40 THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 



(i) With a dorsal fin. {^^Balcenopiera^ 



{a) The Finfish. Y^Balanoptcra physahis^ 



{b) The Jupiter, or Jupiter-fish. [Includes (with a query) the Humpback of the 

 Bermudas, and the BalcB7ia vera of Rondelet, and Balatwptera physalus^ 



(2) With one or more knobs \Puckelii\. 



{a) "The Svvordfish of our Greenland voyagers." [ = C>m;//«.] 



(Ij) The American " Pflockfisch." [=The Humpback of Dudley.] 



(f) The " Knotenfisch " or " Knobbelfisch." [=Scrag whale of Dudley.] 



On page 197, Andei'sou discusses the identity of the Jupiter-fisli and remarlis 

 that he cannot state positively what it is. He gives, however, an excellent descrip- 

 tion, derived from certain fishermen, of one killed in 1723, which is clearly Balcenop- 

 tera physalus. He suspects that this is the same as the wliale occuri'ing in the 

 Bermudas, described by the anonymous writer of 1665 in tlie Philosophical Trans- 

 actions^ and there said to resemble the " Jubartes " ' ; but in this he was mistaken as 

 the wliale thei'e described was the Humpback. He gives Latin polynomial names 

 to Dudley's Humpback and Scrag whale, but adds nothing to their natural history. 



Anderson's classification is less formal than Klein's and is hardly an improve- 

 ment upon it. The general accuracy of his natural histoiy notes, however, and his 

 earnestness and instinct for suspecting erroi's, though he could not always prove 

 them such, are especially noteworthy. His only contributions to the natural liistorj^ 

 of species of whalebone whales occurring in American waters are the notes on the 

 Greenland whale, B. myslicetus, which he had from the whalers, and possibly the 

 description of B. physcdvs (?), under the name of Jupiter-tish. 



Brisson's Regne Animal, published in 1756, contains mention of the species 

 described by earlier authors, but no new information. All the whalebone whales 

 are included in the genus Balama. The species to which American localities are 

 assigned are the " common Greeidand whale " (= Balama ')nysticetus), " the whale 

 of New England" (^tlie Humpback of Dudley), and "the whale with six humps" 

 (=: the Scrag whale of Dudley). To these is added " the Gibbar," which is " fre- 

 quently found in India and in the New World." The synonymy given in connec- 

 tion with this species includes most of the natural history writers who preceded 

 Brisson, and it is not clear from which of them he derived the information that it 

 occurred in America, though })robably he took it from Klein, who in turn refers 

 back to Dudley's account of the Finback, in the Philosophical Transactions. 



The next work to be considered — the tenth edition of Linnaeus's Systema 

 Naturae (1758)^ — ^ though it marks the beginning of a new period as I'egards 

 zoological classification and nomenclature, is of very little importance in relation 

 to American cetology. But four species of baleen whales are mentioned, and the 

 statement that Balcena mysticetus " lives in the Greenland Ocean " is the sole allu- 

 sion to anything American. Even this may refer to Spitzbei'gen rather than to 

 Greenland proper, or "Old Greenland." The twelfth edition (1766) mentions 

 that Balcena physalus "lives in the European and American Ocean,"" but nothing 



' Philos. Trans., i, 1665, No. i, p. 12. 'Page 106. 



