86 MAMMALIA. 



tively small, and scarcely more than half the length of that of the 

 B. nujHtketm; 4th, that it is regularly infested with a parasite 

 belonging to the genus Corontda, and that it belongs to the tem- 

 perate Noi'th Atlantic as exclusively as the B. mijsiicetm belongs 

 to the icy sea, so that it must be considered exceptional when 

 either of them stray into the range of the other. Moreover, they 

 consider that in its native seas it was to be found farther towards 

 the south in the winter (viz., in the Bay of Biscay, and near 

 the coast of North America down to Cape Cod), while in the 

 summer it roamed about around Iceland, and between this island 

 and the most northerly part of Norway. Dr. Eschricht considers 

 that this was the Whale captured by the Basque whalers in the 

 seventeenth ceuturjr ; hence he has called it B. biscai/emis." Un- 

 fortunately, Mr. Brown's valuable paper was not published when 

 our previous notice of the Whales was committed to press, and we 

 have not the space to quote from it so extensively as might be 

 desirable. As regards the colour of the baleen, he informs us that 

 it is variable. " In the young the laminae are frequently striped 

 green and black, but on the old animal they are occasionally alto- 

 gether black ; often some of the laminaj are striped with alternate 

 streaks of black and white, whilst others want this variegation. 

 Whale-bone is said to be occasionally found white without the 

 animal differing in the slightest degree ; " and, accordinglj', this 

 character loses its supposed importance as being a peculiarity of 

 the exceedingly dubious Scrag Whale indicated by Dudley. 



It ap2:)ears that the Bahriia mijHticctus occasionally attains to a 

 length of sixty-five feet ; and Mr. Bro\STi remarked of it, 

 " Though 2)er se, the tail has no power, yet, as the instrument 

 through which the lumbar muscles (the tendinous attachments of 

 which seem to be prolonged into the cartilaginous substance of the 

 tail) work, it exerts enormous force. The figure usually engraved 

 in boys' books of sea adventures, and copied from Scoresby's 

 Account of the Arctic Regions, of a Whale tossing a boat and its 

 crew up into the air, is generally looked upon by all the whalers 

 to whom I have shoT^Ti it as an artistic exaggeration. Accidents 

 of this natrire are yhvj rare, and never proceed to such an extent ; 

 and I have no doubt that Dr. Scoresby's artist has taken liberties 

 v/ith his description, that worthy navigator being himself above 

 any suspicion of exaggeration for the sake of eifect. Captain 

 Alexander Deuchars, who has now made upwards of fifty voj^ao-es 



