NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALE. 115 



as a distinct species, and this name has long been current. Cope in 1861 described a specimen 

 from the Western North Atlantic, taken in Delaware Bay, as Balaena cisardica; and other 

 specimens have been described as Balaena tarentina and B. euskariensis. But there is now no 

 reason to suppose that those of the opposite sides of this ocean are specifically different, as True 

 (1904) has well demonstrated. It was not until 1898 that True revised the nomenclature of 

 the whalebone whales of Linne's Systema Natxirae, and established the fact that Bonnaterre's 

 Balaena glacialis is the earliest name that can be satisfactorily identified as applying to the 

 present species. In 1908, Dr. J. A. Allen formally reinstated Gray's genus Eubalaena and 

 (p. 307) defined it as follows, in comparison with true Balaena. 



"Eubalaena. — Head and body relatively long and slender, with the head forming about 

 one fourth of the total length; skull much less arched, and the baleen about one half shorter 

 than in Balaena, and also much thicker, not so smooth, and with a coarser fringe." The type 

 species of the genus is Balaena australis of Desmoulins. It is currently supposed that this, 

 the Right Whale of the Southern Ocean, is different from that of the North Atlantic, and that 

 the form occurring in the North Pacific is again distinct from cither. The differences between 

 these three (or possibly four) have not yet been clearly formulated owing to the imperfect 

 state of our knowledge. 



Two other names have been founded on fossil remains of this whale of comparatively 

 recent age. Lilljeborg (1867) described as Hunterius svedenborgii sundry vertebrae and a 

 scapula which appear to be identical with those of Eubalaena glacialis, though the scapula is 

 shghtly more narrowed than usual. 



Gray, in 1870, described certain fossil cervical vertebrae from Lyme Regis, England, under 

 the name of Balaena britannica, but these are now believed to be identical with those of the 

 North Atlantic Right Wliale. 



The type locality of the Nordkaper, as given by Bonnaterre, is "les mers du Nord, pres des 

 cotes de Norvege & d'Islande." 



The etymology of the Latin name is: eu, well or typical, and balaena, a whale, hence the 

 true or right whale; the specific name glacialis (pertaining to the ice), was given through its 

 having been supposed to be an arctic species. 



Vernacular Names. 



To distinguish it from the supposedly allied species of the North Pacific and of the southern 

 oceans, our species is termed the North Atlantic Right Whale. The word ' whale ' itself, from 

 the Old English lohal, Anglo-Saxon hwael, is from the same root as our word 'wheel' and ex- 

 presses the forward rolling movement of the animal when swimming. The term ' Right ' Whale 

 arose with the early whalers, and served to distinguish this and the Bowhead of the Arctic 



