LESSER RORQUAL. 



CETACEA. 

 {MYSTACOCETI.) 



411 



BA LJENOPTERID/E. 



LESSER RORQUAL. 



Balcenoptera rostrata (Fabricius). 



Specific Character. —Black above, white below ; flippers black, with a broad 

 white band across the middle ; baleen yellowish-white, tinged with pink in 

 the live animal. Vertebne 48; ribs 11 pairs; sternum in form of a cross, 

 longer than l)road. Length of adult 25 to 30 feet. 



Balieaa rostrata, Fabricius, Fauna G-rocnl. (1790), 40. 



Rorqualus minor, (Knox) Naturalist's Library, .Kxvi. 142. 

 Tikaf/ulih of Greeulanders and Eskimo ; Tacltikarjnlk of Alaskan Indians ? 

 VaaQCvhal of Norwegians; Selycal or Scival oi Finns; Little Fiancr and 

 Pike Whale of whalers. 



The Lesser Rorqual was first described by Fabricius 

 under the name of BaUcna rostrata ; Martens, also, dis- 

 tinguished it in his Spitsbergen voyage and speaks of it 

 as the " Kleyne Walvisch " or Little Whale. John 

 Hunter examined a specimen taken in the Thames, and 

 gave a good figure, of which our illustration is a copy, in 

 the " Philosophical Transactions " for 1789. The two 

 Cuviers, however, having seen no specimens, regarded the 

 Lesser Rorqual as the young of a larger species, but it is 

 now well established as one of the best marked and most 

 easily distinguished species of the family. 



This small Fin-Whale is an inhabitant of the North 

 Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, and Eschricht believes it to 



