44 WHALES AND WHALERS. [PART I. 



accurate drawing which Mr. Heaphy, the draughts- 

 man, made for me of a cow whale, which was 

 brought into Jackson's Bay, and measured sixty feet 

 in length, I am convinced that the southern black 

 whale is a different animal from the northern, and 

 has been added by Mr. Gray to the system under 

 the name of Balsena antipodarum. This whale was 

 drawn while afloat, and just after it had been brought 

 in ; its shape was therefore unaltered. But I was 

 unable to determine this difference from anatomical 

 structure, as the carcase, after having been freed of 

 the blubber, immediately sank, and amongst the 

 osseous remains on the beach I could find no com- 

 plete skeleton. 



The black whales of the southern hemisphere ap- 

 pear to be considerably inferior in size to those of 

 the northern. The cow whale above alluded to was 

 regarded as of an unusually large size ; but Scoresby 

 tells us that he measured whales in the Greenland seas 

 seventy or seventy- two feet long. Both the northern 

 and southern Balsena occupy only the second place 

 in regard to size in the animal creation. Mr. Beale 

 measured a spermaceti whale on the coast of Japan 

 of the " enormous size of eighty-four feet, and its 

 circumference in this instance was not less than 

 that of a Greenland whale of the largest size." 



Almost all the whales which are killed on the 

 shores of New Zealand are females, or cows, and 

 their calves. The male, or bull, is very rarely 

 caught, as it never approaches the land so near as 



