524 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



HUMPBACK WHALE 



MEGAPTERA NOVAEANGLIAE (Borowski) 



Balaena novae angliae Borowski, Gemeinniizz. Naturgesch. Thierreichs, vol. 2, pt. 1, 

 p. 21, 1781 (New England coast). 



SYNONYMS: Balaena nodosa Bonnaterre, Tabl. Encyclop. Meth., Cetologie, p. 5, 1789 

 (New England coast); Balaenoptera australis Lesson, Hist. Nat. Gen. et Partic. des 

 Mamm. et Oiseaux, Cetaces, p. 372, 1828 (Cape of Good Hope); Balaenoptera 

 capensis A. Smith, South African Quart. Journ., vol. 2, p. 130, 1834 (Cape of Good 

 Hope); Megaptera versdbilis Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 1869, p. 17. 

 For other synonyms see Allen, G. M., 1939, p. 266. 



FIGS. : True, 1904, pis. 29-41 (exterior and skeleton). 



The humpback whale is at once distinguished from the other 

 large whales by the great length of the pectoral limb, which is 

 27 to 31 percent of the total length, with an irregularly knobbed 

 fore edge, and by the few throat folds, which number about 8 

 (21-36) between the pectorals. There is a low and irregularly 

 shaped dorsal fin at about the last third of the length. The 

 baleen and its bristles are coarse in texture, the plates varying 

 from gray to almost black, and the bristles from white to 

 grayish white. The color shows a wide range of variation from 

 nearly all blackish, with slight mottling on throat and lower 

 side, to a condition in which almost the entire throat and the 

 sides of the body fairly high up, as well as much of the pectoral 

 limb are white. Total length, about 45 to 47 feet. 



This whale, though more agile than the right whales, was 

 nevertheless easily approached and often was killed without 

 great difficulty, so that occasional individuals were regularly 

 taken on the New England coast by the whalers as early at 

 least as 1757. The fishery seems to have been carried on in a 

 small way during Revolutionary times and into the first 

 quarter of the nineteenth century, when vessels from Nantucket 

 or Provincetown frequently went on short cruises to Mount 

 Desert, Nantucket Shoals, or other nearby waters in their 

 pursuit. With the coming into use of the bomb lance prob- 

 ably some of these whales were taken in Massachusetts waters 

 by whalers from Provincetown in the seventies and eighties, 

 using small steamers. The whales, if mortally hit, came to 

 the surface in a few days and, if retrieved, were towed ashore 

 and there tried out. This ceased, however, during the last 

 decade of the nineteenth century. Still earlier, at the close of 

 the seventeenth century and during the century following, 



