. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. HISTORY (5f marine MAMMALS ABEL, 475 l^ectoral fin, or flipper, is long and narrow, and has only four fingers. There are but two furrows on the underside of the body. Third family^ rorquals (fnhacks and humpbacks).—To this group belong the gigantic blue whale, or sulphurbottom, previouslj^ men- tioned (fig. 1) ; the humpback {Mefjaptera nodosa Bonn.), 17 meters (55i|- feet) long (fig. 3) ; the common finback {Balcenoptera physa- lus L.), wh
. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. HISTORY (5f marine MAMMALS ABEL, 475 l^ectoral fin, or flipper, is long and narrow, and has only four fingers. There are but two furrows on the underside of the body. Third family^ rorquals (fnhacks and humpbacks).—To this group belong the gigantic blue whale, or sulphurbottom, previouslj^ men- tioned (fig. 1) ; the humpback {Mefjaptera nodosa Bonn.), 17 meters (55i|- feet) long (fig. 3) ; the common finback {Balcenoptera physa- lus L.), which has a length of about 23 meters (75^ feet) ; and the little piked whale {Bala^noptera acuto-rostrata Lac), which is only 9 or 10 meters (29^ to 32f feet) long. The humpback (fig. 3) reminds one of the bowhead, on account of its turgid body, but differs from the latter both as regards its flipper, or pectoral fin, which is long, narrow and four-fingered, and measures almost one-third the total length of the body, and also on account of the presence of a small dorsal fin and of numerous furrows in the Fig. 3.—Humpback (Megaptera nodosa Bonn.). Length reaches 17 meters (551 feet). After F. W. True. The skin is covered with numerous parasites, in the form of closely clinging barnacles. The sulphurbottom, common finback, and little piked whale are much more slender than the humpback, and have decidedly shorter flippers. The hand of the finbacks and humpbacks is four-fingered, owing to the disappearance of the middle finger. The cervical vertebra; are separate in the finbacks, humpbacks and gray whale, but in the right whales are fused together, forming a compact, immovable mass. I'.. TOOTHED WHALES. The second group of living cetaceans is distinguished from the edentulous whalebone whales by the possession of teeth. In the whalebone Avhales there as many as 51 denticles in each jaw, but only in the early stages of embryonic life. They disappear long before the birth
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