NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 173 



an inch in length, much flattened, with five pairs of legs, each armed with a sharp recurved 

 claw for clinging to the whale. There are two pairs of anterior clawed appendages and three 

 posterior. On the intermediate two segments are the paired branchial sacs. The abdomen 

 has become reduced to a mere knob. Liitken (1873) found two species on the Nordkapers 

 taken at Iceland: Cyamus ovalis and C. erraticus. Guldberg (1891) in examining two other 

 specimens of this whale at Iceland, found C. ovalis only, and this is probably the common species 

 in the North Atlantic. In the Southern Ocean, a third species, C. gracilis, is found together 

 with the two others, infesting the Southern Right Whale. In the North Pacific, C. ovalis 

 and ('. t/racilis also occur together, and the latter may be looked for perhaps in the North 

 Atlantic. These crustaceans infest the rugosities on the rostrum, and on the anterior ends 

 and sides of the jaw, and may also be found about the genitalia or scattered over the body. 

 It is not unlikely that they cause the rough appearance of the knobs on the head, but there is 

 no reason to suppose that the 'bonnet' is the result of inflammation induced by their activity 

 as one writer has suggested. A number were observed on the Provincetown 1909 whale, but 

 unfortunately none was preserved. The genus is omitted from Miss Rathbun's list of New 

 Kngland Crustacea. 



Apparently the North Atlantic Right Whale does not usually carry barnacles. Indeed 

 the only definite mention of these crustaceans on our species is the statement of Van Beneden 

 (1890) that he possessed an excellent drawing of a Coronula made from a specimen taken 

 from the skin of a Nordkaper captured toward the end of the 18th century between Iceland 

 and Newfoundland. The evidence of its origin does not seem to be quite as convincing as 

 one could wish, and in view of the apparent lack of other records of its occurrence on this 

 whale, there is a strong presumption that it may have come from a Humpback. In the same 

 paper, Van Beneden (1890) figures a Coronula, identified as C. regince, a Pacific species, which 

 was picked up on the Gaspe shore, Gulf of St. Lawrence, attached to a piece of the integument 

 of a whale. He believes this may have come from a North Atlantic Right Whale, and adduces 

 tins specimen as evidence of the world- wide range of the species. The evidence, however, 

 is inconclusive. The specimen is of unknown origin, and may even have been taken in the 

 Pacific, kept by some whaleman, and thrown overboard in the Atlantic and so drifted to the 

 Gaspe coast. 



On the Right Whale of the South Seas, however, a cylindrical species, Tubidnella trachealis, 

 occurs imbedded deep in the bonnet. According to Steenstrup (Liitken, 1873, p. 244) a speci- 

 men supposed to have come from a Nordkaper stranded on the Faroe Islands in 1650 is figured 

 and described by Ole Worms. 



