BAL^NID^ 13 



About twenty species, divided among eight genera. The 

 species are marine, usually pelagic. They are found in all seas 

 but are least common in tropical seas. Owing to the difficulty 

 of preserving the parts of such huge animals but little material 

 has been examined by competent naturalists, and therefore but 

 little is accurately known of their relationships. 



The food of Whalebone Whales is zoophytes, molluscs, 

 crustaceans and small fish. When a quantity of these are taken 

 in the mouth the water is strained out through fringed baleen; 

 the mouth being partially closed. The throat is comparatively 

 small, the food being animals of quite small sizes. 



Genus Balsena Linn. (Whale.) 

 No dorsal fin; pectoral fin short, broad and enclosing the 

 bones of all five fingers ; head very large ; baleen very long, nar- 

 row, black ; cervical vertebrae united ; skin of throat not furrowed. 



Balaena japonica Gray. (Of Japan.) 



PACIFIC RIGHT WHALE. 



Large; head large in proportion; color black, occasionally 

 si-otted with white. Length about sixty feet. 

 Arctic and North Pacific Oceans. 



"The color of the Right Whale is generally black, yet there 

 are many individuals with more or less white about their throat 

 and pectorals ,and sometimes they are pied all over. The average 

 length may be calculated at sixty feet — it rarely attains to seventy 

 feet — and the two sexes vary little in size. The head is very 

 nearly one third the length of the whole animal, and the upper 

 intermediate portion, or that part between the spiracles and 'bon- 

 net,' has not that eve nspherical form, or the smooth and glossy 

 surface present with the Bowhead, but is more or less ridgy cross- 

 wise. Both lips and head have wart-like bunches moderately de- 

 veloped, and in some cases the upper surface of the head and fins 

 are infested with parasitical crustaceans. 



