CHAPTER II. 
A CHRONOLOGICAL ACCOUNT OF IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 
NATURAL HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICAN WHALEBONE WHALES. 
Knowledge of whales, as of other animals, owes its principal advancement to 
the observations of three classes of persons,—the explorer and traveller, who 
notices them casually among the varied wonders of nature; the naturalist, amateur, 
or professional ; and the person engaged in, or interested in, industrial pursuits. 
To the casual observations of the earliest discoverers and explorers of America 
we have already given attention, and in the whale fishery we have no direct interest 
at present. We shall present, therefore, in this chapter a brief account of American 
and European writings, whether by naturalists or practical whalemen, which have 
contributed toa considerable extent to the advancement of knowledge of the whale- 
bone whales found in North American waters. Writings on the Greenland whale, 
Balena mysticetus, will be excepted, because the present work does not cover that 
species. This exception is an important one, involving a number of early treatises 
of much value, such as those of Zorgdrager, Scoresby, etc., which contain excellent 
accounts of the whale fisheries about Greenland and of the habits of the Greenland 
whale. 
So far as writings of American zodélogists are concerned, the number relating 
to baleen whales is surprisingly small, a fact due no doubt to the great difficulty 
of assembling and maintaining cetological collections, and the scarcity of opportu- 
nities for examining living or fresh specimens under favorable conditions. The 
cetological collections of Europe are for the most part the accumulations of cen- 
turies. In America, even to-day, such collections are exceedingly meagre, and it is 
scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that so few American naturalists have had 
anything to say about this order of mammals. 
While, as above noted, the present work does not deal with the whale fishery, 
it should be repeated that some of the most substantial contributions to the natural 
history of whales have been derived directly or indirectly from persons engaged in, 
or interested in, that industry, and, indeed, without these treatises cetology would 
be exceedingly deficient in certain directions. 
1. Natural Histories and Miscellaneous Contributions. 
Seventeenth Century. 
The writings of naturalists covering the period between the middle of the 
sixteenth and the middle of the eighteenth centuries, beginning with the treatises of 
Rondelet (1554) and Olaus Magnus (1555) and ending with the tenth edition of 
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