FINNERS, OR RORQUALS. 



267 



great havoc in the herring and other fisheries. There may exist from eight to a dozen fairly- 

 recognised species, and quite as many more doubtful ones. They have been divided into several 

 genera by various naturalists, though there is a tendency to revert to the single term 

 jfalcenoptera. So migratory are they, so active, and changeable towards localities, that little is 

 known of their precise geographical distribution. They are found in the Polar seas, throughout 

 the whole of the Atlantic, in the Indian, Pacific, and Antarctic Oceans. In their habits they 

 have much in common. Ordinarily they do not congregate in large herds, though twos and 

 threes, and occasionally more, keep company ; others seem even more solitary in disposition. They 

 are all more or less fish-eaters, and they commit great devastation among the Cod-bearing banks 

 and Herring shoals six and eight hundred fish having been found in the stomach of an indi- 

 vidual. A few attain the enormous length of even 100 feet, and sixty or seventy feet is not an 

 uncommon average, though some of the species are by no means distinguished on account of size. 

 One of the largest forms is SIBBALD'S EOEQUAL (B. Sibbaldii), black above and slate-grey below, 

 varied with whitish spots. The Icelanders term this animal " Steypireythr," and it is rather 

 abundant in that region and South Greenland. Another of immense dimensions is known to the 

 Pacific whalers as the SULPHUR-BOTTOM WHALE (B. (Sibbaldius) sulfureus). This glides with great 

 velocity over the ocean, and is known at a distance by the vast amount of vapour it sends forth in 

 blowing. Its yellowish belly gives its specific name. At times they appear in considerable numbers 

 on the Californian coasts. One is recorded to have followed a ship for twenty-four consecutive days, 

 and rifle-shots, &c., did not drive it away. The captain and crew at first had great fears of mischief, 

 but at length the companionship of " Blowhard," as they called him, and his close approach, became 

 a subject of interest and merriment to them. The COMMON RORQUAL, or RAZOR-BACK (B. musculus), 

 black above and brilliant white below, with an average length of sixty or seventy feet, is a well- 

 known frequenter of British coasts. The LESSER RORQUAL (B. rostrata) resembles the last, but 

 never reaches more than twenty-five or thirty feet. It frequents the North Atlantic and Arctic 

 Ocean, and is supposed to stretch even as far as Labrador, Davis Strait, and the Aleutian Isles. It 

 likewise has been met with several times in British waters, but it is best known as the " Seigval," or 

 Cod- Whale of Finland, and from the fact that it is a regular summer visitant to Norway. 



A great many of the remains of Fossil Whales found in the Miocene and Pliocene deposits 

 in various parts of Europe belong to the Fin-backs. One genus, the Cetotherium, Brandt has 

 suggested, might form a transition between the Whales and our next order, the Sirenia. This 

 supposition, however, is not borne out by facts, such features as denote likeness being rather 

 deceptive. The Rhytina, a Sirenian, wanting teeth and with a somewhat Cetacean-like tail, how- 

 ever Whale-like in outward figure, in other respects is quite different from any member of the Order 

 Cetacea, which taken as a whole cannot possibly be affirmed to show substantial links of close affinity 

 either with the other Marine Mammalia or with the Land Mammalian groups. 



JAMES MURIE. 



COMMON RORQUAL. (After Flower.) 



