THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 105 



thoracic regions were seen to be entirely without ridges or plic;c of any kind, but 

 as smooth as any other part of the body, or as the tliroat of a riglit wliale, Balaena 

 cisarctica Cope, which is not uncommon on the same coast." 



At the end of description, on page 225, he remarks : 



"The owner of the wliale tried out about one-fourth of the blubber, and pro- 

 cured sixty-five gallons of oil, which would give about four hundred gallons for the 

 whole ; the thickness of the adipose layer would not average 4: inches, the greatest 

 thickness was 5 inches. 



"This species was black above and white below, the sides lead-colored, with 

 longitudinal shades of the darker color ; fins, basal half white, tei-minal black." 



The genus and species are again commented upon by Cope in the same Pro- 

 ceedings, 1869, pages 14-15, and were subsequently mentioned and <liscussed by 

 various authors and still aj^pear in current lists of cetaceans. In 1884, howevei', 

 in commenting in the American Naturalist, 18, p. 1128, on my list of cetaceans for 

 the London Fisheries Exhibition, Cope remarks : 



"The AgapJielus gihhosus must be withdrawn from the list of authentic 

 species. The bones which I referred to it are probably those of Balcenoptera 

 rostrata. The characters of the animal in the flesh were given me by pei'sons 

 whom I supposed to be trustworthy, but who may have been mistaken. The 

 species may, however, be the Bakena gihhosa of the old authors." 



From the evidence it seems extremely probable that Cope was right in coming 

 back to his original view that the specimen was one of B. rostrata. The color of 

 the whalebone and of the pectoral fin would especially seem to indicate that species ; 

 and the misstatement regarding the length of the animal, etc., may be explained on 

 the ground that Cope examined only a portion of the skeleton. The chief circum- 

 stance which led him to erect the genus Agaplielm seems to have been that the 

 fishei-men who found the specimen on the beach affirmed that the throat was with- 

 out folds and that thei-e was no fin on the back. The statements regai-ding these 

 parts appear to have been made to Cope about two years after the animal was 

 obsei-ved and there was abundant time for the real facts to have been foi'gotten. 



The matter was complicated by two other circumstances : First, that the 

 fishermen have long recognized a whale called the Scrag whale, which is said 

 to have the same characters which Cope's specimen was supposed to have ; and, 

 second, that Cope at this time became acquainted with the fact that there was a 

 whale on the Pacific coast which had the smooth throat and back, namely, the Gray 

 whale {Rhachianectes). The existence of this whale on the Pacific coast made it 

 probable that a similar species might be looked for on the Atlantic coast. 



In 1869, as already stated. Cope established the genus Rhachianectes (83, 15) 

 for the California Gray whale, thus leaving the supposed Atlantic "Scrag whale" 

 as the only representative of the genus Agaphelm. As the latter was founded 

 on a Bakenoptera, the generic name Agaphelus should be expunged from the 

 literature. 



