GREENLAND RIGHT-WHALE. 385 



angles of the mouth; the upper lip dips down in front to 

 meet the lower, which is enlarged at the sides to a depth 

 of five or six feet, so as to cover the baleen when the 

 mouth is closed. The blow-holes are in the form of two 

 curved lines with their convexity towards one another, and 

 the external openings of the ear are hardly perceptible. 

 The body is bulky in front, largest about the middle, and 

 tapers rather suddenly towards the tail ; its front part 

 is almost cylindrical, but the posterior portion is com- 

 pressed, with a sharp angle or ridge above. The flippers 

 are oval and somewhat short, the tail is of great breadth, 

 semilunate, and deeply divided in the middle. The 

 general colour of the adult is almost black, of the young 

 bluish-grey, the lower jaw and throat are cream-colour or 

 white, and there are sometimes irregular white markings 

 on other parts of the body. 



The longer blades of baleen usually attain a length of 

 about twelve feet in the adult animal, but are sometimes 

 considerably longer ; their general colour is blackish-grey, 

 occasionally varied with stripes of a paler tint. 



The form of the skull, as seen from above, is shown 

 in the vignette. The number of vertebrae is fifty-four, 

 and there are thirteen pairs of ribs. 



The length of the Greenland Right- Whale has doubt- 

 less often been exaggerated, but its bulk, so much greater 

 than that of the Rorquals, probably entitles it to its old 

 reputation of being " biggest of all live creatures." The 

 females have been said to be larger than the males, but 

 this view is not borne out by facts collected by Prof. 

 Flower, who considers that fifty feet may be taken as the 

 average length in both sexes. The following are some of 

 the measurements of a very large female killed in Davis 

 Strait, as given by Dr. R. Brown on the authority of 

 Dr. R. Goodsir : 



3 D 



