NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 117 



swellings of like nature. These larger swellings are sufficient to give the lower jaw a nearly 

 truncate or square front, though there is a slight emargination at the middle line. In the 

 Provincetown whale of 1909, there were four other roughened areas along the ridge of the upper 

 jaw, the largest not far in advance of the blowholes. The lower jaw is slightly the longer. 



The blowholes or external nares are situated at the vertex of the head, slightly in advance 

 of the angle of the mouth. They are two slits one on each side of the middle line, rather wide 

 apart, but converging, anteriorly. In the 1895 male specimen they were 8 inches long, in the 

 1909 female G.5 inches, and 4.5 inches apart anteriorly. Their outline from above is gently 

 convex toward the midline (text-fig. 10, p. 274). 



The eye is slightly protuberant, and placed low down, a little above the extreme posterior 

 corner of the mouth. 



The pectoral fins are of characteristic outline, and inserted below the level of the corner of 

 the mouth. The anterior border is very slightly convex; the posterior margin is the shortest 

 and the fin is broadest at the level of this posterior corner, where it is obliquely truncate. 



The flukes are relatively broad in their transverse diameter; their combined spread is 

 about four times the greatest basal width. There is a distinct median notch some six inches 

 deep at the posterior border. 



The ear is a mere hole or pit externally, about large enough to admit the end of a parlor 

 match. It is situated somewhat behind and below the level of the eye. 



Color. As the term 'Black Whale' indicates, the skin is commonly a deep ebony black 

 throughout. The gum, bordering the inner side of the entire upper jaw, is white, making a 

 contrasting line at the base of the whalebone plates, which also are black. 



Variation from this coloring is caused through the occasional presence of white patches 

 of greater or less extent, usually on the ventral surface. In a specimen taken at Amagansett, 

 Long Island, there were "numerous milk-white patches varying in diameter from two to four- 

 teen inches" on the flukes, pectoral limbs, and the region around the genitalia. The spots on 

 the flukes were mainly along the posterior border of the extremities on both surfaces as narrow 

 streaks or patches. The pectorals were strongly marked with white in large patches, particu- 

 larly on the inferior surface along the posterior margin (Andrews, 1908, p. 172). A newspaper 

 photograph of the whale killed off Cape Cod in 1895, shows it to have been 'white-bellied.' 

 The throat from the symphysis back nearly to the pectorals was white, and thence the white 

 area tapered posteriorly well on to the belly, its outline somewhat irregularly blotched, and 

 with a few scattered black spots. Collett (1909) who has had opportunity of examining some 

 numbers of this species killed in the waters about Iceland, found that about ten out of fifty 

 specimens were white-bellied, and that in many the white area is somewhat constricted in the 

 middle, and in places, especially towards the sides, thickly dotted with oblong black spots; 

 the pectorals were black in all (see plates with Collett's paper). 



