COMMON FINBACK WHALE. 1 77 



1S63. fBalacnoptcra syncondylus A. Miiller, Schrift. K. Phys. Oekonom. Ges. Konigsberg, vol. 4, p. ;i.S-7S, 

 pi. 1-3. 



1S()4. Rorquahis antiquorum Gervais, Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. Paris, vol. 59, p. 880. 



1SG4. Bcncdiuia knoxii Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 212, fig. 8-8b. 



1869. Sibbaldius tuberosus Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., p. 17 { = B. physalus, fide True, 1904). 



lSf)9. Sibbaldiii.'i tcctirostris Cope, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., p. 17. 



1871. Bcnedcnia boops Gray, Supplement to Cat. Seals and Whales British Museum, p. 52 (not Gray, Synop- 

 sis, 1865, as here stated). 



1871. Physalus tnuscidus Malm, Kongl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl., vol. 9, pt. 2, no. 2, p. 40. 



1873. Physalus dugeridii Gray, Zoologist, ser. 2, p. ,3363 (misprint). 



1884. Dubertus rhodinsidensis Trumbull, inG. B. Goode, Fisheries and Fishery Industries of U. S., section 1. 

 vol. 1, p. 29 (nomcn nudum). 



1914. Balaciioptrra muscuJaris Daniel and Hamilton, Rept. 83d Meeting British Assn. Adv. Sci., 1913, p. 

 155 (crrorim). 



History and Nomenclature. 



Although the Finback had long been known in a general way, and is probably the species 

 referred to by Pliny as known to the Ancients, it was perhaps not until 1675 that it was recog- 

 nizably described and figured by Martens in his Spitzbergische oder Gronlandische Reise 

 Beschreibung gethan im Jahr 1671, where it is called "Finfisch." In 1725 Paul Dudley, in 

 his essay on the natural history of the whales of New England, also distinguished this species 

 carefully, and it is on these two accounts that the Latin names of the earlier systematists, 

 Klein, Brisson, and Linne, were chiefly based. True (1898) has carefully analysed Linne's 

 references in the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae and has shown conclusively that his 

 Balaena physalus is the Common Finback, since it is based on Martens's account. Linne's 

 Balaena boops, he further proves, was founded on Sibbald's account (published in Phalaino- 

 logia Nova, 1692) of a young whale of the same species, hence it becomes a synonym of physalus, 

 and is not appHcable to the Humpback, notwithstanding current usage to the contrary till 

 very recent years. 



In his Histoire Naturelle des Cetaces, 1803-4, the French naturalist Lacepede erected 

 the genus Balaenoptera for the Finner Whales, and through a misconception, named as B. gibbar 

 a supposed species without throat folds. This, however, was undoubtedly based on an im- 

 perfect figure by Martens, 1675, in which no throat folds were shown. The name Balae- 

 noptera rorqual was given in the same work to what was considered the real Finback. 

 In 1811 Neill redescribed the Finback from a specimen from Scottish waters under the 

 name of Balaena sulcata, in reference to the longitudinal throat folds, and in 1841, Schlegel, 

 in an anatomical paper on the same species used this name in a trinomial, Balaena 

 sulcata arctica. In a separately published work by Rosenthal, 1827, is a very circumstantial 

 account of the capture of a whale on the west coast of Riigen, Germany, two years before. It 

 is accompanied by a plate, drawn to scale, showing a Balaenoptera some 43 feet long with white 



