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Show 548 MR. R. BROWN ON THE CETACEANS [Nov. 12, and did not consider it worth the carriage and fire to try out oil. The blubber is hard and cartilaginous, not unlike soft glue. Its "blowing" can be distinguished at a distance, by being whiter and lower than that of Baleena mysticetus. 3. BALiENOPTERA GIGAS, Eschr. Sibbaldius borealis, Gray, Cat. Seals and Whales, p. 175. Popular names.-This is popularly confounded with the last, and the same names are applied to it by the whalers and Eskimo. It is probably also the Kepokarnak of the Greenlanders. It visits the coast of Greenland only in the summer months, from March to November; and its range may be given as the same as the last. In common with the former, it is rarely killed by the natives. 4. BALCENOPTERA ROSTRATA, O. Fab. Popular names.-Little Finner, Pike Whale (English whalers and authors); Waagehval (Norse); Tikagulik (Greenlanders); Tschikagleuch (Kamschatkdales). This Whale only comes in the summer months to Davis Strait and Baffin's Bay, or very seldom during the winter to the southern portion of Greenland. It is not killed by the natives ; and its range is that of its congeners. The natives of the western shores of Davis Strait seldom recognized the figure of this and allied species of Whales, though the Greenlanders instantly did so*. 5. MEGAPTERA LONGIMANA, Gray. Balcenoptera boops, O. Fab. Faun. Grcenl. p. 36 (non Linn.?). Popular names.-Humpback (English whalers) ; Rdrqval, Stor Rdrhval (Norse) ; Keporkak (Greenlanders and Danes in Greenland). This Whale is only found on the Greenland coast in the summer months. For many years it has been regularly caught at the settlement of Frederikshaab, in South Greenland. In North Greenland it is not much troubled. Whilst dredging in the harbour of Egedes-minde one snowy June day a large Keporkak swam into the bay ; but though there were plenty of boats at the settlement, and the natives were very short of food, yet they stood on the shore staring at it without attempting to kill it. The natives of this settlement are, no doubt, the poorest hunters and fishers in all North Greenland (if we except Godhavn, the next most civilized place) ; but there were at that time at the settlement natives from outlying places. Capt. John Walker, in the 'Jane' of Bo'ness, one year, in default of better game, killed fifteen Humpbacks in Disco Bay. He got blubber from them sufficient, according to ordinary calculation, to yield seventy tuns of oil; but on coming home it only yielded eighteen. The bone * In a Greenland skeleton at Copenhagen, according to Eschricht, the lateral processes of the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae are united, which is not the case with one from Norway. W e cannot be too cautious in separating species on such distinctions. |