214 PROFESSOR TURNER'S ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT FINNER WHALE 



the free end. Whilst the setae generally had the same deep black colour as the 

 plates, in some cases they had more of a deep soot brown tint. The baleen at 

 the inner end of each transverse row consisted, not of plates, but of short bristles, 

 similar to those already referred to at the anterior end of the series. As the 

 vertical diameter of the plates and the length of the setae were so much greater 

 in the outer than in the inner parts of each transverse row, it followed that the 

 lower bristle-fringed aspect of each wreath arched, from without, obliquely 

 upwards and inwards, so that the roof of the mouth presented a considerable 

 concavity from side to side. 



The plates were all imbedded at their attached palatal borders in a dense 

 semi-elastic, slate-coloured material, the intermediate substance or "gum" of 

 the whaling seamen. This substance varied in its thickness from its attached 

 to its free surface to from 1 to 4 inches in different parts of the wreath, and was 

 thinner along the outer and inner borders than in the intermediate portions. It 

 was continuous, along the inner border of the wreath, with the cuticle investing 

 the palatal mucous membrane, and along the outer border, with the coronary 

 or wreath-band already referred to. The free surface possessed an irregular 

 softened, water- worn appearance. 



After decomposition had begun the baleen and intermediate substance, 

 intimately connected together, could be readily peeled off the surface of mucous 

 membrane from which they grew, and their mode of growth and structure could 

 be examined. 



All anatomists know, who have studied the structure of whalebone, that, 

 when a blade is carefully detached from the surface of the palate, the edge or 

 base of attachment is cleft along the line of its transverse diameter into two 

 laminae. If these laminae be drawn asunder numerous holes are seen at the 

 bottom of the cleft, which open into tubes or canals that traverse the substance 

 of the plate in the vertical direction. It has been pointed out by Eschkicht 

 and Reinhardt, that in the short baleen plates of the Rorquals or fin whales the 

 length of these tubes is comparatively greater than in the much longer plates 

 of the Greenland Right whale. In the Longniddry whale, the deep black colour 

 of the baleen made the plates so opaque, that the existence of the tubes could 

 only be surmised by the longitudinal markings visible on a surface examination, 

 and it was not until after sections were made in the vertical or transverse direc- 

 tion, that the tubes could be distinctly seen. 



In vertical sections the tubes were cut longitudinally, and could be followed 

 for some distance (Plate VII. fig. 19). They contained a delicate, brownish- 

 yellow substance, which could be easily drawn out of the tube. In the part of 

 the plate which surrounded the tubes numerous black pigment granules were 

 distributed in such a manner as to give to the section the appearance of 

 longitudinal striation. 



