WHALEBONE WHALES. 



'9 



back- 



larger dimensions, and is believed to have a few more vertebrae in the 

 bone. 



KudoipM's Fin- The next species in point of size is Rudolphi's fin-whale (B. 



wnaie. borealis), which attains a length of from 40 to 45, or occasionally as 

 much as 52 feet. In colour it is bluish-black above, with oblong white spots, 

 while the under-parts are more or less white : the under-surface of the flukes, as 

 well as both sides of the flippers are, however, coloured like the back. The 

 back-fin is smaller ami placed further hack than in the lesser tinner : while the 



THE LESSER FIX-WHALE (r 1 ; licit. Size;. 



flippers are very small, equalling only one-fourteenth of the total length. There 

 are thirteen pairs of ribs ; and the whalebone is black. 



This species is much rarer than the other rorquals, and does not appear to have 

 been recorded from the Pacific. It ranges as far south as Biarritz, and migrates 

 northward in summer as far as the North Cape ; and either this or a closely-allied 

 species occurs in the seas around Java. Of specimens recorded from the British 

 Islands, the first was stranded on the shores of the Firth of Forth in 1S72 : the 

 second was caught in the river Crouch, in Essex, in 1883, a third in LSS4 in the 

 Humber, a fourth in the Thames at Tilbury in 1887, and a fifth in the Medway in 

 1888. On the coasts of Finmark the numbers of this whale are very variable, and 

 while it is a constant summer visitor on the Western seas, it only occasionally 



