STRANDED AT LONGNIDDRY. 1 99 



permission to examine the parts as they were exposed during the flensing, and 

 to remove such specimens as could conveniently be taken away. 



External form and dimensions. — The whale was a female. When I first 

 saw the animal on Gosford beach, it was lying with its head pointing inland, 

 and it rested on the right side of the belly, chest, and right lower jaw. The 

 middle line of the belly was in contact with the ground, and the under surface 

 of its horizontal tail lay on the shingle. The head, owing to its great weight, 

 had fallen over to the right, so that it overhung the right lower jaw, and per- 

 mitted the whole length of the inner surface of the left half of the lower jaw, 

 and a large part of the dorsum of the tongue to be seen, together with the outer 

 edges of the baleen plates on the left side (Plate V. fig. 1). 



The length of the animal, measured with a graduated tape-line along the 

 curve of the middle line of the back from the tip of the lower jaw to the end of 

 the tail, was 78 feet 9 inches. The girth of the body immediately behind the 

 flipper was estimated at 45 feet, dimensions which it preserved almost as far 

 back as the extent of the abdominal plicae, behind which it tapered off rapidly 

 to the tail. Its girth in line with the anal orifice was 28 feet, whilst around the 

 root of the tail it was only 7 feet 9 inches. In front of the flipper the girth 

 was considerable, as far forward as the swell or greatest projection of the lower 

 jaw, but in front of this it tapered off to the symphysis. The lower jaw arched 

 outwards and forwards with a wide sweep from the angles of the mouth ; then the 

 two halves converging met at the symphysis and formed there a keel-like ridge. 

 The tip of the lower jaw projected 1\ foot beyond the tip of the upper jaw. 

 The inner surface of the lower jaw was bevelled off close to its upper border, 

 so as to admit the edge of the upper jaw within it. The length from the angle 

 to the tip of the mouth, along the upper curved border of the lower jaw, was 

 21 feet 8 inches, and 17 feet 4 inches in a straight line. 



The dorsum of the upper jaw was not arched in the antero-posterior direc- 

 tion as in the Balama mysticetus. It sloped gently upwards and backwards to 

 the blow-holes, from which a low but readily recognised median ridge passed 

 forwards on the beak, gradually subsiding some distance behind its tip. On 

 each side of this ridge was a shallow concavity. Immediately in front of the 

 blow-hole the ridge bifurcated, and the forks passed backwards for several 

 inches enclosing the nostrils, and then subsided. The outer borders of the 

 upper jaw were not straight, but extended forward almost parallel to each other 

 from the angle of the mouth for some distance in a gentle curve, and then con- 

 verging in front formed a somewhat pointed tip. Their rounded palatal edges 

 fitted within the arch of the lower jaw. The transverse diameter of the upper 

 jaw over its dorsum between the angles of the mouth, was 13 feet 3 inches. 



From the blow-holes the outline of the back curved upwards and backwards, 

 it was uniformly smooth and rounded, and for a considerable distance presented 



