208 
NOTES ON A COMMON FIN WHALE. 
exteriorly, the hypoteneuse curved and interiorly, and the short 
side forming their attached base) and taper away to a point at 
their free ends. Their inner edges are fringed with more or less 
elongated bristle-like fibres, of a yellowish white colour. These 
bristles are the prolongations of the stout fibres of which the 
baleen plates consist, minus the investing layers of enamelled 
substance which cover those plates. This bristly portion becomes 
proportionately greater as the plates become less. The outer 
and principal series of baleen plates (the labial plates) attained 
their maximum dimensions both in length and breadth near the 
middle of the jaws. They were here fully 2 ft. 6 in. long, from 
9 to 10 inches broad at their base, and Y^jjth of an inch in 
thickness. In a general way they are of a pale greenish grey 
colour, with alternating dark and light coloured longitudinal 
{i. e., vertical to the base) streaks at pretty regular intervals. 
Taking one of the largest plates as a typical example, we notice 
that its outer portion for a width of three or four inches is of a 
dark slate colour, with hardly perceptible streaking, whilst the 
remainder of the plate for a width, at the base, of six or seven 
inches, is of a pale grey with, at first, several narrow horn- 
coloured streaks at regular intervals, and then with a few 
alternating broader and less regularly distributed cream-coloured 
bands edged with dark linear streaks, which prevail until the 
inner edge is reached. Such a plate is quite a striking object. 
The baleen plates diminished in size regularly, or rather in a 
graceful curve, and became paler in colour, going towards the 
snout ; they also diminished in size and became whiter in colour 
towards the mouth angles. At the snout the plates were not 
more than five or six inches in length by two inches in breadth, 
and were here entirely of a yellowish white colour. The whale- 
bone of this as of the other Finner whales is of very little com- 
mercial value, being only used to split up into an inferior kind of 
false bristles. It is, however, of considerable scientific interest, 
