36 



BALJSNIBJ!. 



1846, 1 separated the Eight Whales, orBatenidee, into two divisions — 

 the one having very slender, long, polished whalebone with a single 

 series of fringe, and the second with coarser, shorter, and broader 

 whalebone and a thick coarse fringe. The first was afterw-ards 

 called Balcena, and the second Eubalcsna. M. Beneden seems 

 inclined to adopt this division (see ' Osteographie,' Cetaees, p. 144), 

 observing that the former are confined to the Arctic regions and 

 the other to the more temperate zones ; but this is not correct, 

 for Balcena marginata, as I stated in my first essay, has the whale- 

 bone quite as polished and as fine as that of the Greenland Whale. 

 It lives on the west coast of Australia and New Zealand, in com- 

 pany with the Black Whale of Australia and the Black Whale of 

 New Zealand (both of which, I have no doubt, have short coarse 

 whalebone). The Whale of the most northern parts of the Pacific 

 yields the north-west -coast whalebone, which is of a very coarse 

 character. 



The first section of Whales, with long, slender, elastic, polished, 

 finely fringed whalebone, contains two genera, Balcena and Neo- 

 balcena. 



The Whales of the second section, which have rough, brittle whale- 

 bone, with a thick fringe of coarse hairs, includes four genera, viz. 

 Euhalcena, Hunterius, Caperea, and Madeayius. 



It is very true that I have only seen the whalebone in one of these 

 genera, Euhalcena, in connexion with the bones of the animal ; but 

 as " the South-sea whalers " (that is to say, those who fish in the 

 Southern and Pacific oceans) have only brought various examples of 

 this kind of whalebone from any of their voyages (except a few 

 blades of the whalebone of B. marginata, which they call " sea- 

 tassel "), we may naturally conclude that all the large Eight Whales 

 found in those seas have this kind of whalebone. 



Suborder I. BAL^NOIDEA (c/. p. 46). 



Head large. Body stout. Dorsal fin none. Chest and belly 

 smooth, without plaits. Pectoral fin broad, truncated ; fingers -5, 

 graduated. Arm-bones very short, thick ; radius and humerus of 

 equal length. Baleen elongate, slender. Tympanic bones rhombic. 

 Cervical vertebrse united. 



Balsenoidea, Gray, Synops. Whales Sf Bolph. p. 1. 



Family 1. BAL.a;NID.ffi. Right Whales. 



Balsenidse, Gray, Cat. Seals ^ Whales B. M. pp. 61, 75 ; Synops. 

 Whales Sf Bolph. p. 1 ; Mljeborg, N. Acta Upsal. 1867, vi. 

 Head very large, and body short. Dorsal fin none. Belly smooth. 

 Baleen elongato, slender. Vertebrse of the heck anchyloscd. Pec- 



