In 1937, subfossil bones of gray 

 whales, believed identical with the 

 living species, were described in de- 

 tail by van Deinse and Junge, from 

 Recent deposits in the drained polders 

 of the Zuider Zee, Holland, These 

 investigators identified earlier -de- 

 scribed fossils from Sweden and 

 England, which possess names that 

 antedate glaucus, as those of the living 

 species of gray whale. 



One of these early names for a fossil 

 gray whale from Gras6, Sweden, in 

 the Gulf of Bothnia, was Balaenoptera robusta 

 Lilljeborg, 1861. Three years later 

 Gray (1864) set up a subgenus Eschrichtius 

 with robusta as type species. Later 

 (1865), Gray raised Eschrichtius to ge- 

 neric rank, and Lilljeborg followed 

 suit, calling the Graso whale Eschrichtius 

 robustus. 



Van Deinse and Junge, however, 

 discovered an even earlier name, 

 Balaena gibbosa Erxleben, Mil, based on 

 the "scrag" whale of New England 

 origin and first mentioned by Dudley 

 in 1725 with a description suspiciously 

 like the gray whale, which stated, "A 

 Scrag Whale. Is near akin to the Fin-back, 

 but instead of a fin upon its back is 

 scragged with half a dozen knobs or 

 knuckles. He is nearest the Right 

 Whale in figure and quantity of oil. 

 His bone [whalebone] is white but wont 

 split." Van Deinse and Junge applied 

 the name Eschrichtius gibbosus to all popu- 

 lations of gray whale, living and ex- 

 tinct, thus assuming that the gray 

 whale lived on the New England coast 

 in the 18th Century. The gray whale 

 has never been known, either from 

 other reports or from specimens, to 

 inhabit the entire western North At- 

 lantic . 



This action proved too much for 

 Schevill ( 1 954), who termed the "scrag" 

 whale and its name gibbosa a "literary 

 curiosity." In a neat turn of logic, he 

 stated that if the fossil gray whales 

 could not be shown different from the 

 living form, as stated by van Deinse 

 and Junge, then, neither could they 

 be shown identical, presumably because 

 soft parts were not examined and 

 complete fossil skeletons were not 



available. Schevill thereby held Eschrich- 

 tius robustus to be the proper name for 

 the fossil specimens from the north- 

 eastern Atlantic, and E. glaucus for the 

 living form of the Pacific. In this he 

 was followed by Miller and Kellogg 

 (1955). 



Such reasoning can lead only to 

 taxonomic chaos. Until nnorphological 

 differences have been demonstrated 

 between the extinct Atlantic and the 

 living Pacific populations, a single 

 name must be applied to all popula- 

 tions. It is unlikely that the populations 

 were miore than subspecifically dis- 

 tinct, at most. At any rate, the name 

 glaucus Cope would be invalid for the 

 Pacific populations because the name 

 agamachschik Pallas has priority. 



The name Eschrichtius gibbosus Erxle- 

 ben, \in , has been adopted by most 

 recent authors (e.g., Cederlund 1939; 

 Ellerman and Morrison-Scott 1951; 

 Tomilin 1957; Slijper 1958). Although 

 this name rests on a somewhat debat- 

 able basis, it is used by the present 

 writer. If this name were rejected, 

 the correct name would become fscAric^.- 

 tius agamachschik Pallas, 1811. Such ac- 

 tion would be unfortunate as Pallas' 

 name was overlooked for many years 

 and has never been used by other 

 authors. 



DISTRIBUTION 



There are two distinct populations 

 of living gray whales: one known as 

 the California population, in the eastern 

 North Pacific; the other, known as the 

 Korean population, in the western North 

 Pacific. A third population, now ex- 

 tinct, occupied the eastern North At- 

 lantic (fig. 1 ). 



There is some evidence that the 

 two Pacific populations have not mixed 

 in the 20th Century (Andrews, 1914). 

 Zenkovich (1934) believed that the east 

 coast of Kamchatka was, in his time, 

 unoccupied by gray whales in summer 

 and constituted a large unbridged gap 

 between the respective summer ranges. 

 Risting (1928), however, reported a 

 catch of gray whales made on the east 



