A Pollack Whale from Florida Presented to the National Museum by the Miami Aquarium Association

Among tlie whalebone whales found on the Atlantic coast of North America the Pollack Wliale {Balmnoptera horealis) is the species about whose occurrence the least is known. Hitherto the only recorded eastern American specimens have been some blades of baleen from Newfoundland, in the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and one jaw, several blades of baleen, and two ribs from Chatham Light, Massachusetts, in the Museum of the Boston Society of Natural History. The species was omitted from the main text of Dr. F. W. True's elaborate paper on " The Whalebone Whales of the Western North Atlantic; "^ and in Dr. Glover M. Allen's "Whalebone Whales of New England " ^ the description of it was chiefly based on the published accounts of specimens from Europe and Japan. The generosity of the Miami Aquarium Association has now made it possible to examine the complete skeleton of an American Pollack Wliale. This individual, an adult male (No. 236680, U. S. National Museum), was cast ashore at Pablo Beach, about 18 miles east of Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida, in May, 1919. The skeleton was prepared, according to directions sent from the United States National Museum, by Mr. R. J. Wallace, of Jacksonville, who, after exhibiting it during several months, finally offered it for sale. It was then purchased by the Aquarium Association through the special interest of ]\Ir. James Asbury Allison, president, and Mr. John Oliver La Gorce, treasurer, and presented to the United States National Museum in September, 1920. Good general accounts of the habits and distribution of the Pollack Wliale are readily accessible in the paper by Dr. G. M. Allen cited above, and in Mr. Roy C. Andrews's " The Sei Whale