CETACEA. 259 



"Antarctic Voyage," and an inhabitant of the Seas of the Cape 

 of Good Hope ; M. Kuzira, the Kuzira, inhabiting the Japanese 

 Seas; M. Americana, the Bermuda Hump-Back, is of a black 

 color with a white belly, and has its head covered with tubercles. 

 It is found at Bermuda from March to the end of May, when it 

 departs. The baleen of this whale is extensively imported from 

 Bermuda. 



Balaenoptera Rorqualus. The RORQUALS. 



These include several species closely allied to those of the ge- 

 nus Balaena, but which have been separated from it, and formed 

 into a distinct genus. Among them are the largest of the Whale 

 tribe, and probably the largest and most powerful animals found 

 on our globe. They are often from a hundred to one hundred 

 and twenty feet in length ; the head is about one-fourth part of 

 the length. These whales differ from the Mysticelus, in having 

 bodies which are longer and in their form more slender and cy- 

 lindrical ; in possessing a dorsal fin ; in having blubber which is 

 thinner, being generally not more than six inches thick, and yield- 

 ing an oil of inferior quality and less in quantity ; in theirgreater 

 speed, quicker action and bolder conduct; in their more violent 

 blowing ; and in having shorter and less valuable baleen. Hence 

 they are avoided by whalers as not repaying for the hazard of 

 their capture. The upper jaw of the Mysticetus is relatively 

 longer and more curved ; consequently, the plates of baleen are 

 long in the Mysticetus and short in the Rorquals. In the latter, 

 the longest laminae measure only three or four feet; the smallest 

 are reduced to mere bristles, so that the animal has not fewer than 

 four or five thousand distinct plates of whalebone. The poste- 

 rior arch of the palate is so large that it could easily admit some 

 modern Jonah, forming a great vestibule to the wind-pipe and 

 gullet. This last is somewhat larger than a man's fist. The 

 Rorquals feed not only upon the small medusae, shrimps, etc., 

 which form the food of the Mysticetus, but upon medusas of a 

 larger size, and such fish as herring, haddock, salmon, etc. 

 This could not be unless the baleen were coarser and the swallow 

 larger than in the Mysticetus. The Rorquals are sure to be in 

 the track of the fish just referred to, and they devour them in 

 quantities almost beyond imagination. M. Desmoulins states that 

 six hundred great cod, and immense quantities of pilchards have 

 been found in the stomach of one of these whales. Unlike the 

 Common Greenland Whale, the animals of this genus often leave 

 their native seas and stray far away to other waters and shores. 



N. B. In the Catalogue of the British Museum, the genus 

 Balaenoptera has but one species, the B. rostrata, Pike Wbale 



