Historical Survey. 



F, 



rom olden times until the beginning of this century, not only has the natural history of the Cetaceans belonged, as is 

 well known, to the least familiar sections of zoology, but the accounts of this remarkable group of aquatic Mammals have 

 been perhaps more than usually mixed up with additions of the imagination. Although Oetology, like so many other branches 

 of biology, has grown considerably during the present century, we find its essential features already indicated in the by 

 no means unimportant literature of the last century. John Hunter's must be considered as a fundamental work in 

 this direction. 



The older cetological literature presents many difficulties, and its value is in a great measure diminished on 

 account of the great inaccuracy in the descriptions of the different Cetacean species, and the consequent difficulty and often 

 impossibility in recognising them, whereby much confusion and many mistakes have arisen. This is, of course, very excusable, 

 not to say natural, as both methods and material have been defective ; but on the other hand, we have here a striking example 

 of how misleading and disadvantageous is the desire in certain writers to cut up the genera — I had almost said, in a 

 wholesale manner, — into a number of species, thus manufacturing a diagnosis on the basis of defective material, without 

 regard to differences of age and sex, or to variations, or only founded on anatomical (osteological) descriptions. It is not, 

 therefore, until the later decades that a reliable specific definition -r- that first basis of all profound knowledge of any group 

 of animals — has obtained a solid foundation in cetology ; whereby also, it has become possible to identify several species which 

 have been known and described in former centuries on the basis of numerous observations. 



As was the case with so many other orders of the Mammal class, it was long before the Cetacea found recorders 

 of the history of its developement, not through any want of interest in it, but because there was no material to be 

 obtained. When I have named Eschricht, Anderson, Sir William Turner, and in later years Ktikenthal, I have 

 named the most important contributors. It would certainly be interesting if a complete literary sui'vey of the history of the 

 developement of the Cetacea and their biology from the earliest times could be made ; for many a useful fact lies buried 

 among the superfluous and useless matter which occupies so many pages in the old folios. I think, however, that the result, 

 with regard to zoology, would scarcely be proportionate to the labour. 



In here giving a short introductory survey of what is known about the history of the (Jevelopement of the Cetacea, 

 T ask that it may be criticised indulgently, as so much will remain incomplete and defective, the reason of this being partly 

 that I have not had a sufficient quantity of literature at my disposal, and partly that I have not had the wished-for opportunity 

 of working up the whole in the manner I had originally intended. 



In the developmental history of the Cetacea, as in so many other fields of natural science, we find interesting 

 facts recorded by that wonderful genius of ancient times, Aristotle, in which the general views of the philosopher, and the 

 sober inquiry into details of the naturalist are combined in an exceptional manner. 



In the 4th chapter of his first book, in which the [iropagation of animals is generally treated, Aristotle states 

 that the Cetacea give birth to living young ones. In his second book (chap. 13 in the German translation, chap. 9 in the 

 French), it is stated that dolphins have mammæ, and that these are not situated on the upper part of the body but by the 

 regio inguinalis; they have not, however, as in ijuadrupeds protruding nipples, but a kind of opening on each side out of 

 which the milk fiows, the young one sucking as it swims by the side of its mother, as it has already sometimes been clearly 

 observed to do. In the 6th book (chap. 11 in the French translation, chap. 12 [66 — 70] in the German) the propagation 



