ACCOUNT OF A FIN-WHALE. 20g 



use his own words, " qu'elle ne parvient qu'& 

 " une longeur de huit ou neuf metres," — from 

 twenty-six to twenty-nine feet and a half: where- 

 as the Ailoa whale, was forty-three feet long. 



It is to be kept in view, that La Cepede him- 

 self acknowledges that he enjoyed no opportunity 

 of describing the Baleinoptere museau-pointu 

 from his own observation. For all his informa- 

 tion, as well as his figures, he is indebted to the 

 late Mr John Hunter, to Sir Joseph Banks, and 

 to Geoffroy de Valogne. This last-mentioned 

 naturalist, it appears, examined a specimen taken 

 near Cherbourg, which measured only four metres 

 and two-thirds, or something more than fifteen feet. 

 This, La Cepede considers as a young t*:ie. Mr 

 Hunter mentions one killed on the Dogger Bank, 

 which measured seventeen feet, and from this spe- 

 cimen, it seems probable, that Sir Joseph Banks's 

 figures were taken, 



In La Cepede's description, it is said, " Les 

 " fanons sont d'une couleur blanchatre." In the 

 Alloa specimen, they were of a blackish or rather 

 a dirty bluish colour ; and it was remarkable, 

 that the larger laminae were of a darker colour 

 than the smaller ; some of the very least, at the 

 extremities of the upper jaw, being nearly white, 

 I have heard it remarked, of the common Green- 

 land whale, that the whalebone of the young ones 

 is much paler in colour, than that of what are 

 termed " sizable fish." The dark colour would 

 seem, therefore, to increase with the age of the 



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