Supplement to the catalogue of seals and whales in the British Museum - John Edward Gray

4. Balæna nordcaper.

Balæna nordcaper, Bonnat.

Balæna islandica, Brisson.

Balæna biscayensis, Eschricht.

Balæna mysticetus, var., Brown, P. Z. S. 1868. p. 546.

Inhab. Iceland. Called “Slet-bag.”

It has been ascertained, “1st, that it is much more active than the Greenland Whale, much quicker and more violent in its movements, and accordingly both more difficult and dangerous to capture; 2nd, that it is smaller (it being, however, impossible to give an exact statement of its length) and has much less blubber; 3rd, that its head is shorter, and that its whalebone is comparatively small and scarcely more than half the length of that of the B. mysticetus; 4th, that it is regularly infested with a cirriped belonging to the genus Coronula, and that it belongs to the temperate North Atlantic as exclusively as the B. mysticetus belongs to the icy sea.”—Dr. Brown, P. Z. S. 1868, p. 546.

Dr. Brown says that barnacles are looked upon as a sign of age in a Whale; and he considers that a considerable portion of the description of the nordcaper corresponds with what he has said of the Spitsbergen whale (P. Z. S. 1868, p. 547).