BLUE WHALE. 249 



a straight line and the girth. These dimensions for twenty-one Blue Whales were obtained by 

 Captain Berg, at an Icelandic whaling station and were used by Guldberg in his calculations. 

 Of these twenty-one whales, the extremes of length were 61.5 and 84 feet, and the extremes of 

 greatest girth 32 to 40; the averages of these dimensions were respectively 72.45 feet and 

 36.02. By applying these figures in the formula the weight of a J2-foot Blue Whale is found 

 to approximate 73.8 tons or 73,800 kilograms. This, it must be remembered, is an approxi- 

 mation only, as no account is taken of the large pectoral limbs or of the flukes. Moreover 

 the form of the body before and behind the point of greatest girth is not exactly that of a cone. 

 Turner has independently estimated the weight of a Blue Whale at about seventy tons. Ac- 

 cording to Andrews, 1 a 76-foot Blue Whale from Newfoundland, of which the American Museum 

 of Natural History has a life-size model, was said to weigh 63 tons. 



External Measurements. The greatest length to which this species may attain is still 

 a matter of some doubt. Measurements exceeding 100 feet have been recorded, and estimates 

 of large individuals run as high as 132 feet. It is now agreed, however, that such figures are 

 unreliable, or were taken in such a way as to exaggerate the true length. The best series of 

 measurements extant is that given in True's monograph (1904, p. 153). Of twenty-five Blue 

 Whales measured at Newfoundland, the largest was 77 feet 2 inches from the tip of the upper 

 jaw to the notch of the flukes in a right line. This is probably nearly a true maximum, but 

 may be exceeded. Measurements from Norwegian stations run up to 87 feet 6.5 inches, but 

 may have been taken in a different way. There is evidence that females may grow to a larger 

 size than males, but the difference, at most, is slight, and might disappear with larger series. 

 Thus of the ten males measured by Dr. True, four exceeded seventy feet, though the largest 

 was but 72 feet 7 inches; while of the fifteen females, six were seventy feet long, four were over 

 73 feet, and the longest of all was 77 feet 2 inches, as above noted. Yet the average of the ten 

 males and of the sixteen females is respectively 68 feet 3 inches and 68 feet 9 inches, a very 

 trifling difference in such great creatures. The smallest female with a foetus (and so adult) 

 that Dr. True measured, was 72 feet long. At the Norwegian stations, Cocks (1885) found 

 that the largest of thirty-six females exceeded by 2 feet 6.5 inches the largest of an equal num- 

 ber of males. 



No measurements of New England specimens are available, but the following, based on 

 Dr. True's lists, indicate the proportions of an adult male and an adult female. As with the 

 Finback, I have worked out the percentage of each dimension to the total length. 



The height of the dorsal fin is usually between 6 and 10 inches but in three cases out of 

 twenty-four exceeded a foot by from 2 to 3.5 inches, thus nearly equalling the smallest meas- 

 urements for adults of the Common Finback. The other measurements seem to vary but 

 relatively little. 



1 Amer. Museum Journal, 1914, vol. 14, p. 279. 



