632 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. . 



•Sibbakl mentions the color explicitly and in such a manner as to leave 

 no doubt as to the correctness of his observation. No otlier finback 

 Avhale of European waters possesses this peculiarity. In the coalfish 

 whale or Eudol phi's rorqual {BaUvnoptera borealis Lesson) the whale- 

 bone itself is black, but the bristles are white. 



The fact can not be ignored that Sibbald's description contains some 

 discrepancies. Tlius, for example, the lower jaw is shown in the meas- 

 urements to barely exceed one-sixth the total length. In the blue 

 whale, according to Collett,i the length is 1 to 4i. There is, indeed, no 

 European finback in which the jaw is as short as is indicated by Sib- 

 bald's measurement. The nearest is the little piked whale, B. rostrata, 

 but in this species the total length rarely exceeds 30 feet. The whale- 

 bone is white and the external coloration peculiar.- 



We may now consider for a moment Linua'us's question,^ whether his 

 muscidus may not be the same as his mysticetusj and his reference to the 

 "Museum Adolphi Friderici Regis" (p. 51). In the latter work he 

 describes a fwtus which is clearly a right whale, and probably the 

 Greenland whale. Indeed, he names it Bakcna grcenlandica. In his 

 diagnosis he states that the lower jaw is much the broader. Now, 

 this is also the x>rincipal character of musculus, and was derived by 

 LinuiTi-us through Ray and Artedi from Sibbald's Phalainologia. Had 

 he but read Sibbald's description he would have found that the whale 

 therein characterized had a relatively short mouth and a fin on the 

 back, which his own Balwna mysticetus (and probably identical B. green- 

 landica) had not. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



As a result of this inquiry I am brought to the following conclusions: 



1. That the Linnjcan names can without violence to the evidence be 

 applied to certkin of the European species. 



2. That the specific name mysticetus should be applied to the bow- 

 head or Arctic right whale, as is now the current practice. 



3. That the specific name physalus should be applied to the common 

 finback, currently denominated Bakcnoptera junsculus. 



4. That the whale named Balwna hoops by Linuams was an immature 

 specimen of the common finback, and that the Linna^an rnxmes physaliis 

 and boops are, therefore, synonymous. 



5. That the specific name muscuhis relates to the blue whale, cur- 

 rently called Bakcnoptera sibbakUi. 



'Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1886, p. 265. 



2It IS true that in Sibbald's figure the jaw is represented as longer, or about as 1 to 

 4,''(r- While this is nearer the proportion for the blue whale, it can not be denied 

 that Sibbald's figures are in many respeets so inaccurate that they can hardly be 

 brought forward as j)roof in doubtful points. 



It ]s inteiestiug to note that the figure shows the under side of the pectoral fin 

 white, which is characteristic of the blue whale. 



•*Sy8t. Nat., 10th ed., 1758, p. 76. 



