BAL^ENID^K 239 



(fifteen) of ribs and dorsal vertebrae. This form inhabits the tem- 

 perate seas of both northern and southern hemispheres, and is 

 divided into several so-called species, according to their geographical 

 distribution : B. biscayensis of the North Atlantic, B. japonica of 

 the North Pacific, B. australis of the South Atlantic, and B. anti- 

 podarum and B. novce-zealandice of the South Pacific. The differential 

 characters by which they have been separated, external as well as 

 anatomical, are, however, slight and subject to individual variation ; 

 and the number of specimens available for comparison in museums 

 is not yet sufficient to afford the necessary data to determine 

 whether these characters can be regarded as specific or not. 

 The most interesting of these is the Atlantic Right Whale, 

 which was formerly abundant in the North Atlantic, but is 

 now so scarce as to appear verging on extinction. This was 

 the Whale the pursuit of which gave occupation to a numerous 

 population on the shores of the Basque provinces of France and 

 Spain in the Middle Ages. From the tenth to the sixteenth centuries 

 Bayonne, Biarritz, St. Jean de Luz, and San Sebastian, as well as 

 numerous other towns on the north coast of Spain, were the centres 

 of an active Whale " fishery," which supplied Europe with oil and 

 whalebone. In later times these Whales were pursued as far as the 

 coast of Newfoundland. They were, however, already getting scarce 

 when the voyages undertaken towards the close of the sixteenth 

 century for the discovery of the north-eastern route to China and 

 the East Indies opened out the seas around Spitzbergen ; then for 

 the first time the existence of the Greenland Whale became known, 

 and henceforth the energies of the European whale -fishers were 

 concentrated upon that animal. It is a singular fact that the 

 existence of the Atlantic Right Whale was quite overlooked by 

 naturalists till lately, all accounts referring to it being attributed to 

 the Greenland Whale, supposed once to have had a wider distribu- 

 tion than now, and to have been driven by the persecution of man 

 to its present circumpolar haunts. To the two Danish cetologists 

 Eschricht and Reinhardt is due the credit of having proved its 

 existence as a distinct species, from a careful collation of numerous 

 historical notices of its structure, distribution, and habits ; and their 

 restoration of the animal, founded upon these documents, has been 

 abundantly confirmed by the capture of various specimens in recent 

 times, showing that it still lingers in some of the localities where it 

 formerly was so abundant. The only known instances of its 

 occurrence on the coasts of Europe in modern times are in the 

 harbour of San Sebastian in January 1854, in the Gulf of Taranto, 

 in the Mediterranean, in February 1877, and on the Spanish coast 

 between Guetaria and Zarauz (Guipuzcoa) in February 1878. The 

 skeletons of these three whales are preserved in the museums of 

 Copenhagen, Naples, and San Sebastian respectively. On the coast 



