1872.] | Date (Dwight. 
The individual was a female. The most striking feature was the 
proportionate length and slenderness of the tail and the great beauty 
of its lines. 
The color was black on the upper side of the animal, and of the 
flukes and flippers; white below. The transition from one color to 
the other was rather gradual. The ventral folds extended from near 
the point of the lower jaw to within six feet five inches of the geni- 
tal opening. The external surface of the folds was white and the 
clefts black between the outer and upper folds, but. between the low- 
est of a pinkish hue, with occasional black blotches. Mr. Murie has 
called attention to the fact that one fluke of the tail is convex above 
and the other convex below, which Prof. Struthers (Journ. Anat. 
and Phys., Nov., 1871) believes to be due to the position in which 
the body may lie. I examined this specimen with regard to this 
point several times in the course of about three weeks, during 
which there had been great changes of temperature, though usually 
it was very cold, and I was unable ever to discover any differ- 
ence in the form of the two flukes. The whalebone could not be 
well examined, but was white toward the end of the jaw, further 
back striped with black, and ultimately entirely black as far as could 
be seen. 
As compared with the specimen in the Museum of the Society, 
which for convenience I have, in my paper on it in the Memoirs, 
called the “ Boston Whale,” this one, though evidently of the same 
species, is much more slender; and this is not due alone to a 
less degree of distention, but to the fact that in proportion to the 
head the body was decidedly longer. The length of the Boston 
Whale in the flesh was 48 feet, and of the skull after dissection 12 
feet—precisely one-quarter; but in this whale the skull after removal 
was less than 15 feet, as I am informed on good authority, which is 
less than one-fourth of 61 feet, which is the very least estimate (and 
I think is an under-estimate) that I ever made of the animal. These 
proportions are more in accordance with the measurements usually 
given than are those of the Boston Whale, and considering that the 
latter was in the adolescent stage, or at from two-thirds to three- 
quarters of its normal length, the questicn arises whether the increase 
of length after that age is not due chiefly to an elongation of the 
vertebral column ? 
