SEALS AND WHALES OF TLLE BRITISH SEAS. 77 



by Herr CoUett, or Professor Sars, had taken any other food than 

 Thysanopoda iiiermis, and Herr Foyn and his catchers arc all of opinion 

 that they do not eat fish. To obtain the little Crustacean on which they 

 feed and which is found congregated in separate masses, the Whale passes 

 backwards and forwards with its mouth open, till the cavity is well filled, 

 it then closes its capacious jaws upon the contents. Herr Collett found two 

 or three barrels of these small crustaceans in the stomach of a Blue Whale 

 which he examined, and was told that a large one would consume as much 

 as ten barrels. 



The female appears, as a rule, to be longer than the male; tlie young are 

 born about the autumn, one appears to be the usual number, but two yonng 

 ones have more than once been seen with the same old female. 



This species may be known by its low dorsal fin, black baleen, and long 

 flippers, which are black above and whitish below : this should be borne in 

 mind, as it is not at all improbable that some, at least, of the enormous 

 cetaceans which are occasionally reported from the North of Scotland, belong 

 to this species ; so very unsatisfactory, however, are the reports which appear 

 in print, that it is rarely a single feature is mentioned by which the species 

 may be determined. 



RUDOLPHI S RORQUAL. 



RUDOLPHl's Rorqual {Balccnoptera latkeps, J. E. Gray) is a small 

 species which may readily be mistaken for the Lesser Rorqual. A Whale 

 stranded at Charmouth in February, 1840, and described by Mr. Yarrell, 

 under the name of Balcenoptera hoops, in the proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society for that year, is believed to have been of this species, but the 

 skeleton, although prepared at the time, is supposed to have been sold and 



