LESSER RORQUAL. 4] 1 



CETACEA. BAL^NOPTERID^E. 



{MYSTACOCETI.) 



LESSER RORQUAL. 

 Balcenojdera rostrata (Fabricius). 



Specific CAarnc<e)'. —Black aboTC, white helow; flippers black, with a broad 

 white band across the middle; baleen yellowish- white, tinged with pink in 

 the live animal. Vertebra; 48; ribs 11 pairs; sternum inform of ii cross, 

 longer than broad. Length of adult 25 to 30 feet. 



Salana rostrata, Fabricius, Fauna Gtrcenl. (1790), 40. 

 Rorqualus minor, (Knox) Naturalist's Library, sxvi. 142. 

 Tikac/ulik of Greenlanders and Eskimo ; Tschikagulk of Alaskan Indians ? 

 Vaar/cvhal of Norwegians; Seigval or Seival oi Finns; Little Finner and 

 Pike Whale of whalers. 



The Lesser Rorqual was first described by Fabricius 

 under the name of Baleena rostrata ; Martens, also, dis- 

 tinguished it in his Spitzbergen voyage and speaks of it 

 as the " Kleyne Walvisch " or Little Whale. John 

 Hunter examined a specimen taken in the Thames, and 

 gave a good figure, of which our illustration is a copy, in 

 the " Philosophical Transactions " for 1789. The two 

 Cuviers, however, having seen no specimens, regarded the 

 Lesser Rorqual as the young of a larger species, but it is 

 now well established as one of the best marked and most 

 easily distinguished species of the family. 



This small Fin-Whale is an inhabitant of the North 

 Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, and Eschricht believes it to 



