one,
consequently are not so much sought after by whalers, as the risk
in attacking them is not compensated for by the commercial results.
Many of them grow to enormous size, far exceeding any of the baleen
whales. The common rorqual, razorback, or pike-whale of the English
coasts (_B. musculus_) attains a length of seventy feet; it is black
above and pure white below. The sulphur-bottom whale (_B.
sulfureus_) is known by its yellowish belly, and with Sibbald's whale
(_B. Sibbaldii_) grows to a length of one hundred feet, to which size
our Indian species also approaches.

NO. 271. BALAENOPTERA INDICA.
_The Indian Rorqual_ (_Jerdon's No. 147_).

HABITAT.--The Indian Ocean.

[Illustration: Rorqual.]

DESCRIPTION.--External characteristics those of the genus, but from
Mr. Blyth's observations the lower jaw of this species is more
slender in proportion to its size than that of any other rorqual or
even right whale.

SIZE.--Up to 90 and possibly 100 feet.

There is a most interesting article on the great rorqual of the Indian
Ocean by Mr. Blyth in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society' for 1859,
p. 481. He notices that the existence of great whales was known to
and recorded by the ancients. Nearchus, the commander of Alexander's
fleet, which sailed from the Indus to the Persian Gulf in B.C. 327,
mentions having met with them, and that on the coast of Mekran the
people constructed houses of the bones of stranded whales. In modern
times an occasional one gets on shore, as was the case with one at
Chittagong in 1842, another on the Arakan coast in 1851. In 1858 one
of 90 feet was stranded at Quilon on the west coast, as reported by
the Rev. H. Baker of Aleppi, who also mentions that one, said to be
100 feet long, was cast ashore some years previously. He writes to
Mr. Blyth: "Whales are very common on the coast. American ships, and
occasionally a Swedish one, call at Cochin for stores during their
cruises for them; but no English whalers ever come here that I have
heard of."

I wonder at any whaling vessel coming out of their way after this
species, for I have always heard from whalers that the finback is
not worth hunting. It is possible that in cruising after sperms they
may go a little out of their way to take a finback or two. However,
to return to Blyth's remarks. Of the whale stranded on the Arakan
coast a few bones were sent to the Society's Museum in Calcutta; they
consisted of the two rami of the lower jaw,