THE RIGHT WHALE OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 897 
LUTKEN and Sars have identified the species as usually Cyamus ovalis,* a form of whale 
louse. Mr Epwarps told me that in a specimen which he saw, the growth formed a 
moving mass 12 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep, so strongly attached to the snout 
that he had to employ pliers to remove it. GULDBERG stated that these Epizoa may 
be scattered over the body generally, and Epwarps found them on the skin around the 
anus and female parts. 
Baleen.—The triangular baleen plates were black in colour, though CoLLerr stated 
that sometimes the most anterior were white; their bristles were black, and fine as silk. 
As in mysticetus, their bases were narrow in conformity with the palatal area from which 
they grew. The maximum length recorded was a little more than 7 feet, which is about 
one-half that of the longest plates in mysticetus. Specimens of the plates of biscayensis 
Fie. 16.—Ventral surface. 
in the Royal Scottish Museum ranged from 4 feet to a little more than 7 feet in length, 
and from 6? to 9 inches in width at the base; and GULDBERG gave 7 feet 1 inch as 
the length in an Iceland specimen. Scoresby gave 13°7 inches as the maximum length 
in B. mysticetus, but from 10 to 12 inches is more usual. 
Size.—The young specimen caught at San Sebastian in 1854 was said to be 24 feet 
94 inches long, and another specimen from Guetaria was 34 feet 3 inches. That at 
Taranto, a female, was 39 feet 4 inches (12 metres). GULDBERG gave the length of 
a female as 42 feet, and that of other specimens from Iceland as ranging up to 51 feet 
8 inches, the smallest of which were not full-grown ; he also reproduced three photograpas 
of a male lying on the beach at Dyrefjord in Iceland. The success in recent } ears of 
the Norwegian whalemen has enabled many additional measurements to be made. 
Hapave stated that, of 67 specimens of both sexes, the bulls ranged from 43 to 51 feet, 
* Lurken has given in Vidensk. Selsk. Skr., Copenhagen, 1873, an elaborate account of the species of Cyamus 
which infest whales. 
TRANS. ROY. SOC, EDIN., VOL. XLVIII., PART IV. (NO. 33). 133 
