 

 suing sprats, shrimps and eels? (W. Crouch). 



J Flower, P.Z.8. 1883, and W. Crouch, Essex Nat. II. (1886) and Rochester Nat. 1881. 



