WHALES AND PORPOISES 49 



rorqual is not known to exceed 70 ft. The head is proportion- 

 ately smaller to the body than in the right whales or in most of 

 the other rorquals. It has also some slight indication of a neck. 

 It is the species which I have chosen to illustrate in a coloured 

 drawing, which is partly based on the painting of a rorqual cast 

 up on the east coast of Ireland in i860. From this painting it 

 will be seen that in colour this whale is blackish-gray above and 

 white beneath, though the white is often modified by gray and 

 yellow tinges. The whalebone is yellowish gray, sometimes 

 whitish in parts, or touched with brown or slate-gray. The 

 interior of the numerous folds on the under surface of the body 

 is black.'' There is a low back fin placed very far down the 

 body not far from the tail. 



The common rorqual is less restricted in its choice of food 

 than the other whalebone whales. It can swallow herrings and 

 even larger fish as well as molluscs and crustaceans. This whale 

 is no rarity in British waters. It is widely distributed over both 

 the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean. It is more frequently 

 met with in the English and Irish Channels than in the North 

 Sea, but specimens are cast up frequently year after year on the 

 coasts of Ireland, Wales, and England. In Scotland it is met 

 with in the vicinity of the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and 

 occasionally in the Firth of Forth. It produces such inferior 

 baleen and blubber as to be scarcely worth killing for commercial 

 purposes. This, perhaps, is the reason why it still exists in 

 considerable numbers. 



Balanoptera sibbaldii. Sibbald's Rorqual, or the " Blue '' 



Whale 



This is the largest of all known whales. Specimens have 

 been credibly recorded that measured 90 ft., though an estimate 

 of 105 ft. has sometimes been quoted. Several specimens have 

 been measured which were 80 ft. in length. A pregnant female 

 which was cast up near Edinburgh in the Firth of Forth contained 



^ Sometimes in the living animal rosy-red. 



4 



