458 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



Straits. When the winters are excessively rigorous, it is 

 reported that it quits these icy climates in search of more 

 temperate regions, and sometimes ascends rivers. 



These animals are very gentle, and so familiar, that 

 when they discover a vessel they swim away in a crowd to 

 meet it, forming a kind of suite, and playing all manner of 

 gambols. The Beluga however, is no object of research to 

 fishermen, who set little store by it. Mariners assert that 

 it is usually the precursor of the Common Whale, and that 

 whenever it makes its appearance, this monarch of the 

 Cetacea is at no great distance. 



The head of the Beluga is small and elongated. The an- 

 terior part of the body presents the figure of a cone, the 

 base of which may be considered to rest about the pectoral 

 fins against that of another cone much longer, and com- 

 posed of the body and tail ; the muzzle is elongated and 

 rounded in front ; the jaws are equal, and furnished 

 with nine small teeth, blunt at top, unequal and distant 

 from each other ; the longest are in front of the termina- 

 tion of the muzzle, where the mouth, small in proportion 

 to the size of the animal, is situated. 



The Beluga is from eighteen to twenty-one feet in 

 length. 



Above the anterior part of the head is a protuberance 

 which is the common orifice of the two spiracles ; its 

 situation in the head causes the water rejected by the 

 Beluga to fall behind it. 



The eye is small, round, projecting, and of a bluish 

 colour ; at some distance behind it, is the meatus auditorius, 

 but the orifice is so small as to be scarcely perceptible. 



The Beluga instead of a dorsal fin has only a sort of 

 longitudinal projection on the back, which is demi-callous, 

 and seems to possess very little sensibility ; the pectoral 

 fins are oval, broad, and thick, and the longest of thefingers, 

 which are all enveloped in a membrane, has five articula- 



