496 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



pointed muzzle, and a vertical fin on the back, from which 

 its name is derived. But all these characters are attributed 

 to the large Rorquals, and the only one which distinguishes 

 the Gibbar, is that Martens has said nothing of the folds 

 under the throat. 



" Egedius's Fin-fisch is only a bad figure of a Rorqual, and 

 Anderson's that of a Common Whale, a little slender, to 

 which a fin has been added. 



" Peter Camper gives a head of a skeleton of the Gibbar 

 preserved in the Museum of Bremen ; but the painting of 

 the animal found in the Weser is also preserved there, and 

 M. Albers assures us that it represents a true Rorqual. 



" The name of Jubarta given to one of these Balaenoptera 

 or Rorquals seems to be only a corruption of the name 

 Gibbar. A more ludicrous corruption has given rise to the 

 name of Jupiter's fish, used by some northern whalers. 



" The name of Rorqual means in Norwegian, whale with 

 furrows, and indicates the folds which characterize the 

 throat and part of the belly of this sub-genus of the Balaenae. 



"Nomenclators admit three species in the North, and have 

 been justified by what we find in some travellers. But an at- 

 tentive examination of the figure, and descriptions on which 

 these rest, does not enable us to establish any distinctive 

 characters. All these animals have the head horizontally 

 flatted, the skeleton differently formed from that of the Com- 

 mon Whale, the lower jaw a little longer than the upper, 

 the skin of the breast and throat furred with a great num- 

 ber of longitudinal folds, and capable of dilatation. The 

 whalebones short, hard, and filing off* into large and brittle 

 threads. A fin in the rear of the body, short and thick, and 

 resembling a boss. When we examine the testimonies con- 

 cerning these three pretended species, we find no one who 

 has seen more than one, and each author is obliged to refer 

 to the evidence of strangers. Thus Linnaeus who names 

 two, Boops and Musculus, affixes to the latter the sign that he 



