partly by the water which they throw out by a conduit which they possess in the middle of the forehead." Several boats then set out in pursuit, some of which were reserved for men whose sole duty it was to pick out of the water their comrades who had overbalanced themselves in their excitement. The harpoons bore a mark by which their respective owners could recognise them, and the carcase of the animal was shared in accordance with the numbers and owners of the harpoons found sticking in the dead body of the Whale. At this period the fishery was at its height. But it continued to be an occupation along those shores until the beginning of the eighteenth century, after which it gradually declined. The fishery of Whales began to be carried farther afield than the shore, and for a long time the Basques furnished expert harpooners to whaling vessels proceeding to the Arctic seas. A curious example of the continuance of the fishery until at least 1712 is given by Sir C. Markham. In the parish records of Lequeito for that year, it is noted that a couple were married who possessed between them all the necessary outfit for a whaling cruise.
The genus Neobalaena is interesting from more than one point of view. Its size compared with its gigantic relatives is small, some 16 or 17 feet. The genus bears the same kind of proportion to Balaena that Kogia does to Physeter among the Physeteridae. It is one of those Whales which are very restricted in habitat; up to the present it is only known from the Antarctic region in the neighbourhood of New Zealand and South Australia. Structurally it is in a few points intermediate between the Right Whales and the Rorquals. The head is proportionately (as well as, of course, actually) not so large as in Balaena. There is a falcate dorsal fin; but the head in outline is not Rorqual-like in spite of its similar proportions. The whalebone is long. The throat is not grooved. Neobalaena has forty-three vertebrae, of which the cervicals are all fused. There are as many as seventeen or eighteen dorsal vertebrae, the largest number in any Cetacean as far as is known. With these are articulated not eighteen but only seventeen ribs. The first dorsal vertebra appears to be without a rib. The ribs are very broad and flat. The body thus gets an appearance of a Sirenian. The lumbar vertebrae are fewer than in any other Cetacean, being only two. The scapula is more like that of the Rorquals than that of the Right Whales;
