WHALES AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION 17 



smooth throat and the absence of a dorsal fin. In 

 the Humpback and Finners or Rorquals the skin of 

 the throat is plicated. The Right Whales were 

 probably the first to be the subject of chase by 

 man, and the Atlantic Right Whale (B. biscayensis) 

 was pursued by Basque fishermen from the earliest 

 times of which we have any record o f whaling 

 (from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries). 



The Greenland or Arctic Right Whale is 

 probably the same species as the " Bowhead " of 

 the Okhotsk Sea and Behring Strait, and is there- 

 fore circumpolar in range. It attains a length of 

 from forty-five to fifty feet, and although a truly ice 

 whale, has for centuries been the object of an 

 extensive fishery. It has never been reported in the 

 waters off the British Islands. 



The Southern Right Whale, which is distin- 

 guished from the former species by possessing a 

 smaller head in proportion to its body, had also been 

 extensively hunted by whalemen. If we admit, 

 with Lydekker, that all the varieties are really only 

 one species, then it is seen that this whale is very 

 widely distributed in the temperate seas of both 

 northern and southern hemispheres. 



The Humpback (Megaptera hoops), which grows 

 to about fifty feet, resembles the Rorquals in 

 having throat-grooves and a dorsal fin, but differs 

 in its very long flipper (pectoral fins), from ten to 

 fourteen feet in length, having the outer surface 

 white and the front edge scalloped. The whalebone 

 is black. 



B 



