THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 105 
thoracic regions were seen to be entirely without ridges or plice of any kind, but 
as smooth as any other part of the body, or as the throat of a right whale, Balena 
cisarctica Cope, which is not uncommon on the same coast.” 
At the end of description, on page 225, he remarks: 
“The owner of the whale tried out about one-fourth of the blubber, and pro- 
cured sixty-five gallons of oil, which would give about four hundred gallons for the 
whole; the thickness of the adipose layer would not average 4 inches, the greatest 
thickness was 5 inches. 
“This species was black above and white below, the sides lead-colored, with 
longitudinal shades of the darker color; fins, basal half white, terminal black.” 
The genus and species are again commented upon by Cope in the same Pro- 
ceedings, 1869, pages 14-15, and were subsequently mentioned and discussed by 
various authors and still appear in current lists of cetaceans. In 1884, however, 
in commenting in the American Naturalist, 18, p. 1128, on my list of cetaceans for 
the London Fisheries Exhibition, Cope remarks : 
“The Agapheus gibbosus must be withdrawn from the list of authentic 
species. The bones which I referred to it are probably those of Balenoptera 
rostrata. ‘The characters of the animal in the flesh were given me by persons 
whom I supposed to be trustworthy, but who may have been mistaken. The 
species may, however, be the Balena gibbosa of the old authors.” 
From the evidence it seems extremely probable that Cope was right in coming 
back to his original view that the specimen was one of LB. rostrata. The color of 
the whalebone and of the pectoral fin would especially seem to indicate that species ; 
and the misstatement regarding the length of the animal, etc., may be explained on 
the ground that Cope examined only a portion of the skeleton. The chief cireum- 
stance which led him to erect the genus Agaphelus seems to have been that the 
fishermen who found the specimen on the beach affirmed that the throat was with- 
out folds and that there was no fin on the back. The statements regarding these 
parts appear to have been made to Cope about two years after the animal was 
observed and there was abundant time for the real facts to have been forgotten. 
The matter was complicated by two other circumstances: First, that the 
fishermen have long recognized a whale called the Scrag whale, which is said 
to have the same characters which Cope’s specimen was supposed to have; and, 
second, that Cope at this time became acquainted with the fact that there was a 
whale on the Pacific coast which had the smooth throat and back, namely, the Gray 
whale (/?hachianectes). 'The existence of this whale on the Pacific coast made it 
probable that a similar species might be looked for on the Atlantic coast. 
In 1869, as already stated, Cope established the genus Rhachianectes (83, 15) 
for the California Gray whale, thus leaving the supposed Atlantic “Scrag whale” 
as the only representative of the genus Agaphelus. As the latter was founded 
on a Balenoptera, the generic name Agaphelus should be expunged from the 
literature. 
