550 SUBANTAECTIC ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. [Mammalia. 



are nearly always seen during the southern cruises of the Government vessels, it is 

 doubtful if they are sufficiently numerous to pay for the hunting of them. 

 Hab. — Southern seas. 



Balaenoptera, Lacepede, 1804. 

 Balaenoptera musculus, Linnaeus. (Blue whale.) 



Balaena musculus, Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. x, 1758, p. 76. 



Though more commonly known under the name of B. sihhaldii. Gray, I have 

 followed Mr. F. W. True* in considering this as a synonym of B. musculus. Wilsonf 

 regards the blue whale as one of the commonest species in Antarctica, and writes, 

 " We saw a pair of these whales in Table Bay on our voyage out ; again, a pair off 

 the coast of New Zealand, but nowhere did we see them in numbers till we reached 

 the ice." 



I may here refer to the large example stranded near Okarito, on the west 

 coast of the South Island of New Zealand, in February, 1908, the skeleton of which 

 is now in the Canterbury Museum. A short notice, together with an illustration of 

 the tail-flukes, appeared in Nature,% but the following particulars may be of interest: 

 The total length of the whale was 87 ft., that of the skull 21 ft. ; the direct length 

 of the mandible is 20 ft. 8 in., and that of the hand 12 ft. The width of the tail- 

 flukes together was 21 ft. The total weight of the skeleton is estimated at 9 tons, 

 while the ascertained weight of the cranium, exclusive of the maxillae, &c., is 1 ton 

 9 cwt. The mandibles together weigh 1 ton 5 cwt. 



When I first arrived at the stranded whale I found that some men had com- 

 menced to remove the blubber, and the exuding oil had saturated the sand all around. 

 The effect of this was very noticeable on the would-be breakers — far from the vicinity 

 of the whale they were smoothed down ; and an attempt to wash the hands in the 

 sea-water only resulted in adding a little more oil to them. 



The whale was a cow, and the characteristic furrowed throat and chest pre- 

 sented an appearance not unlike corrugated iron, the folds having become some- 

 what lax, and having lost their sharp edges. A noticeable feature of the dead whale 

 was the number of pits in certain portions of the skin ; these were each the size of 

 a crown-piece and | in. in depth. They marked the positions of the host of barnacles, 

 which had dropped off ere the animal had been washed ashore. With the exception 

 of the right maxilla, which it is hoped may still be recovered, the whole of the bones 

 were secured, including the vestiges of the pelvis, &c., the chevrons, the digital and 

 the terminal tail-bones. There are sixty- four vertebrae, as usual with the species ; 

 but there has been some difference of opinion as to the number of ribs possessed by 

 the blue whale, some authors giving fifteen, others sixteen pairs. While our example 

 has the lower number, it is significant that the transverse process of the sixteenth 

 dorsal vertebra has an articular surface, so that if we did not know that all the ribs 

 were secured and preserved we should, by examination of the vertebrae alone, pro- 

 nounce the number of ribs to be sixteen pairs, 



Hah. — Arctic, temperate, and Antarctic seas. 



* True, Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus., xxi, 1898, p. 629. 



f Wilson, loc. cit., p. 4. 



:|: Waite, Nature, 26th November, 1908, p. 98. 



