Supplement to the catalogue of seals and whales in the British MuseumGray, John Edward
Science
Supplement to the catalogue of seals and whales in the British Museum
Gray, John Edward
Seals (Animals); Whales
First rib slender, narrow, and undivided at the vertebral end. Tympanic
bones square; aperture nearly as long as the bone. There is at the
end of the radius and at the end of the cubitus a large cartilaginous
compartment which corresponds with the radial and cubital bone, and has
not even a bony nucleus; between these two cartilages is an intermediate
cartilage; below these are two or three carpals. Cervical vertebræ
united by their bodies. Upper lateral process of atlas broad at the base,
compressed, rather narrow, and rounded at the end; the lower lateral
process elongate, subcylindrical, angulated at the lower side of the base
(see Cat. Whales, p. 84, f. 4; Ostéogr. Cét. t. 4. f. 5-9). The lower
process of the second and third elongate and produced; the upper process
of the second, fifth, sixth, and seventh elongate, produced, and bent
forward. Bladebone with a large, compressed, elongate acromion (Ostéogr.
Cét. t. 4. f. 26). Carpus cartilaginous, with three small carpal bones
(Ostéogr. Cét. t. 4. f. 27).
1. Balæna mysticetus.
B.M.
Balæna mysticetus, _Gray_, _l. c._ pp. 81, 370, figs. 1, 2, 4,
5; _Synops. Whales & Dolph._ p. 1, t. 1. f. 4 (baleen); _R.
Brown_, _P. Z. S._ 1868, p. 534.
Inhab. North Sea.
Dr. Robert Brown gives an account and notes of the habits and migrations
of this animal. He observes:—“Where the Whale goes to in winter is still
unknown. It is said that it leaves Davis Strait about the month of
November, and produces young in the St. Lawrence River, between Quebec
and Camaroa, returning to Davis Strait in the spring. At all events,
early in the year they are found on the coast of Labrador, where the
English whalers occasionally attack them; but the ships arrive generally
too late, and the weather at that season is too tempestuous to render
the ‘south-west fishing’ very attractive.... It is said that early in
September they enter Cumberland (Hogarth’s) Sound in great numbers,
and remain until it is completely frozen up, which, according to the
Eskimo account, is not until January.... They enter the Sound again
in the spring, and remain until the heat of summer has melted off the
land-floes in these comparatively southern latitudes. It thus appears
that they winter and produce their young all along the broken water off
the southern coasts of Hudson’s Strait, Davis Strait, and Labrador.”
He continues, “I am strongly of belief that the Whales of the Spitzbergen
sea never, as a body, visit Davis Strait, but winter somewhere in the
open water at the southern edge of the northern ice-fields. The Whales
are being gradually driven further north.”
2. Balæna mediterranea.
Balæna mediterranea, _Gray_, _Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist._ 1870, vi.
pp. 198, 200.
Baleine, _Lacépède_, _Cétacés_, tab. 7. fig. 1.
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