244 ALLEN: NEW ENGLAND WHALEBONE WHALES. 



Sibbaldus (changed shortly after to Sibbaldius by Flower), with the specific name borealis of 

 Knox (1828). This latter was unfortunately preoccupied by Lesson's borealis for the Pollack 

 Whale. Curiously, in his Catalogue of Seals and Whales, published in 1866, Gray applies no 

 less than three different names to the Blue Whale, but the supposed differences were not of the 

 importance he assigned them. Thus his Physalus sibbaldii was based largely on a skeleton 

 preserved at Hull, and his Sibbaldius borealis was founded in part on Dubar's (1828) description of 

 a specimen cast ashore at Ostend. In the same work he erects the genus Cuvierius to include 

 the single species (Physalus) latirostris of Flower (1864) but in the Additions and Corrections, 

 states that this is the same as Physalus sibbaldii and that the name should stand as Cuvierius 

 sibbaldii. To the same genus was referred the subfossil Balaenoptera carolinae of Malm, now 

 synonymized with the Blue Whale. Lacepede, in 1803^4, revised the classification of these 

 whales, and introduced sundry new names into the nomenclature. He founded the genus 

 Balaenoptera, to embrace the Finner Whales, and included the Blue Whale under the specific 

 name jubarles, though his description probably applies in part to at least two other species, 

 the Common Finback and the Humpback. No doubt it is in a measure due to this confusion, 

 that later authors found some difficulty in applying his names. Thus Scoresby (1820) de- 

 scribes a Blue Whale under the title Balaenoptera gibbar, and Dewhurst (1832) includes Dubar's 

 Ostend Sulphurbottom under Balaenoptera rorqual, names which are primarily synonyms of 

 the Common Finback. The British naturalist Fleming was the first to call it Balaenoptera 

 musculus, its correct name. Later authors placed it successively in the genera Rorqualus, 

 Physalus, Pterobalaena, Sibbaldius, Cuvierius, Flowerius, but it is now recognized that the 

 differences on which these supposed genera were based, are chiefly small matters of individual 

 variation. Eschricht in his important memoir of 1849, proposed the name Pterobalaena in a 

 group sense, to include the species now referred to Balaenoptera. This was later used as a 

 generic term by Van Beneden, who in 1861 adopted the combination Pterobalaena gigas. The 

 specific name gigas had been proposed four years earlier by Reinhardt in spite of the fact of 

 prior names. The labors of J. E. Gray, as already pointed out, hardly settled the matter, and 

 most later writers have followed G. O. Sars (1875) in calling the Blue Whale Balaenoptera 

 sibbaldii. Finally, True in 1898 restudied the Linnaean references, and conclusively showed 

 that Linne's Balaena musculus, which had long been in use for the Common Finback, applied 

 after all to the Blue Whale. 



The type locality of this species is, as given by Linne, "in mari Scotico." The name, as 

 just mentioned, was based on Sibbald's description of a specimen from the Firth of Forth, 

 Scotland. 



