1080 MR, 0RJAN OLSEN ON 



B. hrydei differs very much in this respect from B. horealis, 

 and it would hardly be possible with its imperfect straining 

 apparatus to keep back such small crustaceans as the Calanidee, 

 which form the chief food of B. borealis. 



The colour of the baleen in the anterior part of the jaws, 

 and about 0*70 metre backwards from the tip of the snout, is 

 as a rule more or less white, sometimes perfectly white, but 

 more frequently with grey stripes ; further back it is gi'eyish 

 black, and after death perfectly black. The bristles are grey, 

 whitish grey or yellowish in the anterior part of the mouth. 

 The colour of the baleen is on the whole rather similar to that of 

 the fin-whale, and the whalers told me that in some cases they 

 had even seen the white colour asymmetrically placed, as in the 

 fin-whale. The baleen might in one jaw be white over a com- 

 paratively large area, and in tlie other jaw fairly uniformly dark- 

 coloured. A male caught in Saldanha Bay, March 5, 1913, had 

 only dark-coloured baleen. In this respect too B. brydei differs 

 considerably from B. horealis, in which the whalebone is only 

 rarely white-mottled and as a rule uniformly black with white 

 bristles. 



In connection with the description of the whalebone, it is 

 worth mentioning that some time after I had given the first 

 preliminary report on B. brydei in a Norwegian newspaper, 

 Mr. Bryde wrote to me saying that he could now understand the 

 reason for a law-suit in which he had been implicated some time 

 before. He had sold a consignment of baleen from his factories 

 in S. Africa which his agents there considered to be " seihval " 

 [B. horealis). The buyers, however, complained and returned 

 the whalebone, saying that it was not from B. horealis but from 

 another species of whale. The result was a law-suit in which 

 the authorities who examined the whalebone gave judgment 

 in favour of the buyers, and Mr. Bryde was obliged to pay a 

 large fine and take back the whole consignment. 



The Norwegian whalers in South Africa said too that this whale 

 {B. brydei) was not the proper "seihval"; but as it was most 

 like the "seihval" in size and colour, they generally called it 

 that. 



Hairy covering. 



In all the specimens examined by me (except in the case of 

 an old and probably diseased female specimen from Durban, on 

 which I could see no hairs at all), I foiind two rows of haiis on 

 the tip of the lower jaw, with twelve hairs in each row, thus: 



Mouth. 



