1 18 CETACEAN GALLERY. 



feeding, they fill their immense mouth with water containing 

 shoals of these small creatures, and then, on their closing the jaws 

 and raising the tongue so as to diminish the cavity of the mouth, 

 the water streams out through the narrow intervals between the 

 hairy fringe of the whalebone-blades, and escapes through the lips, 

 leaving the living prey to be swallowed. 



Among other characters by which the Whalebone Whales are 

 distinguished from the Toothed Whales, may be mentioned : The 

 external openings of the nostrils are distinct from each other, and 

 consist of a pair of longitudinal valvular slits on the top of the 

 head ; the two sides of the upper part of the skull are symmetri- 

 cally developed; the organ of smell, though small, is formed as in 

 other mammals. The branches of the lower jaw are greatly curved 

 outwards in the middle, and are loosely connected both to the skull 

 behind and to each other in front by fibrous bands. When the 

 mouth is open in feeding, they fall outwards, widening the capa- 

 cious bag formed by the very dilatable skin of the throat (the 

 power of distention of which is aided in many species by a series 

 of longitudinal folds), which may be compared to the sac under the 

 bill of the pelican. By their rotation upwards and inwards when 

 the mouth is closed, they are brought close to the upper jaw. The 

 sternum or breast-bone is composed of a single piece, often taking 

 the form of a cross, and articulates only with a single pair of ribs. 

 There are never any ossified sternal ribs. 



The Whalebone Whales represented in the collection belong to 

 five distinct types or genera. 



Balana (Right Whales). Skin of throat smooth, not furrowed. 

 No dorsal fin. Cervical vertebrae united into a single mass. Pec- 

 toral limb broad and short, with five fingers. Head very large. 

 Baleen very long and narrow, highly elastic and black, as seen in 

 the specimens near the window at the further end of the room. 



This genus contains the well-known Greenland Right Whale 

 (Balcena mysticetus) of the Arctic seas, which yields whalebone of 

 the greatest value and train-oil. It never leaves the ice, and so is 

 not an inhabitant of the seas round our islands, but is hunted every 

 summer in Baffin's Bay and the seas round Spitzbergen by ships 

 fitted out at Dundee and Peterhead. The Museum at present only 

 possesses a skull of this most interesting animal; but a carefully 



