OCEANIC MAMMALS 499 



by which the gray whale was given complete protection by the 

 nations signing the treaty; again Japan, the nation most 

 affected, was not included among these. The killer whale is the 

 chief natural enemy apart from various parasites. Dr. Andrews 

 has described how, when a school of these voracious whales 

 appears, the gray whales become at times paralyzed with fear, 

 and lie at the surface belly up, often to have their tongues and 

 lips bitten by the killers. 



That this whale may formerly have occurred in the North 

 Atlantic is indicated by the recent discovery of parts of a skull 

 identified as of Rhachianectes, in beds of the Glacial period in 

 Holland (Junge, 1936). In modern times, however, it is un- 

 known outside of the North Pacific. 



Family BALAENIDAE: Right Whales 

 PYGMY RIGHT WHALE 



NEOBALAENA MARGINATA (Gray) 



Balaena marginata Gray, Zool. Voyage Erebus and Terror, p. 48, 1846 (off Western 



Australia). 

 SYNONYM: Balaena antipodarum Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1864, p. 203 (Jackson 



Bay, New Zealand). 

 FIGS.: Beddard, 1901, pis. 7-9 (skeleton); ? Wilson, E. A., 1907, fig. 2, opposite p. 4 



(blowing); Hale, 1931, figs. 1-4. 



Very little is known of this whale, for on account of its 

 small size and perhaps actual fewness of numbers it does not 

 enter into commercial catches. As a species possibly decadent, 

 however, it may deserve mention here. 



The pygmy right whale resembles the other members of the 

 right whale family in the arched and narrowed forepart of the 

 cranium, in the absence of a coronoid process on the lower 

 jaw, the complete fusion of the seven neck vertebrae, and in 

 the absence of throat folds. On the other hand, it is like the 

 fin whales in having a small dorsal fin of fibrous tissue, in the 

 elongated form of the shoulder blade, and in having but four 

 instead of five fingers in the hand. Peculiar to it are the ex- 

 tremely broad ribs, the few (two) lumbar vertebrae, the long 

 narrow plates of whalebone which are whitish, with a dark 

 outer margin. Total length when adult, about 20 feet, of 

 which the head forms about one-fifth. 



Beyond the few specimens captured in fishing nets or strand- 



