THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 51 
and leaves it with the remark that neither Right whales nor the Common Finback 
seem to fit the accounts. He states that there was apparently no regular coast 
fishery formerly from which opportunity could be had to investigate the Finbacks, 
and hence knowledge of them depended on occasional strandings. He gives a brief 
account of specimens examined on various parts of the coast of Europe at different 
dates. He then takes up the history of the development of knowledge regarding 
Finbacks, citing Dudley, Sibbald, Cuvier, Holboll, ete. Eschricht concludes that 
one may be convinced that there are many species of Finbacks in the south seas and 
the north, and states that the characters of these will be treated of in subsequent 
essays. 
He calls attention to the defects of anatomical descriptions, due to imperfect 
material, and to the use of fishery stations, especially in Greenland and near Bergen, 
and enumerates the advantages to be obtained. He then mentions the material 
obtained by him from Holboll and Christie (in Bergen). 
Essay 2.— Anatomical descriptions of the external form of the fatuses of two 
species of Northern Finbacks, with application to physiology and zoblogy. 
The two species of Finbacks are the Little Piked whale, Balenoptera acuto- 
rostrata, and the Greenland Humpback. Though of much importance, the descrip- 
tions are not germane to the purpose of the present paper, but the essay ends with 
a section “on the use of whale fcetuses in the determination of species,” in which the 
characters of Fabricius’s 2. boops and Rudolphi’s 4. longimana are carefully con- 
sidered, and the conclusion reached that “the 2. longimana of Rudolphi and 
Brandt really is specifically identical with Fabricius’s 2. doops.” 
Essay 3.—On the fatal forms of the alimentary and reproductive apparatus in 
the baleen whales. 
Essay 4.—On Leaked whales | Hyperoédon |. 
These two essays do not concern us in the present connection. Their contents 
are sufficiently indicated in the titles. 
Essay 5.—The osteology and discrimination of species of Pinback whales. 
In this long and important essay the skeletons of Balwnoptera acuto-rostrata 
and the Greenland Humpback are minutely described and many bones figured. 
Eschricht then takes up the question of the specific characters of the two whales 
above mentioned and enumerates them seriatim, after which he enumerates the dif- 
ferences which seem to separate the Little Piked whale, or Tikagulik of Greenland, 
from the Vaagehval (B. acuto-rostrata) of Norway. Regarding this he says that 
as to whether they are specifically identical he has many times changed his opinion. 
Later he remarks: “As the Vaagehval and Tikagulik agree fully, especially in 
regard to the color of the baleen and the number of vertebra, as well as in the 
whole and every part of the different sections of the vertebral column, I have not 
thought that the above-mentioned differences can be considered as sufficient ground 
on which to establish specific distinctness.” He then describes a Common Finback 
which stranded on the coast of Norway in 1841, and discusses its affinities, and 
afterwards enumerates the kinds of whales found in Greenland waters and known 
to the Eskimos, and quotes a description and measurements by Moller of a Finback 
