64 CETACEA. 



every work that came in their way ; hence they (the latter especially) 

 formed a number of species on most insufficient authority : for ex- 

 ample, they made a genus on the otherwise good figure of the Sperm 

 Whale figured by Anderson, because the artist had placed the spout 

 on the hinder part of the head ; and a division of a genus for the 

 Fin-fish of Martens, because he did not notice in his description or 

 figure the fold on the belly. Yet the characters given by Lacepede, 

 and genera formed by him, have been used in our latest works, some 

 even in Cuvier's last edition of the 'Animal Kingdom' ; and many 

 of these species stiU encumber our Catalogu.es, 



Cuvier, dissatisfied with this state of things, in his ' Ossemens 

 Fossiles,' examined the various documents and consulted the autho- 

 rities which had been used by Lacepede ; but he appears to have 

 undertaken the work with a predisposition to reduce to the smallest 

 number the species which his predecessor had described. Thus, he 

 concludes that there are only eleven species of Dolphins, one Nar- 

 Avhal, one Hyperoodon, one Cachalot or Sperm Whale ; and he appears 

 to think there are only two Whalebone Whales— the Eight Whale 

 and the Finner. To make this reduction : first, he believes that the 

 Humpbacked Whale of Dudley is only a whale that has lost its fin, 

 not recognizing that the Cape Rorqual, which he afterwards described 

 from the fine skeleton now shown in the inner court of the Paris 

 Museum, is one of this kind ; secondly, that the Black-fish and the 

 Sperm Whale are the same species — an error which must have arisen 

 from his not having observed that Sibbald had figured the former, 

 for he accuses Sibbald of twice describing the Sperm Whale ; and 

 when he comes to Sehreber's copy of Sibbald's fig-ure, he thinks the 

 figure represents a Dolphin which had lost its upper teeth, overlook- 

 ing the peculiar form and posterior position of the dorsal fin, and the 

 shape of the head, which is unlike that of any known Dolphin. This 

 mistake is important, as it vitiates the greater part of Cuvier's 

 criticism on the writings of Sibbald, Artedi and others, on these 

 animals. Unfortunately these views have been very generally adopted 

 without re-examination. But, in making these remarks, it is not 

 with the least desire to underrate the great obligation we owe to 

 Cuvier for the papers above referred to ; for it is to him that we are 

 indebted for having placed the examination of the Whales on its 

 right footing, and for directing our inquiries into the only safe course 

 on these animals, which only fall in our way at distant periods, and 

 generally under very disadvantageous circumstances for accurate 

 examination and study. 



In 1828, Mr. F. J. Knox, the Conservator of the Museum of the 

 Old Surgeons' Hall in Edinburgh, published a Catalogue of the Ana- 

 tomical Preparations of the Whale, in which he gives many interest- 

 ing details of the anatomy of the Bahma maxhna and B. minima, 

 which had been stranded near Edinburgh, of the foetus of B. Mysti- 

 cetus from Greenland, and of Delphinus Tiirsio (D. hiicoj>lewus), 

 D. Delpliis, Phocffna cflmminiis, iSoosoo Ganf/eticus, and Halicore IncU- 

 cns ; but the paper has been very generally neglected or overlooked. 

 In 1858, Dr. 11. Knox published " Contributions to the Anatomy 



