32 SPECIMENS OF CETACEA. 



Family II. BALiENOPTERID^E. 



(Rorquals.) 

 Compared with Balaena, head not so large relatively to 

 body, skull feebly arched, baleen shorter and wider ; 

 skin of throat and chest plicated ; dorsal fin ; wide 

 foramen at root of cervical transverse processes ; 

 mandible with a coronoid process. 



I. BAL^NOPTERA. (Bpt.) 



Balsenoptera, Lacepkle, Hist. Nat. des Cetacees, p. xxxvi, 

 1804. 



Fin Whales, Finbacks, Rorquals; dorsal fin distinct, 

 cervical vertebras not fused ; tetradactylous ; ribs 

 articulated with transverse processes and not with 

 bodies of vertebrse. Scapula low, broad; coracoid 

 and acromion large. 



(1) Bal^noptera musculus. (Bpt. m.) 



(Common Rorqual, Fin Whale, or Razorback.) 

 Balsena musculus, Linn., Syst. Nat., 1766. 

 Balfena tripinnis quae rostrum acutum habet et plicas in 



ventre, R. Sibbald, Phalainologia, nova, Edinburgh, 



1692. 

 Balsenoptera musculus. Van Beneden and Gervais, Osteo- 



grapJiie des Cetacees ; Flower, Turner, and others. 

 Balsenoptera physalus, True, Smithsonian Contributions, 



vol. xxxiii., 1904. 



Colour greyish slate on back and sides, belly white ; 

 not exceeding 70 feet ; fifteen pairs of ribs ; dorsal 

 fin relatively low ; pectoral limb about 7 feet, margins 

 almost straight. Baleen mottled ; outer border of 

 upper jaw almost straight. CyD^^L^gCdge = 63. 



1. Skull, with mandible; right baleen wreath in situ. 

 Length 9 feet 2 inches; greatest breadth 4 feet 10 

 inches ; length of maxillary beak 5 feet 9| inches, 

 breadth at base 3 feet 2 inches. Nasals 7| inches 

 long in middle line, 8| inches at the outer border, 

 greatest breadth 2f inches; length of mandible on 

 outer convex surface 9 feet 6 inches, in straight 

 line 8 feet Hi inches; girth in front of coronoid 



