1867.J DR. H. BURMEISTER ON A NEW FINNER WHALE. "07 



Scales cycloid ; two rows between eye and angle of preeoperculum ; 

 those on the summit of the head with their posterior border fes- 

 tooned. 



Colours. Of a dull green on the back and sides, and dirty white 

 along the abdomen. Numerous small and brilliant blue spots along 

 the sides, alternating with rusty-red ones when the fish is alive and 

 in good health, but they fade after death. A light spot on the 

 summit of the head, which is sometimes absent. Dorsal fin white, 

 with a large black spot along its base. Anal orange. Eye silvery. 



5. Preliminary Description of a New Species of Finner Whale 

 {Balcenoptera bonaerensis) . By Dr. H. Burmeister, 

 F.M. Z.S.J Director of the Public Museum, Buenos Ayres. 



The animal which I now bring before the notice of the scientific 

 public was found dead, floating on the river Plata, near Belgrano, 

 about ten miles from Buenos Ayres, by a fisherman, who brought the 

 body on shore on the .5th of February of this year, and informed me 

 on the next day of his discovery. I was then confined by illness to 

 my room, and was unable to go to see the body until fourteen days 

 later. Putrefaction had already destroyed the Whale's external ap- 

 jiearance ; but as I found the body lying on the ground near the 

 shore 1 was able to take a sufficiently accurate measure of it by steps. 

 It was then 16 paces long, of which nearly 4 belonged to the head, 

 and 12 to the trunk with the tail. Calculating my steps in moderate 

 walking as equal to 2 feet, I made the whole body 32 feet long ; and 

 now measuring the skull alone I find it is 7 feet long, leaving 25 feet 

 for the trunk and tail. This 25 feet is divided in the skeleton in 

 such a manner that 1 foot is occuj)ied by the seven vertebrae of the 

 neck, 3i feet by the eleven dorsal vertebrae, 8| feet by the twelve 

 lumbar, and 10 feet by the nineteen of the tail, the 4 additional feet 

 being for the external parts of the animal — the skin, the cellular 

 covering under it, and the intervertebral cartilages. 



As the surface was already destroyed by putrefaction, I could not 

 see distinctly the eyes, the ear-openings, or the nostrils. I only 

 observed that the under jaw was about 4 inches longer than the tip 

 of the skull and surrounded the upper jaw in its whole circum- 

 ference. 



Ten paces from the tip of the nose was a triangular falcate dorsal 

 fin about I foot high and 1 j foot long ; and on tlie tip of the tail 

 a large caudal fin with the usual two lobes, about 6| feet distant 

 from each other at the hinder ends, and each d^ feet long, and 

 1^ foot broad at the begiiuiing. 



The pectoral fins I could not examine very exactly — the one being 

 already destroyed, and the other covered by the body ; but they ap- 

 peared to have the usual triangular form, and a length of from 3i to 

 4 feet. The rest of the skin was of a dark black-grey colour, like 

 the old clay-slate, but lighter and nearly white-grey on the under- 



