MEGAPTERINiE. 129 



The bones attached to the tympanic are broad and expanded, very 

 unlike the same bones in the Greenland species. 



This species may be the same as the one from the Cape ; but it is 

 well to indicate the existence of a Humpbacked Whale in this dis- 

 trict, in the hope of inducing naturalists to give an account of it, or 

 to send a skeleton of it to England for comparison. 



M. Van Beneden states that there is the incomplete skull of a 

 Megaptera, brought from Java by Professor Reinhardt, in the Leyden 

 Museum, but Mr. Flower informs me that i't is more like the skull ■ 

 of a young Sibbaldius. 



2. Megaptera? Burmeisteri. 



Balsenoptera allied to B. Lalandii, JBurmeider, MSS. 



Inhab. coast of Buenos Ayres. Mus. Buenos Ayres. Skeleton 

 complete, without the fore fins (Burmeister). 



The skeleton is allied to £. Lalandii of the Cape of Good Hope, 

 figured in Cuvier's ' Ossemens Possiles.' The shape of the skull is 

 different. The ribs 14 . 14. 



" The vertebrae are also peculiar. After the fourteen dorsal, which 

 bear the rib's, follow twelve lumbar without any under processes 

 (hsemapophyses), and then follow three with processes. The first of 

 these is very remarkable for the shortness and peculiar figure of its 

 small transverse processes, and especially for the very large size of 

 the body of the vertebra, which seems to me to indicate clearly the 

 sacral vertebra, or the beginning of the tail." — Burmeister, LetteVf 

 24th Sept. 1864. 



3. Megaptera Americana. The Bermuda Humpback. 



Black ; belly white ; head with round tubercles. 



Whale (Jubartes?), Phil. Trans, i. 11 (1665). 



Bunch or Humpbacked Whale of Dudley, Phil. Trans, xxxiii. 258. 



Balaena nodosa, Bonnaterre, Cet. 6, from Dudley. 



Megaptera Americana, Gray, Zool. Ereb. ^ Terror, 17. 



Megapteron Americana, Gray, Zool. Ereb. ^ Terror, 52. 



Inhab. Bermuda, March to end of May, when they leave. 



I have a tracing of the Bermuda Whale, but do not know whence 

 it was derived: it is said to be common in that island. It is very 

 like the figure of Megaptera longimana, but the dorsal fin is repre- 

 sented as lower, and the tail wider. This is doubtless the whale 

 described in Phil. Trans, i. 11 and 132, where an account is given of 

 the method of taking it. It is described thus : — " Length of adult 

 88 feet ; the pectoral 26 feet (rather less than one-third of the entire 

 length), and the tail 23 feet broad. There are great bends (plaits) 

 underneath from nose to the navel ; a fin on the back, paved with 

 fat like the caul of a hog ; sharp, like the ridge of a house, behind ; 

 head pretty bluff, full of bumps on both sides j back black, belly 

 white, and dorsal fin behind." 



" Upon their fins and tail they have a store of clams or barnacles, 

 upon which he said rock- weeds and sea-tangle did grow a hand long. 



