ON THE WHALE FISHERY FROM SCOTLAND 79 



of France and Spain ? It is to Professors Eschricht and 

 Reinhardt l that we are indebted for establishing beyond a 

 doubt that this animal was a distinct species, confined to 

 the temperate waters of the North Atlantic, spending the 

 winter season as far south as the Bay of Biscay, entering the 

 Mediterranean, and in summer migrating to the seas about 

 Iceland, the North Cape, and Cape Farewell, also extensively 

 hunted by the Basques at the end of the sixteenth century off 

 Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This 

 whale they named Bal<zna biscayensis, and it is quite certain 

 that any Right Whale (Baland) found on our shores 

 belonged to this species. I have not space to enter upon 

 the intensely interesting early history of the pursuit of this 

 whale, but must refer the reader to Professor Eschricht's 

 exhaustive account, and to an excellent paper by Sir 

 Clements Markham, who visited Spain for the express 

 purpose of studying the subject, and who communicated the 

 result to the Zoological Society, in whose " Proceedings" for 

 1 88 i it will be found printed. I may add that, although 

 practically fished out, this species still occurs at rare intervals 

 within precisely the same limits which it frequented when it 

 formed the quarry of the hardy Basque fishermen. How 

 much more extensive its range really is cannot be discussed 

 here, but should the Cetacean known as B. australis (and 

 rejoicing in many other synonyms) be identical with this 

 Atlantic species, as seems more than probable, then its 

 range will be vastly more extensive than was supposed to 

 have been the case. With the failure of this species the 

 first period of the whale fishery may be said to have come 

 to an end. 



By the discovery of the Spitzbergen group by the Dutch 

 navigator Barents in 1596 on his third Arctic voyage, 

 followed in 1607 by the intrepid Hudson in the " Hopewell," 

 a new era in the whale fishery was established. The home of 

 the Greenland Whale, a far more valuable species from a 

 commercial point of view than that which had hitherto been 

 hunted, was first invaded, and the whales were found in 

 astonishing abundance. 



1 "Recent Memoirs of the Cetacea," by Professors Eschricht, Reinhardt, 

 and Lilljborg, translated by Professer W. H. Flower, Ray Society, 1866. 



